INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (1551,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-014_THE SOUL AND ITS JOURNEY.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">XII\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE SOUL AND ITS JOURNEY\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">I\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen a man dies, his soul or psychic being, after a time goes to the psychic world and takes rest there till the hour comes to take birth again in another body upon earth. There are then these two periods in the life after death. First, the passage and next the rest. The passage means the gradual shedding of all the other sheaths or envelopes that surround the psychic being and form its earthly frame. With the physical body has to go also the subtle body, then the vital and finally the mental too. The reason why one does not remember the past lives is this that one leaves behind the instrument of memory—the brain mind—with one\'s death. One does not carry over with the psychic being the other parts that constitute the terrestrial life. They are\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-62</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">dispersed and dissolved in their respective cosmic spheres. The subtle body gives up its elements to the subtle physical plane, the vital elements are taken up into the vital world and the mental elements go into the mental world,—unless the psychic being is highly developed and has organised around itself as its instrument of self-expression any of these elements. In thatmuch of\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nthe terrestrial parts—namely, of the subtle body and life and mind—as have come into direct contact with the psychic and have allowed themselves to be moved and moulded by its consciousness, will alone persist and share in the immortality of the soul. Normally the elements of the human vehicle form a loose and unorganised aggregate massed round the psychic centre. When the centre withdraws, they too fall off automatically and are scattered into the universal storehouse of Nature. Only when they have been organised and when they have attained a definite form and character expressing something of the psychic nature, can they maintain their identity, for this identity is part and parcel of the psychic identity.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-63</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI have said that the memory of past lives is effaced because of the effacement of the instrument. But there is a higher memory which is the attribute of the psychic consciousness. The psychic being is made of light and knowledge: it knows, rather it sees and can survey the whole curve of its past growth and development. Of course, it may not see or remember —very often it does not—all the physical details of things and happenings of an earthly life, the hundred incidents, accidents and contingencies that are not directly linked to its consciousness. But all things that have had its touch and have contributed to its growth and development and have in their turn received its influence—objects, persons, happenings or movements—find themselves harboured in the psychic memory. And thus the only sure way of remembering the past, remembering, that is to say, what is worth remembering, is to go into the psychic being, possess the psychic consciousness. There one has the whole panorama of the soul\'s odyssey revealed. Any other way leads only to imagination, conjecture and delusion.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-64</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">II\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe passage between death and the arrival at final rest in the psychic world is a most difficult and dangerous ordeal for the human bang. He has left the protection of the body and has not yet found the refuge in the psychic: he is obsessed and pulled back by his past—the desires, the hungers, the attractions and repulsions, the plans unfulfilled, problematic schemes all haunt him still, things done, things not done crowd around him and fetter his forward march. Not only his own Karma, but the Karma of others too pursue him: all persons with whom he has had relation, who think of him now, pity him, mourn for him, regret his absence raise so many hurdles and obstacles in his path, oblige him to turn and look back. Again, there are forces and personalities in the intermediate worlds with whom the poor disembodied creature has now to come in contact, and not unoften he feels like one unskinned and all his nerves on edge open helplessly to rough and painful impacts.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndeed, although it may sound somewhat\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-65</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">strange and wonderful, nevertheless it is literally true that the body is the fortress <i>par excellence </i>for the individual being: it is not merely an ugly dirty clothing that has to be cast off so that one may go straight to the enjoyment of the beatitude of Paradise; on the contrary, it is, as it were, an armour, a steel-frame that protects the subtle body against the attacks or harsh and cruel touches of other worlds and their beings. Once outside the body, there is every danger for the individual to go astray and be hurt, unless he is guided and protected by a guardian angel, as Dante has had Virgil as his Maestro. We may note here that the passage of Dante from Hell through Purgatory to Heaven across their various levels is almost an exact image of what happens to a soul after death. The highest Heaven where Dante meets Beatrice may be considered as the psychic world and Beatrice herself the Divine Grace that bathes, illumines and comforts the psychic being.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf one has, however, within oneself an ardent and sincere and unflickering flame, one can go through more or less easily and unscathed;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-66</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">but that is rare. Even when alive, in sleep one goes out often into other worlds and the foreign and unpleasant contacts and experiences he has there are recorded in the brain-mind as nightmares: on such occasion the best way to escape is to rush back into the body, the best place of safety. Many have this experience of running head-long into the body—dropping into the body, as it were—in order to escape from a threatening danger in sleep and waking up all on a sudden to find to one\'s relief that all was illusion and hallucination.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAn easy and quick passage to the place of rest, that is what the being needs and asks for after death. This is determined by one\'s Karma in life and the last wish and prayer at the moment of death—for the force of consciousness at this critical moment acts not only upon the character of the passage but also upon the character even of the next birth. Apart from one\'s own merit, one can be helped by others also who are still upon earth and who claim to be bis \nfriends and relatives and well-wishers—not in the way they think they do at \npresent, that is to say, by grieving and lamenting</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-67</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">or even by performing rites and ceremonies, these often retard rather than accelerate the passage, but by an inner detachment and calm prayer and good-will: oftener perhaps to forget the departed is the best way to help him. A truly conscious help can be given only by one who has the requisite occult power and spiritual realisation — the Guru, for example.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>III</b>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnce in its place of rest the soul enjoys profound peace and delight and is in a kind of luminous sleep. There it assimilates all the experiences of its last life, that is to say, imbibes out of them all the substance that goes to increase and strengthen its consciousness, the sap that lends to the growth of the build and stature of the being. These experiences are meant to bring the soul nearer—each life being one step nearer—to the fullness of its union with the Divine Consciousness out of which it came originally upon earth as a mere spark, a parcel yet apart. This process may be short\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-68</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">or long according to the nature of assimilation undertaken. Here also the being prepares for the impending birth, that is to say, gathers all the elements that will be required for the play of the consciousness in that life. A broad planning too is made here, a scheme in outline of the kind of experiences that one will need for the particular growth of consciousness envisaged. Some forces of consciousness, out of the stock developed and assembled by the being, are kept back, in reserve, others are brought forward for immediate use in the life to be lived next. All this, however, is not the deliberate rational process of the mind, it is something spontaneous, involved, a luminous brooding and incubation, something like the trance of Brahman within which the seed of creation is about to germinate.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe psychic being is a packet of gathered power, a charged battery, as it were; when it comes down upon earth, it calls round itself elements of mind and vital and even subtle physical needed for the purpose of the particular life experience, and even those that would go to constitute the physical body. The psychic\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-69</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">being usually picks up these elements of mind and life and body out of the universal storehouse of earth\'s atmosphere as it needs them, in the same way as it returns them there on the journey back after death. But as I have already said, there are beings who have developed well-formed personalities of mind and life and even of the physical consciousness. These formations are not mere loose accretions, temporary arrangements for a life experience, but are welded, organised, given a more or less permanent shape, as the proper instrument of the psychic being, as its own expression. In such cases, the outer personality too continues as an essential mode or vibration in and with the psychic consciousness itself and when the soul descends upon earth, in contact with the earth\'s atmosphere, it projects out of itself the external personality and formation. This does not mean certainly that the personality remains something fixed and rigid, but that it has attained an essential fullness of form and yet retains the capacity for further change and growth through further growth of the psychic being in other life experiences.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-70</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow the time and occasion for a particular birth of the soul depends naturally on the inner need of that being. But it must be noted —as it is a fact in the occult world—that the souls are not so many absolutely separate unrelated autonomous self-sufficient entities, each one coming and going as and when it chooses and likes: on the contrary, the souls form groups or families according to some secret affinity. And when they come down, they do so not unoften in company. A call goes, a bell is rung as it were intimating that the hour is come and they rush down. And it may even happen that in rushing down a psychic being is not too careful or fastidious about the instrument, the vehicle he chooses to inhabit; whatever is handy and nearest and on the whole suitable to his purpose he takes up and goes forward. He takes it all as an adventure and has the joy of battle and the warrior spirit that can taste of victory only when hard fought and won. That is how we meet not unoften a considerable discrepancy between the inner being of a man and his earthly tenement, his soul and his external\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-71</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">character and physical nature. There is a meaning in the choice, a significance in the utilisation of unfavourable conditions: there is a method in the madness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis grouping will appear natural and inevitable when we bear in mind the purpose of creation and the role of the psychic consciousness. For it is not a matter of individual salvation, of the unilateral growth and development and fulfilment of an individual psychic being. The soul is a luminous point in an inconscient universe and its role is to make it conscious, at least a representative portion of it. The psychic being\'s activity is the means of a new creation, the transmutation of the earth-Consciousness, the growth and advent of a divine race, the manifestation and embodiment of the Divine and his play upon earth. The souls are the warriors, playmates, the beloved of the Lord. They have to assemble and move together for the interest of the play. They have to be in companies and regiments and battalions, in associations and concerts and harmonied formations.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-72</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IV\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe souls group themselves into natural types according to the fundamental mode of consciousness and its dynamism. And they form a hierarchy: they exist and function in an organisation the type and pattern of which is the pyramid. At the apex is the One Supreme, at the base the infinity of individual and disparate souls, earthly sparks, that are emanations, derivations, scattered condensations, parts and parcels of that One Supreme. In between, from the top towards the bottom, lie in a graded scale formations more and more specialised, particularised and concretised: as we rise we meet the larger, vaster, more comprehensive forms of the same entities till we arrive at the typal and original, the source being. Thus we can view a soul along its line of emanation from the central source as a series of beings, the higher enclosing and encompassing the lower. Not only so, a higher entity can have several lower emanations and each of these again can emanate several others. The number of emanations multiply as one\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-73</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">goes down and they decrease as one goes up. We can understand now what is meant when we speak of kindred souls. When there is an inexplicable natural affinity . or similarity between two souls, it happens in such a case that the souls are emanations of the same Over-Soul. And it happens also sometimes that the guardian angel or daemon whom one may contact is none other than one\'s own Over-Soul. The term Over-Soul takes thus a literal and a profound significance.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe may illustrate here a little. At the apex of the pyramid of existence is the Divine, the Supreme Person, the Purushottama. Even there as He begins to lean and look down, He expresses himself at the very outset as the dual personality of Ishwara and Shakti (the Divine Father and the Divine Mother) <i>—sa dvitiyam aichhat, </i>as the Upanishad says. That is still the Divine in His highest transcendent status, <i>par</i>&#257;<i>tpara. </i>Next, this dual or biune or divalent reality shows itself or throws itself further out in a fourfold valency of the dynamic truth consciousness, creating and leading the cosmic evolution. The Four</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-74</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Aspects of Ishwara, forming the male or <i>purusha </i>line, are the great names: Mahavira, Balarama, Pradyumna and Aniruddha. And the corresponding four aspects of Ishwari form the other great quaternary: Maheshwari Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. They embody the four major attributes of the Divine in his relation to the created universe: Knowledge, Power, Love and Skill in work. They also represent thus a divine fourfold order. The first embodies the Brahmin quality of large wisdom, wide comprehension, a vast consciousness; the second has the Kshat-riya quality of force, dynamism, concentration and drive of energy; the third possesses the Vaishya quality of harmony, beauty, mutuality and the fourth has the Shudra quality of perfect execution, thoroughness in detailed working, order and arrangement.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe higher Gods, like those, for example, envisaged in the Veda, may be considered each as an emanation of one or other of these Divine Aspects. They are dwellers of Swar or the Overmind. Varuna seems to be an emanation of Mahavira, a son of Maheshwari: for he is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-75</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">pre-eminently the god of the pure and vast consciousness who releases us from the triple bonds and shows us the winding way into the embrace of the infinite Mother. His associate, Mitra, is the lord of love and harmony, evidently an emanation of Pradyumna (or Mahalakshmi). Other gods of the same category are Bhaga and Soma. The Balarama or Mahakali aspect is manifested in Aryaman: Rudra being another form of the same. And Mahasaraswati (or Aniruddha) must have given birth to and inspired the Ribhus, who are artisans of divinity. The Puranic trinity —Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva—with Indra as the fourth member forms a parallel system embodying a similar conception.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnother tradition gives the Four Supernals as (I) Light or Consciousness, (2) Truth or Knowledge, (3) Life and (4) Love. The tradition also says that the beings representing these four fundamental principles of creation were the first and earliest gods that emanated from the Supreme Divine, and that as they separated themselves from their source and from each  other,  each followed his own\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-76</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">independent line of fulfilment, they lost their divinity and turned into their opposites— Light became obscurity, Consciousness unconsciousness or the inconscient, Truth became falsehood and Knowledge ignorance, Life became death and finally Love and Delight became suffering and hatred. These are the fallen angels, the Asuras that deny their divine essence and now rule the world. They have possessed mankind and are controlling earthly existence.They too have their emanations, forces and beings that are born out of them and serve them in their various degrees of power. Men talk and act inspired and impelled by these beings and when they do so, they lose their humanity and become worse than animals.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut still the Pure Reality descends undeviated in its own line and man enshrines that within him, the undying fire that will clem him and bear him to the source from where he came. And there are luminous godheads that help him and wish themselves to participate in the terrestrial transformation. There is a pressure from above and there is an urge from below,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-77</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">between these two infinities all is ground and moulded and changed. Even the Lords of Denial will in the end change and learn to affirm, become again what they truly were and are.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">V\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFirst then there are the supreme divinities, aspects or own personalities of the Divine in his supreme status, the Supermind; next come the first emanations, the true or pure gods in the Overmind. Thence or simultaneously there is the line of deformation, that of the false gods and godheads, the Asuras and Titans. These too extend in a series of emanations down to the subtle physical; except when they themselves incarnate on the earth in an earthly body.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan, the soul, we said, comes direct from the Divine and is thrown and almost stuck into the earth as a spark, as a point of luminous consciousness-force. This soul, as it develops, we find, belongs to one or other of the funda-mental type of divine personality, it is a lineal\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-78</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">descendant, as it were, of one of the quaternary and its growth means growing into the nature of that particular godhead and its fulfilment means identification with that.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe may try to illustrate by examples, although it is a rather dangerous game and may tend to put into a too rigid and mathematical formula something that is living and variable. Still it will serve to give a clearer picture of the matter. Napoleon evidently was a child of Mahakali; and Caesar seems to have been fashioned largely by the principle of Maheshwari; while Christ or Chaitanya are clearly emanations in the line of Mahalakshmi. Constructive geniuses, on the other hand, like the great statesman Colbert, for example, or Louis XIV, <i>le grand monarque, </i>himself belong to a family (or <i>gotra, </i>as we say in India) that originated from Mahasaraswati. Poets and artists again, although generally they belong to the clan of Mahalakshmi, can be regrouped according to the principle that predominates in each, the god-head that presides over the inspiration in each. The large breath in Homer and Valmiki, the high and noble style of their</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-79</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">movement, the dignity and vastness that compose their consciousness affiliate them naturally to the Maheswari line. A Dante, on the other hand, or a Byron has something in his matter and manner that make us think of the stamp of Mahakali. Virgil or Petrarch, Shelley or our Tagore seem to be emanations of Beauty, Harmony, Love—Mahalakshmi. And the perfect artisanship of Mahasaraswati has found its especial embodiment in Horace and Racine and our Kalidasa. Michael Angelo in his fury of inspiration seems to have been impelled by Mahakali, while Mahalakshmi sheds her genial favour upon Raphael and Titian; and the meticulous care and the detailed surety in a Tintoretto makes us think of Mahasaraswati\'s grace. Mahasaraswati too seems to have especially favoured Leonardo da Vinci, although a brooding presence of Maheshwari also seems to be intermixed there.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFor it must be remembered that the human soul after all is not a simple and unilateral being, it is a little cosmos in itself. The soul is not merely a point or a single ray of light come down straight from its divine archetype\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-80</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">or from the Divine himself, it is also a developing fire that increases and enriches itself through the multiple experiences of an evolutionary progression—it not Only grows in height but extends in wideness also. Even though it may originally emanate from one principle and Personality, it takes in for its development and fulfilment influences and elements from the others also. Indeed, we know that the Four primal personalities of the Divine are not separate and distinct as they may appear to the human mind which cannot understand distinction without disparity. The Vedic gods themselves are so linked together, so interpenetrate one another that finally it is asserted that there is only one existence, only it is given many names. All the divine personalities are aspects of the Divine blended and fused together. Even so the human soul, being a replica of the Divine, cannot but be a complex of many personalities and often it may be difficult and even harmful to find and fix upon a dominant personality. The full flowering of the human soul, its perfect divi-nisation demands the realisation of a manyaspected\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-81</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\npersonality, the very richness of the Divine within it.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-82</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b><i>By the same Author</i></b>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\ntowards a new society\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nthe coming race\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nthe malady of the century\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nthe world war (1939-45)—\nits inner bearings \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"> the approach to mysticism \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"> towards the light \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"> to the heights (prose poems)\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-83</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-014_THE SOUL AND ITS JOURNEY','','publish','closed','open','','014_the-soul-and-its-journey','','','2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/014_the-soul-and-its-journey/',0,'post','',0),(1552,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-001_Pre_Content.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"Part%205-1.jpg\" src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 5/_images/Part%205-1.jpg\" style=\" width:264.00pt; height:420.00pt;\"></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nThe Yoga of Sri Aurobindo</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(Part V)</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(Based on Talks with the Mother)</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">NOLINI KANTA GUPTA</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Sri Aurobindo Library </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Madras</p>\n<hr>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>First published in 1949 by </i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>Sri Aurobindo Library </i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>369 Esplanade, G. T. Madras </i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>Printed in India </i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>at The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry</i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>All rights reserved</i></p>\n	</td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n	</div>\n</html>','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-001_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-001_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-001_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1553,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-002_PUBLISHER^S NOTE.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nPUBLISHER\'S NOTE</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\"> Towards the middle of the year 1947 for months the Mother used to gather around her a few disciples to whom she gave some intimate talks on various questions relating to spiritual life, occult truths, difficulties that baffle a spiritual seeker and their solutions and other innumerable problems. Gradually the number of the disciples increased and the class turned almost into a salon. Questions were placed before the Mother and answers given. Questions and answers were in French, except on rare occasions for the benefit of those who were more at home in English. The present volume presents a very free rendering of the Mother\'s answers in the author\'s language and manner.</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_PUBLISHER\'S NOTE','','publish','closed','open','','002_publishers-note-6','','','2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_publishers-note-6/',0,'post','',0),(1554,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-013_THE SOUL OF A NATION.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">XI \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE SOUL OF A NATION\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA nation is a living personality; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a <i>psychic </i>being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells of a living and conscious organism.The psychic being or soul of a nation is indeed conscious; it knows its <i>raison d\'etre, </i>its life purpose, its destiny, the role it has to play in the divine scheme as the divine instrument. And its will—for it has a will, the expression of its consciousness, the Divine\'s impulse in and through it—is inevitable, sooner or later it will fulfil itself. Even</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-56</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">like the soul of a man, the nation\'s soul is behind all the movements that form its external life, supporting, building, guiding its political, economic, social or cultural makeup. The individual can know of and come in contact with the nation\'s soul in and through his own soul. When one becomes conscious of his psychic being then only one is in a condition to be conscious of the psychic being of the collective person of his nation or the nation with which he has inner affinity.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are periods in the life cycle of a nation, critical moments, when it is in deadly peril, when its very existence is threatened, attacked by enemy forces either from within or from without. Such was the case when, for example, Britain was invaded by the Spanish Armada or when France was being subjugated by England. Those were very anxious times, but in each instance the soul of the nation came forward and inspired the nation to react and go through the ordeal and survive. Jeanne d\'Arc may be considered as the embodiment of France\'s national soul, as on a still earlier occasion that same soul embodied\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-57</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in St. Geneviève. But a nation may fall on much more evil days, namely, when it loses contact with its very soul and goes astray, its life movement taking a wrong curve. A nation can deny its soul, even as an individual may and the result is disaster. Germany is a terrible example of such a tragedy in our own day.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndia is offering a spectacle of another tragedy. What is happening here is the attack of a disease that is convulsing the body politic: it seems to be a cancerous disease, the limbs seeking to grow independently at the expense of each other. The patient is passing through a very critical period and it is indeed a question of life and death. But we hope— we are sure—that the soul of this ancient nation will assert itself and through whatever vicissitudes re-establish health and harmony: for that soul\'s mission is yet to be done.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nLike the individual a nation too dies. Ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt and Babylon and Chaldea are no more. What has happened to their souls, it may be asked. Well, what happens to the soul of the individual when\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-58</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the body falls away? The soul returns to the soul-world. Like the individual Psyche the collective Psyche too goes and retires into the womb of peace and light with all its treasures, its beauty and glory gathered in, like a bird that goes to sleep within its folded wings. What the Greek culture and civilisation was still continues to exist in its quintessential reality in a world to which one has access if one has the requisite kinship of consciousness and psychic opening. That soul lives in its own domain, with all the glory of its achievement and realisation at their purest; and from there it sheds its lustre, exerts its influence, acts as living leaven in the world\'s cultural heritage and spiritual growth.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen however the soul withdraws, when a nation in a particular cycle of its soul manifestation has fulfilled its role and mission, the body of the nation falls gradually into decadence. The elements that composed the organic reality, the living consistency of national life disintegrate, lose their energy and cohesive capacity; they die out and are dispersed or persist for a time as a confused mixture of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-59</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">disconnected and mechanically moving cells. But it may happen too that in an apparently dying or dead nation, the soul that retired comes back again, not in its old form and mode of life—for that cannot be—Egypt, if it lives again today cannot repeat the ages of the Pharaohs and the Pyramids—but in a new personality, with a fresh life purpose. In such a case what happens is truly a national resurrection—-a Lazarus coming back to life at the touch of the Divine.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe do not believe that India was ever completely dead or hopelessly moribund: her soul, although not always in front, was ever present as a living force, presiding over and guiding her destiny. That is why there is a perennial capacity for renewal in her and the capacity to go through dire ordeals. And to live up to her genius, she too must know how to march with the times, that is to say, not to cling to old and past forms—to be faithful to the ancient soul does not mean eternising the external frames and formulas that expressed that soul one time or another. Indeed the soul becomes alive and vigorous when it rinds a\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-60</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">new disposition of the life plan which can embody and translate a fresh creative activity, a new fulfilment emanating from the depths of the soul.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-61</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-013_THE SOUL OF A NATION','','publish','closed','open','','013_the-soul-of-a-nation','','','2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/013_the-soul-of-a-nation/',0,'post','',0),(1555,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-004_PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">II\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not that humanity does not know or feel the need of a radical change in itself. Everywhere man recognises that if the problems and difficulties that face him have to be solved satisfactorily, there must be a thorough overhauling of his outlook and nature; no mere tinkering with the superficial signs and symptoms of an organic disease by means of palliatives and expediencies and nostrums, but a major operation. Indeed, if he wishes to be cured, he must transcend his present nature and be something else.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet he does not change. He has not the sincere will to change. At least he takes the wrong way about it. And the reason is that he does not whole-heartedly adopt the course which he knows to be the only right thing. He is divided in his being: one part\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">knows indeed, but another, the larger, the dynamic part does not profit by that knowledge, ignores it and pursues a contrary path, the accustomed groove of ignorance and <i>laissez-faire.</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHe consoles and comforts himself, lays the flattering unction to his soul by taking to a less exacting ideal, a substitute without tears, as it were. Therefore he looks outside, seeks to reform society, changing its laws and constitution, and wants to believe that in that way society can be remodelled and mankind transformed.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt should have been proved beyond doubt by now that the fact is not so. The only way to cure the world outside is to cure oneself first inside. The ancient proverb still holds good: the macrocosm is only an enlargement of the microcosm, the microcosm is the macrocosm in miniature. The universe is a transcript, a projection on a large scale of the individual nature within. What is there is here and what is not here is not found there. When we see some wrong in the world, something that has got to be set right, instead of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">rushing out and trying to tackle it in the external field, if one were to hold oneself back and look within, one would surely find, perhaps to his surprise and enlightenment, a very similar movement, often an exact replica in one\'s own consciousness and character of what one finds in the larger anonymous movements of nature and society. Now it may be admitted that one has no control or almost none over nature; the outside world is beyond our reach and we cannot order or mould it as we like. But the smaller world which is ourselves is not too far or too great for us; our own individual nature and character is ours and we have been given sufficient freedom and power to reform, renew, remake it. That is the secret, although it seems to be a very simple truth, almost a truism.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd if we cannot correct and mould as we wish the little world within which is our own, how can we expect to correct or change the vaster outer world? To leave oneself to be as one is and to try to make others change is evidently an absurd and self-contradictory proposition. On the other hand, if the first thing\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">that one does is to correct oneself, then one will find, much to one\'s surprise and satisfaction, that there is very little to correct in the world, everything has been already corrected automatically.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEach man is given his little domain within him and he is master of that domain. Nobody is given more (or less even) than what he can successfully manage: the charge is accurately measured according to capacity. One can be indeed a <b><i>roi faineant, </i></b>if one chooses to be so; but that is not man\'s inevitable destiny; he can truly be the ruling king and exercise, to the full, his authority. It is a simple truth that man has a will and can wield it. This will he can consciously develop, increase and enlarge, make it an extremely powerful, if not invincible, instrument for action.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWill is a twofold power: it is energy and it is light. True will, will in essential purity, that is to say, when one is perfectly sincere and determined to follow up one\'s sincerity, impels rightly and impels infallibly. The consciousness is there of the right thing to do and the energy is also there inherent in that\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">consciousness to work it out inevitably. There is a will belonging to a lower level of the mind which is only a variant of wish, and in reference to that only it is said that even if the sprit is willing, the flesh is weak. This will is a light, but without the fire that vivifies: and that is because there is a division in the consciousness, &quot;one can love and yet one can betray&quot;, (in the words of a famous novelist).\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut, as we have already said, man is not condemned to this malady of schizophrenia: he is not by nature a Manichean creature. He is whole and entire in his inner reality and true consciousness and he can assert his integrality: he has the freedom and the power to do so—he has to and will do so, since it is not merely a possibility but an inevitability that is to come about in the course of his growth and evolution.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd when he has done so, when he has salvaged himself, by that he will have salvaged the world too around him. The measure of the success within will be the measure of the success without.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF','','publish','closed','open','','004_physician-heal-thyself','','','2021-11-23 17:21:43','2021-11-23 17:21:43','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_physician-heal-thyself/',0,'post','',0),(1556,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Contents.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE   YOGA OF SRI   AUROBINDO</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Part V</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">CONTENTS</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<a href=\"the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-001_Pre_Content\">Pre-Content</a></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	<a href=\"-002_PUBLISHERS-NOTE\">Publisher\'s Note</a></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-003_AT-THE-ORIGIN-OF-IGNORANCE\">At the Origin of Ignorance</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-004_PHYSICIAN,-HEAL-THYSELF\">Physician, Heal Thyself</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-005_THE-BODY-NATURAL\">The Body Natural</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-006_THE-MEASURE-OF-TIME\">The Measure of Time</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-007_MAN-THE-PROTOTYPE\">Man the Prototype</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-008_THE-ROLE-OF-EVIL\">The Role of Evil</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-009_MAN-AND-SUPERMAN\">Man and Superman</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-010_TRUE-CHARITY\">True Charity</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-011_VARIETIES-OF-RELIGIOUS-EXPERIENCE\">Varieties of Religious Experience</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-012_CHILDREN-AND-CHILD-MENTALITY\">Children and Child Mentality</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-013_THE-SOUL-OF-A-NATION\">The Soul of a Nation</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	<a href=\"-014_THE-SOUL-AND-ITS-JOURNEY\">The Soul and its Journey</a></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-5-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1557,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-005_THE BODY NATURAL.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">III\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE BODY NATURAL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWith regard to the food that man takes, there are two factors that determine or prescribe it. First of all, the real need of the body, that is to say, what the body actually requires for its maintenance, the elements to meet the chemical changes happening in it, something quite material and very definite, viz., the kind of food and the quantity. But usually this real need of the body is obscured and submerged under the demands of another kind of agency, almost altogether foreign to it, (I) vital desire and (2) mental notions. Indeed, the menu of our table, at least 90% of it, is arranged so as to satisfy the demands of the second category, the consideration that should come first comes last in fact. The body is at present a slave of the mind and the vital; it is hardly given the freedom of choosing its own requirements in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the right quantity and quality. That is why the body is seen to suffer everywhere and is normally sick for the greater part of its earthly existence. It has been compelled to occupy an anomalous position in the human organism between these two tyrants. The vital goes by its greed, its attraction and repulsion, its impulse to excess (sometimes to its opposite of deprivation); what it has been accustomed to, what it has taken a fancy for, to that it clings, and if the body has not what it prescribes, it throws the suggestion into the body that it will become sick. The same with the mental factor. The physical mind has its own notions and schemes, pet ideas and plans (perhaps from what has been read in books or heard from persons) in respect of the body\'s needs; it thinks that if a certain prescription is not followed, the body will surfer. The mind and the vital are thus close friends and accomplices in regimenting the body. They impose their own demands and prejudices upon the body which helplessly gets entangled in them and loses its native instinct. The body left to itself is marvellously self-conscious;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">it knows spontaneously and unfailingly what is good for its health and strength. The animals usually, especially those of the forest, maintain still the unspoilt body instinct; for they have no mind to tyrannise over the body nor is their vital of a kind to go against the normal demands of the body. The body, segregated from the mind and the vital, very easily can choose the right kind of food and the right quantity and even vary them according to the varying conditions of the body. Common sense is an inherent attribute of the body consciousness; it never errs on the side of excess and immoderation or perversity. The vital is dramatic, the mind is imaginative, but the body is sanity itself. And that is not a sign of its inconscience and inertia. The dull and dumb immobility of which it is sometimes accused is after all perhaps a mode of its self-defence against the wild vagaries of the mind and the vital to which it is so often called upon to lend support. Indeed it may very well be that the accusation against the flesh that it is weak is only an opinion or suggestion imposed on the body by the mental-vital who throw the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">whole blame upon the body just to escape from the blame due to themselves. The vital is impatient and clamorous, and if it is all push and drive—towards physical execution and fulfilment—it is normally clouded and troubled and obscured and doubly twisted when counselled and supported by a mind, narrow and superficial, not seeing beyond its nose, bound within a frame of incorrect and borrowed notions.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe body, precisely because of its negative nature—its dumb inertia, as it is called—precisely because it has no axe of its own to grind, that is to say, as it has no fancies and impulsions, plans and schemes upon which it can pride itself, precisely because of this childlike innocence, it has a wonderful plasticity and a calm stability, when it is not troubled by the mind or vital. Indeed the divine qualities that are secreted in the body, which the body seeks to conserve and express are a stable, harmony, a balance and equilibrium, capable of supporting the whole weight of all the levels of consciousness from the highest peak to the lowest abysses even as physically it bears the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">weight of the entire depth of the atmosphere so lightly as it were, without feeling the burden in the least.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_THE BODY NATURAL','','publish','closed','open','','005_the-body-natural','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_the-body-natural/',0,'post','',0),(1558,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-009_MAN AND SUPERMAN.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VII\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MAN AND SUPERMAN\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen we speak of the superman we refer to a new race—almost a new species—that will appear on earth as the inevitable result of Nature\'s evolution. The new race will be developed out of the present humanity, there seems to be no doubt about that; it does not mean however that the whole of humanity will be so changed. As a matter of fact, humanity in general does not ask for such a catastrophic change in itself or for itself. But Supermanhood does mean a very radical change: it means giving up altogether many and some very basic human qualities and attributes. It does not aim merely at a moral uplift, that is to say, a shedding of the bad qualities, what are considered, for example, as predominantly animal and brutish in man; it signifies also a shedding of some at least\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of the good qualities or what are considered as such. The superman is not a purified moralised man, even as he is not a magnified glorified animal man; he is man of a different type, qualitatively different. Let us take an analogy. What was the situation at the crisis when man was about to come out of (or be superimposed upon) an ape race? We can imagine a good part of that old race quite unwilling to go in for the new type that would appear to them queer, outlandish, even if not inferior on the whole or in some respects at least. They cannot envisage with equanimity the disappearance of many of their cherished characteristics and powers: the glory of the tail, for example, the infinite capacity to swing and jump, the strength to crack a nut with the sheer force* of the jaws. And who knows whether they would not consider their intelligence sharper and more efficacious than the type of reason, dull and slow, displayed before them by man! They would lose much to gain little. That would most probably be the general verdict. Even so mankind, at the crucial parting of the ways, would very\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">naturally look askance at the diminished value of many of its qualities and attributes in the new status to come. First of all, as it has been pointed out, the intellect and reasoning power will have to surrender and abdicate. The very power by which man has attained his present high status and maintains it in the world has to be sacrificed for something else called intuition or revelation whose value and efficacy are unknown and have to be rigorously tested. Anyhow, is not the known devil by far and large preferable to the unknown entity? And then the zest of life, peculiar to man, that works through contradictions—delight and suffering, victory and defeat, war and peace, doubt and knowledge, all the play of light and shade, the spirit of adventure, of combat and struggle and heroic effort, will have to go and give place to something peaceful and harmonious perhaps but monotonous, insipid, unprogressive. The very character of human life is its passion to battle through, even if it is not always &quot;through&quot;. For it is often said that the end or goal does not matter, the goal is always something uncertain; it is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the way, the means, the immediate action that is of supreme consequence: for it is that that tests man\'s manhood, gives him the value he may have. And above all man is asked to give up the very thing which he has laboured to build up through millenniums of his terrestrial life, his individuality, his personality, for the demand is that he must lose his ego in order to attain the superhuman status.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo, the probability is that a large part of humanity will remain wedded to the normal human life. But this does not lessen in any way the value, the tremendous importance of what happens to the other part, may be, not insignificant or inconsiderable. Along with those that doubt and deny, there will be those who believe and affirm, who will stand for divinisation, whatever dehumanisation it may signify.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, one may ask, what would be the relation between the two humanities—the human and the divine ? And what would be the effect of the appearance of the new race upon the older stock? Here again we can take up the animal analogy. How has the advent of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">man affected the animal kingdom? It has affected to a certain extent, even to a considerable extent, one may venture to say. First of all, man has parked around him a fairly-large group of animals, domesticated them, as it is termed, employing them in his service, using them for his purposes. Furthermore, he has gone out into the woods, the forests and mountains, ice-bound regions and deep seas,and there extended his sphere of influence, hunting and capturing animals that were so long free and unmolested, bringing about a change in the conditions of life even among wild animals. We do not say that the superman will deal with man in the same way (although something of the kind may be found in the Nietzschean ideology). For man was a creature of Ignorance, and his behaviour and influence were naturally of the ignorant kind. The superman, however, being delivered of ignorance and living in perfect knowledge, has a different nature and outlook. He is one with the universe, with all its creatures; united with the Divine, he finds and realises his own self in each and every creature and thing: his,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">character and conduct are the automatic expression of this sense of perfect identity. So he can do nothing that may seek to enslave or do real injury to mankind. On the contrary, his love and his knowledge, being one with the cosmic existence, will inevitably work for the progress and welfare of man too; indeed, his will be the perfect aid that even ordinary humanity can ask for and receive.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn spite of all the achievements he has had in the past, and in spite of the <i>cul-de-sac </i>or the blind alley into which he seems now to be stagnating, there is yet possibility enough for man to progress further, that is to say, even as a human being without taking the more audacious jump into supermanhood. The present miseries of human society, the maldistribution of the necessities of life, the ravages of illness and disease, the prevalence of ignorance, are not and need not after all be a permanent and irrevocable feature of human organisation. They can be remedied to a large extent, and society made more decent to live in, even though it may not be transfigured into the City of God. Man, without</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">foregoing his present human nature, can yet he a more humane and humanistic creature, that is to say, more truly human and less animal and demoniac that he is trying to be. To this end the advent and the presence of the divine race will surely contribute in a large measure. The influence which the individuals of such a race will exert by the force of their luminous consciousness and the impact of their purified living, the sympathy and knowledge and comprehension which their very presence carries, will materially alter the nature and composition of the normal man and his society. There will emerge a sort of higher humanity—an intermediary between the present more or less animal, degraded humanity and the divine humanity of the future. The two humanitites may very well live amicably together and be of help and service to each other.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe may mention here the other extreme possibility also. If, for example, the old humanity in a body rejects the New Man and will not allow him an inch of ground on the earth which it holds now as its fief and domain\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n—as it may very well do—in view of the evidence that we have of the envy, jealousy, hatred, incomprehension moving normal men when they come in contact with men who do-not follow their mode of life, who seem to pursue avocations that are meaningless and even perhaps injurious to them: if such is the case, then, we say, it would mean either the end of humanity, in the same way as some species have become in fact extinct, or its reversion to a wild savage state, something like that (or perhaps worse) out of which it came.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEither you accept the Divine and allow yourself to be influenced and moulded by it; in that case you are in the line of progress and fulfilment. Or else if you stand against and come into clash with the Power that drives inevitably towards its high goal, then the result is, in the graphic words of the Bible;\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;And whatsoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whatsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.&quot; (Matthew 22)\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-009_MAN AND SUPERMAN','','publish','closed','open','','009_man-and-superman','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_man-and-superman/',0,'post','',0),(1559,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-010_TRUE CHARITY.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VIII\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">TRUE CHARITY\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nCharity is commonly understood to consist in rendering material help to your fellow man, giving alms to the poor, medicine to the sick, money or material to those who need them and physical service also where that is required. All this is well and good. The world is ridden with diseases and privations and calamities. And if something is done to alleviate them, it is as it should be, and activities in that direction deserve full encouragement. But this does not go far enough, does not touch the root of the matter. It is the human way of dealing with things and must naturally be very limited in its scope and efficacy. There is a higher, a diviner way—the way of the Spirit—for the cure of earthly ills, cure and not mere alleviation. That was the secret inspiration behind the message of the Christ and the Buddha.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not true that when one\'s wants are met, one always becomes or remains happy; all paupers are not unhappy, nor are the affluent invariably happy. Happiness is a quality that depends upon something else and comes from elsewhere: it is not directly proportional to material well-being. Unhappiness too is a psychological entity and consists in a special vibration of mind and vitality—and consequently of the physical being—due to a warp in the consciousness itself, in the core of the inner personality. The material conditions serve only to manifest it, maintain or aggravate it, but do not create it—truly they are created by it. That is why the spiritual healers always refer to the bliss of the Spirit as the sole remedy for physical ills even, for disease, misery and death. And the unhappy mortals are always called to turn to the Divine alone in their distress—<i>bliajasva mam.</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTrue charity consists in laying the healing balm upon the sore that lies hidden behind all external miseries which derive from that source and sustainer. And it is in the sole possession of him alone who has found the bliss of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Spirit and dwells in it always. Such a person does not require external accessories for his work of healing and comforting. He need do nothing apparently; he may even appear to be aloof and indifferent. But his presence itself is a healing power: the patient feels it and wonders at the ease and happiness that come into him as if from nowhere. Many physicians have this kind of healing power; indeed without that, a mere medical man, with his pharmacopoeia, is no physician. It may not be well known and recognised, but it is a fact that a good part of the efficacy of medicines lies in the subtle influence, the vital health, that the doctor puts into his medicine or even directly into the body of his patient. And in the case of a spiritual <i>Bhishak, </i>the power can be raised to the nth degree. The healer need not even be present at all physically near the patient; his influence can act very well from any distance. It is quite natural and inevitable that it should be so. For the healing power is in the spiritual consciousness, the inalienable bliss of one\'s status in the Spirit. One becomes identified with each</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n	<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and every object—person or thing—in one\'s own self, in the true being and substance: and the light and happiness that one possesses there inalienably goes out in a spontaneous flow to others who are not really others but integral parts and portions of the same self.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis condition is attained, fully and sovereignly, when there is absolute egolessness, when there is no consciousness of a separate person, the dual consciousness of the helper and the helped, the reformer and the reformed, the doctor and the patient. The normal human sense of values is based upon such a division, upon egohood, <i>mamatvam. </i>A philanthropic man helps others through a sense of sympathy giving rise to a sense of duty and obligation. This feeling of pity of commiseration is dangerous, for it puts you in a frame of mind that tends to make you look down upon, take a superior air towards your object of pity. You become self-conscious, with the consciousness of your inferior self, that you are helping others, doing good to the world, doing something that raises your value: this sense of personal merit is only another name for vanity.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-40</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Vanity and ambition are the motive power that lie behind the philanthropical spirit born of sympathy. To denote a shade of meaning different from what is usually conveyed by the word &quot;sympathy&quot;, modern psychology has found another word—&quot;empathy&quot;. Sympathy may be said to be the relation or contact between two egos; it is a link or bridge between two separate and independent entities; empathy, on the other hand, means the entering into the very being and consciousness of another, becoming that other one; it is identification and identity. This again is what spiritual consciousness alone can do. Sympathy leads to philanthropy, empathy is the origin of true charity, the spiritual compassion of a Buddha or a Christ. Philanthropy is human, charity <i>(caritas)</i> \nis divine.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-41</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>','-010_TRUE CHARITY','','publish','closed','open','','010_true-charity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/010_true-charity/',0,'post','',0),(1560,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-003_AT THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">I</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">AT THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine Consciousness, basically and essentially one and unique, has inherent in it four cardinal attributes—principles of its modulation, modes of its vibration—developing into or appearing as four aspects and personalities. They are Light, Force, Delight and Knowledge. Originally and in the supreme status the four movements are one and indivisible and form one indissoluble identity with the Divine\'s pure essence and absolute unity. The differentiation or variability there in the Immutable is a play immanent in the integral self-nature of the Supreme. The one and the many form on that level a single entity, an undivided whole: the unity running in and through and holding the multiplicity and the multiplicity being the playfulness of the unity. Multiplicity however implies\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">freedom of movement in the Unique. In other words the very character of variability is the absolute freedom of the variables; the play consists precisely in the free choice and self-determination of the partners, the differentiated units. For a formation in the Divine Consciousness, an individualised formulation of its being must necessarily have the Divine\'s own freedom. Now, the result of this freedom is somewhat unexpected, to put it in the human way, that is to say, it was not explicit at that point, in that field of consciousness. For the freedom, in the normal course of its play, reached a degree or arrived at a mode which brought about a shift and an impulsion meaning a rift and a clear separation: the momentum of the free movement carried the individual formation beyond the range of its sense of unity and identity with all and the One. More and more it isolated itself, limiting itself to its own orbit and to its own fund of energy. This isolation, it must be noted, occurs at the origin without any sense of perversity or revolt or disobedience on the part of the free entity, as the legend formulated by the human mind\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">imaged it. The movement of freedom and individual formation in its urge crosses, as it were, a borderline, passes from the safe zone within the Divine\'s own status into a different zone, creates it, as a matter of fact, by that overzealous and self-concentrated free movement. But, as I have said, there is no premeditation or <i>arri</i>è<i>re pens</i>é<i>e </i>or &quot;bad will&quot; or spirit of contradiction there at the origin of the deviation. It is no original sin: it is a spontaneous, almost a logical consequence, an inevitable expression of the freedom that particulars enjoy as part and parcel of the Divine Universal.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet the result is strange and revolutionary. The game once begun develops its own scheme and pattern and modality. For that crucial step in the movement of freedom, that definite moving away, the assertion of complete independence and isolation immediately brought about a reversal of realities, a complete negation of the original attributes. Thus Light became obscurity or Inconscience, Life became death, Delight became pain and suffering, Power became incapacity, Knowledge\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nbecame Ignorance, and Truth became falsehood. In other words, Spirit became forthright Matter.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat seemed, however, to be nothing more than an accident is pregnant nevertheless with a profound meaning and significance. Indeed God has not created the world in fun. Spirit became Matter, that is to say, an apparent negation of the Spirit, to demonstrate that the negation is a way of affirmation, a more integral way of affirmation of the Spirit. Matter has been brought out to express another poise of the spirit, spirit concretised and embodied.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-003_AT THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE','','publish','closed','open','','003_at-the-origin-of-ignorance','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_at-the-origin-of-ignorance/',0,'post','',0),(1561,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-011_VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IX\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere have been religions, approaches to the Divine, which did not believe in the divinity of man, the Chaldean line, the Semetic, for example. According to these, the Creator and the Created are separate in nature and being; to call anything created as God himself is blasphemy. The ancient Egyptian, the Hebrew or the Muslim place God high in Paradise, and, in their view, man can be only his servant or slave, his worker or warrior. Man is too small and too earthly to be ever identified with God: he can only be a worshipper. Man can love God, at the most, as his Beloved. But this devotion is for something afar, like the desire of the moth for the star. And to equate the two is to confuse realities. Man as worshipper and devotee can attain certain\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-42</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">divine qualities, but limited and modified and always humanised to a large extent. And God can never become man. He sends down his representative, his vicar, prophet or apostle who acts for him and in and through whom He acts, but He himself does not come down and put on the form of flesh. The universe is God\'s handiwork and testifies to his miracle and glory; but the universe is not God. Between the watch and the watch-maker there is always a hiatus and an incommensurability.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut can we say, \'I am born of God, and yet I am not God\'? So the Indian boldly declares, all this is the supreme Divine, there is nothing else than the Divine—<i>sarvam khalvidam brahma </i>—I am He, Thou art That, or again, that which is in me and the conscious being which is there in the Sun are one and the same thing. God has created man and the world, He is in man and in the world, He has become and is man and the world. Not only so. Not only does God become the clod of earth by reducing his potential—to zero, so to say; but He descends often enough in his own being and consciousness here below, assuming a human</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-43</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">form for a special work and a special purpose. This is the Indian conception of Avatar-hood.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Christian conception seems to occupy an intermediary position, being a sort of connecting link between the two. Christ is not only the Son of God, he is also the God-Man—he declares very clearly and categorically that he and the Father in heaven are one and that everyone should be as perfect as God himself. Still a difference is maintained. First of all, with regard to the birth. The God-Man was not born in sin like ordinary mortals, an immaculate virgin gave him birth. And with regard to the union or identity of Father and Son, the fusion is not absolute. Man is asked to be as pure and perfect as God, but only in kind and not in being and substance. The purified and perfect souls sit by the side of God in heaven, they do not lose themselves in God. The Vaishnava conception in India was in the same line. The liberated soul, according to it, dwells with God in the same world, possesses God\'s qualities—the union is that of Salokya and Sadharmya—but it does\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-44</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">not become one and indivisible with God (Sayujya).\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Sufi doctrine also occupies an intermediate position, like the Christian, between the Chaldean and the Vedantic. The absolute identity of the human lover and the Divine Beloved, a complete fusion of the two at a particular stage or moment of consciousness is one of the cardinal experiences in the Sufi discipline. But that is an innermost state, not normal or habitual in life and activity, where the difference, the separation between the adorer and the adored is maintained exactly for the delight of play. But the dualism in the Indian discipline is more than compensated by the doctrine of Incarnation which obliterates fundamentally all difference between the human and the Divine. According to it, God does not become man only once, as in the Christian view, but that it is one of his constant functions. Indeed, the Indian tradition is that He is always the leader of terrestrial evolution; at each crisis, at each moment of need for guidance, He comes down in flesh and blood, in the form of an earthly creature\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-45</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to show the way, how to live and move and act.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe special gift of the Chaldean line of discipline lay in another direction. It cultivated not so much the higher lines of spiritual realisation but was occupied with what may be called the mid regions, the occult world. This material universe is not moved by the physical, vital or mental forces that are apparent and demonstratable, but by other secret and subtle forces; in fact, these are the motive forces, the real agents that work out and initiate movements in Nature, while the apparent ones are only the external forms and even masks. This occultism was also practised very largely in ancient Egypt from where the Greek took up a few threads. The Mysteries—Orphic and Eleusinian—cultivated the tradition within a restricted circle and in a very esoteric manner. The tradition continued into the Christian Church also and an inner group formed in its heart that practised and kept alive something of this ancient science. The external tenets and dogmas of the Church did not admit or tolerate it which was considered as black magic,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-46</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the Devil\'s Science. The evident reason was that if one pursued this line of occultism and tasted of the power it gave, one might very likely deviate from the straight and narrow path leading to the Spirit and spiritual salvation. In India too the <i>siddhis </i>or occult powers were always shunned by the truly spiritual, although sought by the many who take to the spiritual life—often with disastrous results. In Christianity, side by side with the major saints, there was always a group or a line of practicants that followed the occult system, although outwardly observing the official creed. It is curious to note that often where the original text of the Bible speaks of <i>gods, </i>in the plural, referring to the deities or occult powers, the official version translates it as God, to give the necessary theistic value and atmosphere.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut if occultism is to be feared because of its wrong use and potential danger, spirituality too should then be placed on the same footing. All good things in the world have their deformation and danger, but that is no reason why one should avoid them altogether. What is required is right attitude and discrimination,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-47</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">training and discipline. Viewed in the true light, occultism is dynamic spirituality; in other words, it seeks to express and execute, bring down to the material life the powers and principles of the Spirit through the agency of the subtler forces of mind and life and the subtle physical. Occultism is naturally shunned by those who worship, who seek to experience the transcendent Spirit, God in Heaven, but it is an indispensable instrument for those who endeavour to manifest the Divine in a concrete form.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-48</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-011_VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE','','publish','closed','open','','011_varieties-of-religious-experience','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/011_varieties-of-religious-experience/',0,'post','',0),(1562,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-006_THE MEASURE OF TIME.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IV\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE MEASURE OF TIME\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen it is said that the Realisation is decreed, is it meant also that the time for it has been fixed? If so, all individual effort and freedom of action seem to go out of the picture, being irrelevant—neither hastening nor retarding the process. The fact is somewhat different, not so simple and trenchant.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is very little sense in the common notion that everything is predetermined as to time when it will happen, that the universal scheme has been all inalterably arranged and mapped out from beforehand, that nothing can change it, all goes according to plan. This is only a human conception, a construction of the mind, a wrong translation in the brain of some fact which is otherwise and elsewhere. The mind divides where there is no division, puts tilings against each other where there is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">perfect compatibility and harmony. Determinism and Indeterminism, Free-Will and Mechanism are contradictions set up by the mind and have no real objective existence. From a certain view-point, on a certain level of consciousness things appear to move in a rigid frame of mechanistic determinism; from another view-point, on another level, things seem to possess absolute freedom.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nLooked at from the higher source of things, the time-factor itself appears as an illusion. What is true is a certain set of conditions in which forces work themselves out. And in this pattern of conditions, time (along with space) does not give the absolute and fixed frame of reference, as is usually taken for granted, but is a varying background, even if it is not a side-issue or a by-product. The conscious force at work in the world aims at change in the conditions: it is a work primarily of rearrangement and order. The state of Nature, of actuality—of ignorance and inertia —is one of chaos. What the Divine Will behind, the Consciousness standing over, does is to develop a cosmos out of that chaos. Things\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">are placed wrongly, at random, pell-mell: they have to be assorted, arranged, docketed, each item in its own place. We know, for example, of the material particle in which the atoms are huddled together, each pointing to a different direction, but when they are arranged in such a way that one half point in one way and the other half the contrary way, we have what is called a magnetised body.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is when things are arranged in this manner, the right thing in the right place, that divine perfection, the Realisation in the material, is attained. And for this consummation to come about, the process that is followed is a greater and greater infiltration of higher and higher forces into the field of disorder, of our normal life and consciousness. The time taken simply indicates that the process is being worked out; it is an expression of the rhythm of procedure. But to the Divine, the Supreme Consciousness that works, time itself has no separate meaning or intrinsic value; for it a thousand or a million years do not mean more than what is one moment for us. Indeed, the slowness of time simply marks the steps of events in the lower\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">ranges of creation: as we rise higher and higher, forces from there come down into the lower field, and the tempo of events quickens; finally, when the highest peak is attained and its forces descend and intervene in the ordering of the lowest levels, then the change, the arrangement that is being worked out, is accomplished immediately and without delay: the time lag is abolished altogether. Time may be compared to a kind of elastic bond connecting the highest and the lowest and running through the intermediate zones. It contracts as one moves upward and is telescoped, as it were, at the top.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-006_THE MEASURE OF TIME','','publish','closed','open','','006_the-measure-of-time','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_the-measure-of-time/',0,'post','',0),(1563,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-008_THE ROLE OF EVIL.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VI\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE ROLE OF EVIL\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe advent or the presence of evil upon earth has introduced certain factors in human life that have enriched it, increased even its value. Certain experiences would not have been there, intimate and revelatory experiences, but for this Dark Shadow. One can, of course, conceive a line of growth and development in which it is all light and delight, everything is good and for the good. But then a whole domain of experience and realisation would have been missed. There are certain experiences that one would not like not to have had at all, even though that may mean paying and paying heavily.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEvil is evil, no doubt; it is not divine and it is not an illusion. It is a real blot on the fair face of creation. Its existence cannot be justified in the sense that it is the right thing\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-26</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and has to be welcomed and maintained, since it forms part of the universal symphony. Not even in the sense that it is a test and a trial set by the Divine for the righteous to prove their merit. It has not been put there with a set purpose, but that once given, it has been the occasion of a miracle, it offered the opportunity for the manifestation of something unique, great and grandiose, marvellous and beautiful. The presence of evil moved the Divine—<i>fustizia mosse il mio alto Fattore—\n</i>and Grace was born. He descended, the Aloof and the Transcendent, in all his love and compassion down into this vale of tears: he descended straight into our midst without halting anywhere in the infinite gradation that marks the distance between the highest and the lowest, he descended from the very highest into the very lowest, demanding nothing, asking for no condition whatsoever from the soul in Ignorance, from the earth under the grip of evil. Thus it was that Life lodged itself in the home of death, Light found its way into the far cavern of obscurity and inconscience, and Delight bloomed in the core</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-27</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of misery. Hope was lit, a flame rising from the nether gloom towards the Dawn. But for the spirit of denial we would not have seen this close and intimate figure of the gracious Mother.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is the divine miracle that has been vouchsafed to man, the spectacle of the Divine himself becoming an earthly creature, wearing as his own body of flesh and blood this mortal frame of pain and suffering and ignorance, of obscurity and incapacity and falsehood. This is the calvary he has accepted, the sacrifice of his divinity he agreed to in order that this undivine too may gracefully serve the Divine, be taken up and transmuted into the reality from which it fell, of which it is an aberration.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe glory and beauty of this gesture one would not like not to have witnessed and experienced and shared.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-008_THE ROLE OF EVIL','','publish','closed','open','','008_the-role-of-evil','','','2021-11-23 17:21:44','2021-11-23 17:21:44','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_the-role-of-evil/',0,'post','',0),(1564,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-012_CHILDREN AND CHILD MENTALITY.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">X\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">CHILDREN AND CHILD MENTALITY\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">Children are often found to be very cruel to animals. Why is it so? Their treatment of birds especially is notorious. To seek out nests and pull them down, to capture nestlings and put them to all kinds of torture, to pick up eggs and dash them to pieces are for children most interesting games. They seem to take particular delight in varying and enhancing as much as possible the torture they can inflict. One reason that can be adduced for the callousness of a child\'s sensibility is his self-centred-ness: he is wholly himself, isolated from others, has not yet learnt the social needs and virtues. All he does and feels is for himself, for his own pleasure and free self-assertion. His growing individuality, in order to grow, cuts itself aloof from others and loses the sense of others having the same value as itself. Being self-regarding,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-49</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to that extent he ceases to be other-regarding. Fellow-feeling is a sentiment that grows later on, as the result of shocks in mutual interchange. Real sympathy is a movement of mature consciousness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe inquisitiveness that so strongly possesses a child is also the drive of an awakening and growing consciousness. He indulges in breaking, tearing, ripping because of this curiosity, this keen edge of a developing and experimenting consciousness. It seems to be hard and unfeeling, even an aberration, precisely because of the egocentric nature of the child consciousness yet unfamiliar with values normal to age and experience.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut if it is nature to a certain extent that makes the child so apathetic, self-regarding and cruel, it is not the only cause and it is not the whole story. There are other very active factors in life that affect and mould the child\'s consciousness from the very beginning.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe child, we can take, comes into the world with a more or less clean slate to record the reactions of life. In the early period he is still nearer his psychic being which is not yet\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-50</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">thrown back or covered over by the impacts and impressions of the world. The first conscious contacts with the world are not generally happy for the child. He meets things all around that go against the grain of his still sensitive psychic consciousness. The first quarrel he witnesses between his parents, the first rough behaviour or movement of an elder that shakes his attention, the first lie that he hears uttered by his teacher, act almost as shell-shocks to his nerves. And as he grows, lessons like these are rained upon him from all sides and it is no wonder that his consciousness very soon gets warped and twisted, he too begins his own game in the line he sees and experiences. Only, not being guided or controlled by reason and experience, he overdoes the thing, and because of his age, what in an adult is a matter of course, small and insignificant, looms large and ominous in his case. The surroundings in which a child lives and grows from the atmosphere which he breathes in at every moment and if there is poison in it, he inhales and imbibes the poison which becomes part of his substance and nature. A\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-51</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">pure environment is needed for a pure life impulse to shape and develop.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n* * *\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is the very central character of the child consciousness? It is confidence in life, the surety that nothing can baulk the fulfilment of life\'s purpose, the trust that overrides all set-backs and stumbles, gaily passes through dangers and difficulties. This confidence, this assurance the very body shares in and impels it to movements of daring and adventure. It is this that is the cause of the body\'s growth, and so long as it is maintained, keeps the body young. So the poet says:\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA simple child That feels its life in every limb What should it know of death?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAge sets in precisely when there is a fall in this self-confidence and assurance of the body consciousness, when the body begins to fear, becomes too cautious and apprehensive. A\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-52</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">wound, a cut, even a broken limb would not stop a child normally to go forward with the same dash and carelessness. And that character is the source not only of his physical fitness and growth, but also that of a mental alacrity and soundness which is an inestimable possession of the child consciousness. The wisest teacher is he who does not teach too much the wisdom of prudence and moderation, but encourages this\n<i>éan vital, </i>the life urge, \nin the child and yet \nseeks to organise and canalise it, as an efficient instrument of high ideals and \npurposes.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n* * *\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">There are two failings which a teacher must guard against—to which he is usually prone—if he wishes to secure respect and obedience and trust from children: (1) telling a lie and (2) losing temper. A child can easily find out whether you are telling him a long story or not. He is inquisitive, irrepressively curious and, above all, he has his own manner and angle of looking at things. He puts questions\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-53</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">about all things and subjects and in all ways that seem queer to an adult view. His answers too to questions, his solutions of problems are very unorthodox, bizarre. But it is all the more the task of the elder not only to put up with all these vagaries, but also with great sympathy and patience to appreciate and understand what the child attempts to express. If you are irritated or angry and try to snub or brush him away, it would mean the end of all cordial relation between you and him. Or, again, if you try to hoodwink him, give a false answer to hide your ignorance, in that case too the child will not be deceived, he will find you out and lose all respect for you. It is far better to own your ignorance, saying you do not know than to pose as a knowing man; although that may affect to some extent his sense of hero-worship and he may not entertain any longer the unspoilt awe and esteem with which he was accustomed to look up to you, still you will not lose his affection and confidence. Infinite patience and a temper that is never frayed or ruffled are demanded of the teacher and the parent who\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-54</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">wish to guide and control successfully and happily a child. With that you can mould in the end the most refractory child, without that you will fail even with a child of goodwill.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-55</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-012_CHILDREN AND CHILD MENTALITY','','publish','closed','open','','012_children-and-child-mentality','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/012_children-and-child-mentality/',0,'post','',0),(1565,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-007_MAN THE PROTOTYPE.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">V\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MAN THE PROTOTYPE\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe earth has been created for a special purpose; it has a divine role to fulfil. And so there is only one earth and not many, in spite of what the scientists may say. The earth is not a mass of dead matter, not merely the dwelling-place of the growths that have occurred upon it, of plants and animals and men. She is the home and she is the mother of them all. She has a consciousness and a personality, the outer form that we see is only her body.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndeed, all the luminaries of heaven have each its conscious personality, the planets, the moon and above all the great sun. It is not fancy or idle imagination that made the astrologers ascribe definite influences to these heavenly bodies. In Hindu astrology, for example, they are considered as real persons, each with a \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-19</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">The so-called Nature-gods in the Vedas or in ancient mythology generally are in the same way not creations of mere poetic imagination: they are realities, more real in a sense than the real objects that represent and incarnate them.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNot only so. Our limited mind and senses are accustomed to view and recognise individuals alone as persons. But there are group personalities too. Thus each species has a generic personality, a consciousness and an ideal or intrinsic form also: the individuals on the physical plane are its various incarnations, projections and formations. Old Plato was not so naive, as we of today are apt to believe, when he spoke of the real reality of general ideas. The attributes, qualities and functions of the generic personality are the source and pattern of what the individuals that form the group actually are. The group person is the king, he is also the body of the Dharma ruling the domain. Any change in the law of being of the group person is necessarily translated in a similar change in the nature and activity of the individuals of the species. What evolutionists describe as sudden\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-20</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">variation or mutation and whose cause or genesis they are at a loss to trace, is precisely due to an occult change in the consciousness and will of the group soul.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan too as a species has a generic personality, his prototype. Only, in opposition to the scientific view, that is an earlier phenomenon belonging to the very origin of things. Man in his essential form and reality is found at the source and beginning of creation. When the unmanifest Transcendent stoops to manifest, when there is the first expression of typal variations in the infinite as the basis of physical creation, then and there appears Man in his essential and eternal divine form. He is there almost as a sentinel, guarding the passage from the formless to form. Indeed, he is the first original form of the formless. A certain poet says that man is the archetype of all living forms. A bird is a flying man, a fish a swimming man, a worm a crawling man, even a plant is but a rooted man. His form belongs to a region beyond even the first principles of creation. The first principles that bring out and shape and uphold the manifested universe\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-21</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">are the trinity: Life, Light and Delight— in other terms, Sachchidananda. The whole complex of the manifest universe is resolvable into that unity of triple status. But behind even this supernal, further on towards the final disappearance into the absolute Unmanifest—summing up, as it were, in him the whole manifestation—stands this original primordial form, this first person, this archetypal Man.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe essential appearance of Man is, as we have said, the prototype of the actual man. That is to say, the actual man is a projection, even though a somewhat disfigured projection, of the original form; yet there is an essential similarity of pattern, a commensurabi-lity between the two. The winged angels, the cherubs and seraphs are reputed to be ideal figures of beauty, but they are nothing akin to the Prototype, they belong to a different line of emanation, other than that of the human being. We may have some idea of what it is like by taking recourse to the distinction that Greek philosophers used to make between the formal and the material cause of things. The prototype is the formal reality\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-22</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">hidden and imbedded in the material reality of an object. The essential form is made of the original configuration of primary vibrations that later on consolidate and become a compact mass, arriving finally at its end physico-chemical composition. A subtle yet perfect harmony of vibrations forming a living whole is what the prototype essentially is. An artist perhaps is in a better position to understand what we have been labouring to describe. The artist\'s eye is not confined to the gross physical form of an object, even the most realistic artist does not hold up the mirror to Nature in that sense: he goes behind and sees the inner contour, the subtle figuration that underlies the external volume and mass. It is that that is beautiful and harmonious and significant, and it is that which the artist endeavours to bring out and fix in a system or body of lines and colours. That inner form is not the outer visible form and still it is that form fundamentally, essentially. It is that and it is not that. We may add another analogy to illustrate the point. Pythagoras, for example, spoke of numbers being\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">realities, the real realities of all sensible objects. He was evidently referring to the basic truth in each individual and this truth appeared to him as a number, the substance and relation that remain of an object when everything concrete and superficial is extracted—or abstracted—out of it. A number to him is a quality, a vibration, a quantum of wave-particles, in the modern scientific terminology, a norm. The human prototype can be conceived as something of the category of the Pythagorean number.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe conception of the Purusha at the origin of things, as the very source of things, so familiar to the Indian tradition, gives this high primacy to the human figure. We know also of the cosmic godhead cast in man\'s mould —although with multiple heads and feet— visioned and hymned by sages and seers. The gods themselves seem to possess a human frame. The Upanishads say that once upon a time the gods looked about for a proper body to dwell in, they were disappointed with all others; it is only when the human form was presented that they exclaimed, &quot;This is indeed\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-24</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a perfect form, a perfect form indeed.&quot; All that indicates the feeling and perception that there is something eternal and transcendent in the human body-frame.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-25</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-007_MAN THE PROTOTYPE','','publish','closed','open','','007_man-the-prototype','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_man-the-prototype/',0,'post','',0),(1566,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-001_Pre_Content.htm</title>\n</head>\n<table width=\"100%\"><tr><td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"part 4 - 0001-1.jpg\" src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 4/_images/part 4 - 0001-1.jpg\" style=\" width:256.08pt; height:408.72pt;\"\n<br></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>(PART IV)\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">NOLINI KANTA GUPTA\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SRI AUROBINDO LIBRARY</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">MADRAS \n<br>\n</p><hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>Publisher :</i></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i></i>Sri Aurobindo Library \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">369 \nEsplanade, George Town</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Madras</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><i>All Rights Reserved</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">First Published in 1948\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Imprimerie De Sri Aurobindo Ashram\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Pondichéry\n</p>\n</p>\n</td></tr></table>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-001_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-001_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-001_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1567,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-005_Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">IV\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">EVOLUTION OF THE SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEven the Vedic Rishis used to refer to the ancients, more ancient than they themselves. &quot;The ancients&quot;, they said, &quot;worshipped Agni, we too the moderns in our turn worship the same godhead&quot;. Or again, &quot;Thus spoke our forefathers&quot;; or, &quot;So have we heard from those who have gone before us&quot; and so on.\n</p>\n<br>\n	<p class=\"para\"> Indeed, the tradition in the domain of spiritual discipline seems to have been always to realise once again what has already been realised by others, to rediscover what has already been discovered, to re-establish ancient truths. Others have gone before on the Path, we have only to follow. The teaching, the realisation is handed down uninterruptedly through millenniums from Master to disciple. In other words, the idea is that the fundamental spiritual realisation\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-52</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">remains the same always and everywhere: the name and the form only vary according to the age and the surroundings. The one reality is called variously, says the Veda. Who can say when was the first dawn! The present dawn has followed the track of the infinite series that has gone by and is the first of the infinite series that is to come. So sings Rishi Kanwa. For the core of spiritual realisation is to possess the consciousness, attain the status of the Spirit. This Spirit may be called God by the theist or Nihil by the Negativist or Brahman (the One) by the Positivist (spiritual). But the essential experience of a cosmic and transcendental reality does not differ very much. So it is declared that there is only one goal and aim, and there are, at the most, certain broad principles, clear pathways which one has to follow if one is to move in the right direction, advance smoothly and attain infallibly: but these have been well marked out, surveyed and charted and do not admit of serious alternations and deviations. The spiritual aspiration is a very definite and unitary movement and its fulfilment is also a definite and invariable status of the consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-53</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">The spiritual is a typal domain, one may say, there is no room here for sudden unforseen variation or growth or evolution.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIs it so in fact? For, if one admits and accepts the evolutionary character of human nature and consciousness, the outlook becomes somewhat different. According to this view, human civihsation is seen as moving through progressive stages: man at the outset was centrally lodged in and occupied with his body consciousness, he was an <i>annamaya purusha; </i>then he raised himself and centred in the vital consciousness and so became fundamentally a <i>pranamaya purusha; </i>next he climbed into the mental consciousness and became a <i>manomaya purusha; </i>from that level again he has been attempting to go further beyond. On each plane the normal life is planned according to the central character, the law— dharma—of that plane. One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-54</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">spiritual discipline: the animal <i>(pashu bhava,) </i>the heroic <i>(vira bhava) </i>and the godly or divine <i>(deva bhava). </i>The classification is not merely typal but also hierarchical and evolutionary in character.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine or the spiritual consciousness, instead of being a simple unitary entity, is a vast, complex stratified reality. &quot;There are many chambers in my Father\'s mansion&quot;, says the Bible: many chambers on many stories, one may add. Also there are different levels or approaches that serve different seekers each with his own starting-point, his <i>point de\' </i>\n<i>repaire. </i>When one speaks of union \nwith the Divine or of entering into the spiritual consciousness, one does not \nrefer to the same identical truth or reality as any other. There is a physical \nDivine, a vital Divine, a mental Divine; and beyond the mind-from where one may \nconsider that the region of true spirit begins—there \nare other innumerable modes, aspects, manifestations of the Divine.</p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">\nAs we say, there are not only aspects of the Divine, but there are also levels in him. The spiritual consciousness rises tier upon tier and each spur has its own view and outlook.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-55</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">rhythm and character. Now, as long as man was chiefly preoccupied with his physico-vital or mentalised physico-vital activities, as long as the burden of his body and life and even mind lay heavy on him and their gravitational pull was normally very strong, almost irresistible, the spiritual impulse in him acted generally and fundamentally as a movement of escape from them into <i>some </i>thing beyond. It was a negative movement on the whole and it was enough to dissociate, reject, sublimate the lower status and somehow rise into something which is not that <i>(neti): </i>the question was not important at that stage of the human consciousness about a scientific scrutiny of the Beyond, its precise constitution and composition.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut once there is the possibility gained of a more normalised, familiar and wider reconnaissance of the Beyond, when the human being has been mentalised to a degree and in a manner that makes it inevitable for him to overpass to a higher status and five there habitually, then it becomes an urgent matter of concern to know and find out where one goes exactly, on which level and in what domain,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-56</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">once one is beyond. The question, it is true, engaged the attention of the ancients too; but it was more or less an interesting enquiry, a good part speculative and theoretical; it had not the reality and insistence of the need of the hour. We have today chalked out an almost exhaustive science of the inferior consciousness, of the lower hemisphere—of course, so far as it is possible for such a science to be exhaustive moving in the light of the partial and inferior consciousness. In the same way we need at the present hour a complete and precise science of the Divine Consciousness. As there is a logic of the finite, there is also a logic of the infinite, not merely its magic, and that too has to be discovered and laid out.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus, the highest and most comprehenisve description of the Divine is perhaps the formula Sat-chit-ananda. But even so, it is a very general and, after all, an inadequate description. It has to be filled in and supplemented by other categories as well, if one may say so. For Sat-chit-ananda presents to us the Sat Brahman. There is also the Asat Brahman. And again we must accept a reality which is neither Sat nor Asat—<i>nasadasinno sadasit, </i>says\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-57</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the Veda. And as for the filling up of the details in an otherwise almost blank and featureless infinity, Sri Aurobindo\'s charting of that vast unknown—with the categories of the Supermind and its various levels, of the Over-mind and its levels too, all forming the Divine Status and Consciousness—is a new, almost a revolutionary revelation, just the required science which the present world needs and demands and for which it has been prepared through all the cycles of evolution.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis means to say that with the knowledge that is given us today, one can determine more or less definitely the altitudes to which the various spiritual realisations of the past rose and one can see also the degrees or graded stages of the evolution of the spiritual consciousness. A broad landmark can be noted here which concerns us at the present moment. The spiritual consciousness has been rising to higher and higher peaks and possessing them one after another. At the present moment we are at a crisis, at a crucial crossing. The spiritual consciousness attained till now and securely held in human possession (in man\'s inner nature) is confined to the highest level of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-58</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">mind with some infiltration from the Overmind and through that, as a springing board, a leap into an indefinite, almost a blank Beyond. Now the time is come and the conditions are ready for the spiritual consciousness in humanity to arrive at the status above the Overmind, the Supermind, and make that a living reality and build in and through that its normal consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA progressive revelation of higher and higher and more integral states of the spiritual consciousness in and through the realisations of mystics and sages and seers—divine men—of all ages, such is the process of evolution that marks the life of man upon earth. This spiritual evolution, however, may not be obviously visible in the external life and character of man: it has been a phenomenon more in his inner being and consciousness, an occult phenomenon. Hence there has intervened a veil, a wall of separation between the two. The veil has not been rent precisely because the very highest spiritual potential has not been reached and brought into play. The call of the present age is just to do away with this veil, make of human nature a unified, a streamlined entity,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-59</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\na complete incarnation of the spiritual consciousness in the fullness of its own nature at its source and origin.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-60</p>\n	</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_Evolution of the Spiritual Consciousness','','publish','closed','open','','005_evolution-of-the-spiritual-consciousness','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_evolution-of-the-spiritual-consciousness/',0,'post','',0),(1568,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-002_The Divine Man.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">I\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE DIVINE MAN\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe core of Sri Aurobindo\'s teaching, the central pivot on which his Yoga and his work rest is the mystery of the Divine Descent —Spirit descending into Matter and becoming Matter, God coming down upon earth and becoming human, and as a necessary and inevitable consequence, Matter rising and being transformed into Spirit and man becoming God and Godlike.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is a truth, a fact of creation—giving the whole clue to the riddle of this world— that has not been envisaged at all in the past, or otherwise overlooked and not given the value and importance that it has. Poets and seers, sages and saints along with common men from the very birth of humanity have mourned this vale of tears, this sorrowful transient earthly life, <i>anityam asukham lokam imam, </i>into\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">which they have been thrown: they have wished and willed and endeavoured to change or reform or re-create it, but have always failed, and in the end, finding it ultimately incorrigible, concluded that escape was the only solution, the only issue, either like the sage going out into Nirvana, spiritual dissolution, or like the atheist stoically going down with a crumbling world into a material disintegration. The truth of the matter is, however, different as Sri Aurobindo sees it. The spectacle is not so gloomy and irremediable. The world has a future and man has hope.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe world is not doomed nor man past cure; for it is not that the world has been merely created by God but that God has become and is the world at the same time: man is not merely God\'s creature but that he is made of God\'s substance and is God himself. The Spirit has shed its supreme consciousness, that is to say, overtly has become dead matter; God has veiled his effulgent infinity and has taken up a human figure. The Divine has clothed his inviolable felicity in pain and suffering, has become an earthly creature, you and me, a mortal of mortals. And thus, viewed in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">another perspective, because Matter is essentially Spirit, because man is essentially God, therefore Matter can be resolved and transformed into Spirit and man too can become utterly divine. The urge of the spiritual consciousness that is the essence of matter even, the massed energy embedded or lying frozen in it, manifests itself in the forward drive of evolution that brings out gradually, step by step, the various modes of the consciousness in different degrees and potentials till the original summit is revealed.\n</p>\n<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">\nBut there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret. That is the mechanism adopted by the Divine to cure and transmute human ills—himself becoming a man, taking upon himself the burden of the evil that vitiates and withers life and working it\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">out in and through himself. Something of this truth has been caught in the Christian view of Incarnation. God sent upon earth his only begotten son to take upon himself the sins of man, suffer vicariously for him, pay the ransom and thus liberate him, so that he may reach salvation, procure his seat by the side of the Father in Heaven. Man corrupted as he is by an original sin cannot hope by his own merit to achieve salvation. He can only admit his sin and repent and wait for the Grace to save him. The Indian view of Incarnation laid more stress upon the positive aspect of the matter, viz., the role of the Incarnation as the inaugurates and establisher of a new order in life—<i>dharmasansthapan-arthaya. </i>The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention upon the Good—<i>shreyas</i>—and did not consider it essential to dwell upon the Evil. For one who finds and sees the Good always and everywhere, the Evil does not exist. Sri Aurobindo lays equal emphasis on both the aspects. Naturally, however, he does not believe in an original evil, incurable upon earth and in earthly life. In conformity with the ancient Indian teaching he declares the original divinity of man: it is because man is potentially and essentially divine that he can become actually and wholly divine. The Bible speaks indeed of man becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect: but that is due exclusively to the Grace showered upon man, not because of any inherent perfection in him. But in according full divinity to man, Sri Aurobindo does not minimise the part of the undivine in him. This does not mean any kind of Manicheism: for Evil, according to Sri Aurobindo, is not coeval or coterminous with\n</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the Divine, it is a later or derivative formation under given conditions, although within the range and sphere of the infinite Divine. Evil exists as a stern reality; even though it may be temporary and does not touch the essential reality, it is not an illusion nor can it be ignored, brushed aside or by-passed as something superficial or momentary and of no importance. It has its value, its function and implication. It is real, but it is not irremediable. It is contrary to the Divine but not contradictory. For even the Evil in its inmost substance carries or is the reality which it opposes or denies outwardly. Did not the very first of the apostles of Christ deny his master at the crucial moment? As we have said, evil is a formation necessitated by certain circumstances, the circumstances changed, the whole disposition as at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essence—<i>sarvabhutantaratma</i>—but as an individual person embodying that essence—<i>manu-shim tanum ashritam. </i>Man too, however earthly and impure he may be, is essentially the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the supreme consciousness that he is in his true and highest reality. That is how in him is bridged the gulf that apparently exists between the mortal and the immortal, the Infinite and the Finite, the Eternal and the Momentary, and the Divine too can come into him and become, so to say, his lower self.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe individual or personal Divine leaves his home of all bliss—Vaikuntha—forgets himself and enters into this world of all misery; but this does not mean that he becomes wholly the Man of Misery: he encompasses all misery within himself, penetrates as well into the stuff and substance of all misery, but suffuses all that with the purifying and transforming pressure of his own supreme consciousness. And yet pain and suffering are real, cruelly real, even to the Divine Man. Just as the ordinary human creature suffers and agonises in spite of the divine essence in him, in spite of his other deeper truth and reality, his soul of inalienable bliss, his psychic being, the Divine too suffers in the same way in spite of his divinity. This double line of consciousness, this system of parallels running  alongside\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">each other, interacting upon each other (even intersecting each other, when viewed in a frame of infinity) gives the whole secret mechanism of creation, its purpose, its working and its fulfilment. It is nothing else than the gradual replacement or elimination, elevation or sublimation of the elements on one line that are transmuted into those of the other. The Divine enters into the Evil to root out the Evil and plant there or release and fructify the seed of Divinity lying covered over and lost in the depths of dead inconscience.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine descends as an individual person fundamentally to hasten the evolutionary process and to complete it; he takes the human form to raise humanity to divinity. The fact and the nature of the process have been well exemplified in Sri Ramakrishna who, it is said, took up successively different lines of spiritual discipline and by a supreme and sovereign force of concentration achieved realisation in each line in the course of a few days what might take in normal circumstances years or even lives to do. The Divine gathers and concentrates in himself the world-force, the Nature-Energy—even like a dynamo—and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">focuses and canalises it to give it its full, integral and absolute effectivity. And mortal pain he accepts, and swallows the poison of ignorant life—even like Nilakantha Shiva—to transmute it into ecstasy and immortality. The Divine Mother sank into the earth-nature of a human body:\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nShe made of her pangs a mystic poignant\nsword......\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHoping her greater being to implant That heaven might native grow in mortal\nsoil.<sup>1</sup>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut this is God\'s share—<i>la part de Dieu; </i>for man too as man has to do his part. Because the Divine descending and accomplishing the work does not mean either of two things: first, it does not mean that it is a sudden miracle, a <i>deus ex machina, </i>a fiat from the heaven which upsets and bears down everything before it and practically has no relation, logical or causal with what precedes and what follows. It is, on the contrary, as we have said, the culmination of a long process, the seal of fulfilment set upon a steady  preparation   and  travailing\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i><sup>1</sup> Savitri </i>by Sri Aurobindo. Book 1 Canto 1. \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">growth. The Divine descends when the time is ripe, that is to say, when forces and instruments have been developed, refined, sharpened and tempered, so that they can harness and wield the Power from above. But for the preparation, the necessary conditions being there, the Grace would not have descended, although it is also true that but for the Grace, the culmination and the utter fulfilment would not have come about—there would have been only a vicious circle or an unending seesaw. Next, the Descent does not mean either that following upon it the whole business is done and completed automatically and immediately or nothing is left to be done any more. Not so. It means that what has been so long practically beyond reach, towards which one had to move with uncertainty and vague effort and in a roundabout way, as though through a trackless virgin forest or across an uncharted sea, has now been brought nearer and closer to human grasp, is now made part and parcel of earth\'s familiar atmosphere, so that any human being who genuinely aspires and looks for it can find it about him: there is just a thin veil which has to be put aside\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">a little, into which a little opening is to be made and one comes in contact with or even enters into what one seeks. This means that the Grace has leaned down to man, but man too has at least to stretch his arms to touch and embrace it. Furthermore, to make that Grace permanently active and real in the normal consciousness, one has to labour, work out in fact what is given potentially: the seed is planted for him, it will grow and bloom and come to fruition provided necessary care and attention are given to the soil that bears it.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus then the embodied human person who has the embodied Divine Person before his eyes must know how to instal and incorporate the Divine Person in him, in his body and physical existence. That was perhaps the mystery sought to be conveyed in the Christian sacrament of transubstantiation. The bread and wine that the initiate has to take in represent— are or become actually and physically, as the Christian mystics assert—the flesh and blood of Christ. One has to become the Divine Person in flesh and blood, wholly and integrally. As the fossil is a transmutation in stone, grain by grain, of a living body—organic elements\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">eliminated and replaced by the inorganic in the very atomic structure and constitution— even so, the living human structure, the mental, vital and physical formation will be translated, grain by grain, atom by atom into the divine substance by the infusion and imposition of the Divine figure.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Christian mystics themselves, however, do not seem to have aimed at real physical transubstantiation—although that might have been at the back of the older Hebrew sacrament of the Eucharist; the perfection sought by them was to be enjoyed in Heaven in company of the Father and not on this earth and in this human body: it was more a sublimation than a transformation that was their goal. The flesh for them was always too weak.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_The Divine Man','','publish','closed','open','','002_the-divine-man','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_the-divine-man/',0,'post','',0),(1569,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-006_The Freedom and the Force of the Spirit.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">V\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">THE FREEDOM AND THE FORCE OF THE SPIRIT\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe first thing that has to be learnt in life is that circumstances are not all in all: however powerful and overwhelming they may appear to be at a given moment, man can always react against them. If there is not an immediate success externally as desired, the will thus exerted does not go in vain. First of all, it declares and asserts the independence and autonomy of the inner man: something within is found and established which is not touched by the environment, which lives by its own authentic truth and reality and is ever contented and happy. It is in reference to such a poise of consciousness that the great poet says: \n</p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">A mind not to be changed by place or time. \n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The mind is its own place, and in itself \n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Can make a Heaven of Hell......\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-61</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe soldier of an ideal, the martyr, bears testimony to the reality of this mental condition: the Yogi is he who is supremely indifferent to outside contacts <i>(matrasparshah), </i>fixed as he is in inner union with the Divine. Secondly, the freedom of the will not only liberates the inner person, but exerts a pressure on the outside also, upon the field and circumstances, obliging them to change or move in the direction and according to the demand of the will. Consciousness has this power: only all depends on the nature of the consciousness and the will it embodies. For consciousness-will has varying degrees and levels of its potential. A will belonging to the purely mental consciousness can have only a very limited result and may not even show itself at all in any external modification. For it is only one among a million contending forces and its effect will depend upon the allies it can count on its side. Similar is the case with a vital will or a physico-vital will: these are more effective apparently but always in a narrow field; the narrower the field, the greater the possibility of the effectiveness. Moreover a mental will affects chiefly the mental field, a vital will is directly operative\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-62</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in the vital world,- even as a physical force is effective on physical things: each is largely confined to its own domain, the effect on other domains is for the most part indirect and remote.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the truly effective will, the will that can produce an all-round change, comes from a still higher or deeper source. Indeed, the will that never fails, that turns even the external circumstances, adverse and obstructive though they appear to be, to serve it is the will of the soul, the spiritual being in us. And man is man, not a mere animal, because he has been called upon to seek and find his soul, to get at his inner and inmost being and from there command his external nature and outside circumstances too. The orthodox name for this endeavour is spiritual discipline or Yoga.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOn lower levels, a conscious will made up of a compound energy of the mental and vital and physical will, when in sufficient proportions, has considerable effective force: great men of action have this distinction. Even then, however, theirs is not that type which is absolute or never-failing, nor that especial category which will bring about a collective change, a fundamental  change,  intensive as well as\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-63</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">extensive, needed at this evolutionary crisis of earth and humanity.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe ordinary average man is part and parcel of Nature\'s movement and his life is almost wholly moulded by circumstances: he has not developed an independent inner being that can react against the universal Nature\'s current, that is to say, the Nature as it is, as it is actually and dynamically expressed. He is the creature, described graphically in the Gita, as being moved helplessly on the circling wheel of Ignorance. But even among the average men there are many who are called men of will, they are not entirely submerged in Nature\'s current, but endeavour to have their own way even against that current. Their psycho-vital, aided often by their physical consciousness, has an independent formation, being a strong centre of self-driven force, and can impress upon the outer Nature and circumstances its own pattern and disposition. Naturally, all depends upon the degree and character of that consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the true secret of the power to control and guide Nature\'s dispensation lies along a different line, not along the line of the normal\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-64</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">activity of the mental and vital and physical consciousness. Body and life and mind belong after all, at least are closely affiliated, to one\'s environmental consciousness; they are indeed part of the circumstances in which one is born and lives and moves. It is when one by-passes them or passes through them beyond into one\'s soul, into one\'s true being and divine personality that one at last crosses mortality and attains immortality—<i>mrityum tirtva amritam ashnute.</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-65</p></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-006_The Freedom and the Force of the Spirit','','publish','closed','open','','006_the-freedom-and-the-force-of-the-spirit','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_the-freedom-and-the-force-of-the-spirit/',0,'post','',0),(1570,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-007_To Be or not to Be.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VI\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">TO BE OR NOT TO BE\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA moral problem, <i>un cas de conscience </i>(a case of conscience), as they say in French. To defend yourself against your attacker and kill him who comes to kill you or stand disarmed and let yourself be killed—which is better, which has the greater moral value? To fight your enemy is normal, is human. To preserve yourself, that is to say, your body, is the very first injunction of Nature. That is Nature\'s primary and fundamental demand. And to preserve one\'s life one has to take others\' life. That is also Nature. But then, it is said, man is meant to rise above Nature, live (even if it means to die) according to a higher law—not the biological law, the law of tooth and claw. The higher law is for the preservation of life indeed, but others\'-life, not one\'s own, if it comes to that; it is not self-centred, but wholly other-regarding,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-66</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">it is for harmony, for peace and amity, not violence and battle. If one demurs and points out that it requires two to be friends and at peace, the answer is that one side must begin, and the merit goes to him who begins. One need not worry about the other side, which may be left to follow its own law of life, which, however, can be gained over only in this way and not by compulsion or coercion or violence. <i>Na hi verena verani samantidha kudachana. </i>Never by enmity is enmity appeased, says the Dhammapada.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is a way of cutting the Gordian knot. But the problem is not so simple as the moralist would have it. Resist not evil: if it is made an absolute rule, would not the whole world be filled with evil? Evil grows much faster than good. By not resisting evil one risks to perpetuate the very thing that one fears; it deprives the good of its chance to approach or get a foothold. That is why the Divine Teacher declares in the Gita that God comes down upon earth, assuming a human body, to protect the good and slay the wicked, slay not metaphorically but actually and materially, as he did on the field of the Kurus.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-67</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a complex problem and the solution too is complex. The Gita—and Hinduism generally—does not posit a universal <i>dharma,<sub> </sub></i>but a hierarchy of dharmas. Men have different natures; so their duties, their functions and activities, their paths of growth and development must naturally be different. A rigid rule does not fit in with the facts of life, and the more absolute it is, the less efficacy it possesses as a living reality. Therefore in the Indian social scheme, there is one dharma for the Brahmin and another for the Kshatriya, a third for the Vaishya and a fourth for the Shudra.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Brahmin is he who represents in his nature and character the principle and movement of knowledge, of comprehension and inclusion, of peace and harmony—all the qualities that are termed <i>sattwic. </i>A Brahmin does not fight, the very build of his consciousness prevents him from wounding and hurting; he has no enemy; even if he is attacked or killed, he does not raise his arm to protect himself (although Ramakrishna would prescribe even for him a modified or mollified mode of resisting the evil, hissing at least if not biting). The Biblical injunction, we know,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-68</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">is to present the other cheek too to the smiter. This is for those who follow the Brahminical discipline. But a Kshatriya, who in his nature and consciousness is a warrior, has another dharma; he is the armed guard of knowledge and truth, he is strength and force. He has to resist the evil in the name of the Lord, he has to raise his arm to strike. He is the instrument of Rudra and Mahakali. Does not the mighty goddess declare—&quot;I draw the bow for Rudra, I hurl the arrow to slay the hater of the truth&quot;? If the Kshatriya does not follow his own dharma, but seeks to imitate the Brahmin, he brings about a confusion liable to disintegrate the society, he is then un-Aryan, inglorious, unworthy of heaven, deserving all the epithets which Sri Krishna heaped upon the dejected, depressed and confused Arjuna. So long as the world is held by brute force, so long as there is the sway of evil power over the material earth and the physical body, there will be the need to resist it physically: if I do not do it, other instruments will be found. I may say like Arjuna, overwhelmed with pity and grief, &quot;I shall not fight&quot;, but God and the cosmic deities may\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-69</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">refuse my refusal and compel me to do what in my ignorance and wrong-headedness I would not like to do.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere lies the secret and the solution of the problem. It is indeed the solution given for all ages by the Gita. There will always be a problem, a difficult decision to make—a division in the consciousness—so long as one is in the realm of dualities, in one\'s mental being and consciousness, ruled by relativities and contingencies. There one cannot but have a divided loyalty. A part of you, for example, is loyal to your family, another to your country, a third to yourself or to some ideal which you have set up. And naturally man feels confused in the midst of their conflicting claims and is at a loss to choose. Therefore, the Gita says, the highest law, the supreme code of conduct, is the Divine Will. And the only work and labour for man is to discover and identify oneself with this Divine Will. &quot;Abandon all other standards of conduct, take refuge in Me alone.&quot; That is the supreme secret of human life—as well as of the Life Divine.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo know the Divine Will and to be one with it is not easy, to be sure. But that is the only\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-70</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">radical solution. That has got to be done, if one is to come out of the chaos he is in.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnce in this status of the divine consciousness, one passes beyond the three Gunas. That is to say, one bids good-bye to one\'s (the human sense of) freedom and option of choice. One can say no longer, I cannot do it, for it seems immoral, I have to do that, because that seems good. One goes beyond good and bad and awaits the divine command. One does what one is ordered to do from above, what is needed to fulfil the Cosmic Purpose. You do not act then, it is the Divine who acts in you.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt may be asked if even then there are not some types of activity and impulsion that are intrinsically evil, undivine—they can under no circumstances be godly or God\'s instruments, they have to be rejected, cast aside in the very beginning, also in the middle and naturally in the end. But it must be remembered that the human mind cannot be the judge of what is divine or undivine, there are things the Divine may sanction which the mental being fights shy of. It must leave it to the Divine to choose His instrument and His mode of activity— it is sufficient if the mental being knows by\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-71</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nwhom it is impelled and where it falls as an arrow shot to its mark: <i>keneshitam patati preshitam.</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYes, there is one thing intrinsically evil and undivine and that has to be rejected and cast aside ruthlessly—that is nothing else than the egoistic consciousness. It is this that has passions and prejudices, likes and dislikes, ideas and ideals, formations of its own, other deities installed in place of the Divine Truth and Reality. The ego goes indeed and with it also those rhythms and stresses, lines and shades germane to it that bar the free flow of the Supreme Breath. But the instrument remains and the arms and the weapons—they are cleansed and sanctified: instead of the Asura wielding them, it is now the gods, the Divine Himself who possess and use them.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-72</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-007_To Be or not to Be','','publish','closed','open','','007_to-be-or-not-to-be','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_to-be-or-not-to-be/',0,'post','',0),(1571,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Contents.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">THE   YOGA OF SRI   AUROBINDO</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Part Four</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">CONTENTS</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<a href=\"the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-001_Pre_Content\">Pre-Content</a></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n	<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"4\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-002_The-Divine-Man\">The Divine Man</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-003_Human-Progress\">Human Progress</a></p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-004_Consciousness-as-Energy\">Consciousness as \nEnergy</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-005_Evolution-of-the-Spiritual-Consciousness\">Evolution of the Spiritual\nConsciousness </a>\n</p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\" height=\"31\"></td>\n<td height=\"31\">\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-006_The-Freedom-and-the-Force-of-the-Spirit\">The Freedom and the Force\nof the Spirit</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-007_To-Be-or-not-to-Be\">To Be or not to \nBe</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\" height=\"38\"></td>\n<td height=\"38\">\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-008_Readings-in-Savitri-1\">Readings in &quot;Savitri&quot; \n1</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"44%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-009_Readings-in-Savitri-2\">Readings in &quot;Savitri&quot; \n2</a></p></td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n	</div>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-4-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1572,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-004_Consciousness as Energy.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">III\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">CONSCIOUSNESS AS ENERGY \n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">(1) \n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA live wire—through which an electric current, say of several thousand volts, is passing—looks quite innocent, motionless, inactive, almost inert. The appearance, needless to say, is deceptive. Even so the <i>still life </i>of a Yogin. Action does not consist merely in mechanical motion visible to the eye: intra-atomic movements that are subtle, invisible, hard to detect even by the most sensitive instruments, possess a tremendous potency, even to unimaginable degrees. Likewise in man, the extent of muscular flexions does not give the measure or potential of his activity. One cannot say that the first-line infantryman who rushes and charges, shoots, bayonets, kills and is killed is more active and dynamic than the general who sits quiet behind in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">a cabin and merely sends out orders. Vivekananda wandered about the whole of India, crossed the seas, traversed continents, undertook whirlwind campaigns—talking, debating, lecturing: it was a life superbly rich in muscular movements. By his side, Rama-krishna would appear quite tame—inactive, &quot;introvert&quot;: fewer physical displacements or muscular exercises marked his life. And yet, ask anyone who is in touch with the inner life of these great souls, he will tell you, Vivekananda is only a spark from the mighty and concentrated Energy that Ramakrishna was.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is this spiritual or Yogic Energy? Ordinary people, people with a modern mind, would concede at the most that there are two kinds of activity: (1) real activity—physical action, work, labour with muscle and nerve, and (2) passive activity—activity of mind and thought. According to the pragmatic standard especial, if not entire, importance is given to the first category; the other category, &quot;sicklied o\'er with the pale cast of thought&quot;, is held at a discount. The <i>thoughtful </i>people are philo-sophers at the most, they are ineffectual angels in this workaday world of ours. We need\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">upon earth people of sterner stuff, dynamic people who are not thought-bound, but know how to apply and execute their ideas, whatever they may be. Lenin was great, not because he had revolutionary ideas, but because he gave a muscular frame to them. Such people alone are the pragmatic, dynamic, useful category of humanity. The others are, according to the more radical leftist view, merely parasitic, and, according to a more generous liberal view, chiefly decorative elements in human society. Mind-energy can draw dream pictures, beautiful perhaps, but inane; it is only muscular energy that gives a living and material body—a local habitation and name—to what otherwise would be airy nothing.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEnergy, however, is not merely either muscular (physical) or cerebral. There are energies subtler than thought and yet more dynamic than the muscle (or the electric pile). One such, for example, is vital energy, although orthodox bio-chemists do not believe in any kind of vitalism that is something more than mere physico-chemical reaction. Indeed, this is the energy that counts in life; for it is this that brings about what we call success in the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">world. A man with push and go, as it is termed, is nothing but a person with abundant vital energy. But even of this energy there are gradations. It can be deep, controlled, organised or it can be hectic, effusive, confused: the latter kind expresses and spends itself often in mere external, nervous and muscular movements. Those, however, who are known as great men of action are precisely they who are endowed with life energy of the first kind.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Yogi—the Hatha Yogi, the Raja Yogi, the Tantrik—seeks consciously to master this life energy, to possess and use it as he wills. The Yogi, the true Yogi, aims at a higher quality, a deeper potentiality of the life energy: it may be called the Inner Life Energy. This inner life energy is in a line with, is one with the universal life energy; therefore it is said when one possesses and controls this power one has command over the universal power. All other energies—visible, tangible, concretised and canalised—are particular formations and embodiments of this mother energy. Even the most physical and material energies— mechanical, electrical, nervous, etc.—are all derivatives and lesser potentials of this\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">fount and origin. The mastery of the inner vital energy is the whole secret of what is known as occultism, even magic, black or white, spell and other allied powers or miracles. The eight <i>siddhis </i>well-known to the Yogis are the natural results of this mastery. With such a mastery the Yogi controls and guides his own destiny; he can also in the same way control and guide the destiny of others, even of peoples and humanity at large. That is the deeper meaning the great phrase of the Gita— <i>lokasangraha</i>—carries. Indeed, great souls are precisely they who move with the upward current of Nature, in and through whom Nature works out vast changes, prepares the steps of evolution in the world and humanity.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut what again is this universal vital energy? This also is an instrument, not the ultimate agent. After all, vital energy is blind by itself; it moves instinctively or intuitively, as Bergson would say; it does not know consciously beforehand the next step it is going to take. Consciousness then is the secret. This is &quot;the power behind the throne&quot;, it is this to which the Upanishad refers in its analysis of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">ultimate dynamics of things as the life of Life, <i>Pranasya pranah.</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is the aim of all Yoga, spiritual discipline, finally to arrive at this consciousness, this supreme reality which is behind all existence, which is the source and the substance of all. It is in this Consciousness that the whole creation is rolled up and it is from this that it is rolled out. Only there are some paths of spiritual discipline that prefer and follow the movement of in-rolling and others that seek the one of out-rolling: the former is the path of <i>nivritti, </i>the latter that of <i>pravritti.</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus consciousness is not merely a status of being, but also a force of becoming. All that is to take form and be active, whether in the grossest, the material mode or in the most subtle, the ideative mode is originally a seed, a stress, a point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or close to the Divine <i>(salokya), </i>he is not merely made in the image of the Divine <i>(sarupya), </i>and again he is not merely unified\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">and one with the Divine <i>(sayujya) </i>but what is most marvellous, he has the same nature, that is to say, he has the same powers and capacities as the Divine <i>(sadharmya).</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe dynamic becoming, becoming a power and personality of the omnipotent Divine, is a secret well-known to the Yogis and mystics. Only it has not been worked out in all its implications, not given the full value and importance rightfully due to it. The reason is that although the principle was discovered and admitted, the proper key had not been found that could release and manipulate the Energy at its highest potential and largest amplitude. Because the major tendency in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the path of <i>nivritti </i>than the path of <i>pravritti, </i>this latter path being more or less identified with the path of Ignorance. But there is a higher line of <i>pravritti </i>which means the manifestation of the Divine, not merely the expression of the inferior Nature.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">(2)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe force of consciousness is not simply the force an  idea or thought may have. The\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">distinction between the two is not usually understood. In reality, however, thought or idea is a form of energy-action in the mind and mind is only one field or grade—not the most dynamic nor direct or immediate—among many for the play of consciousness, as I have already said. Mind energy, life energy, physical or material energy are various forms and stages in the expression of consciousness-energy (Chit-Tapas). The nature and function of consciousness-energy we may elucidate and understand in another way, by following a different line of its <i>modus vivendi.</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nConsciousness has a fourfold potential. The first is the normal consciousness, which is predominantly mental; it is the sphere comprising movements of which man is usually and habitually aware. It is what the Upanishad names <i>jagrat </i>or <i>jagaritasthana </i>and characterises as <i>bahihprajna: </i>it is the waking state and has cognition only of external things. In other words, the consciousness here is wholly objec-tivised, externalised—&quot;extravert&quot;: it is also a strongly individualised formation, the consciousness is hedged in, isolated and contoured by  a   protective   ring, as it were, of a\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">characteristically separative personality; it is a surface formation, a web made out of day-today sensations and thoughts, perceptions and memories, impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions against or in the midst of one\'s actual environment. The second potential is that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness here is no longer trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or One \nwith the world consciousness. It looks \nupon its individuality as only a wave of theuniversal movement. It is also \nsometimes called the subliminal consciousness; for it plays below or behind the \nnormal surface range of consciousness. It is made up of the residuary \npowers of the normal consciousness, the abiding vibrations and stresses that \nsettle down and remain in the background and are not immediately required or \nutilised for life purposes: also it contacts directly energies and movements \nthat well out of the universal life. The phenomena of clairvoyance and \nclairaudience, the knowledge of the past and the future and of other worlds and \npersons and</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-40</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">beings, certain more dynamic movements such as distant influence and guidance and controlling-without any external means, well known in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of the power of this Inner Consciousness. But there is not only an outward and an inner consciousness; there is also a deeper or nether consciousness. This is the great field that has been and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called the subconscious, sometimes also the unconscious: but really it should be named the inconscient, for it is not altogether devoid of consciousness, but is conscious in its own way—the consciousness is involved or lost within itself or lies buried. It comprises those movements and impulsions, inclinations and dispositions that have no rational basis, on the contrary, have an irrational basis; they are not acquired or developed by the individual in his normal course of life experience, they are ingrained, lie imbedded in man\'s nature and are native to his original biological and physical make-up. As the human embryo recapitulates in the womb the whole history of man\'s animal evolution, even so the normal man, even the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-41</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">most civilised and apparently the farthest from his ancient moorings and sources, enshrines in his cells, in a miraculously living manner, the memory of vast geological epochs, the great struggles and convulsions through which earth and its inhabitants have passed, the basic urges of the crude life force, its hopes, fears, desires, hungers that constitute the rudimental and aboriginal consciousness, the atavism that links the man of today not only to his primitive ancestry but even to the plant world—even perhaps to the mineral world—out of which his body cells have issued and evolved. Legends and fairy tales, mythologies and fables are a rationalised pattern and picture of the vibrations and urges that moved the original consciousness. It was a collective—a racial—and an aboriginal consciousness. The same lies <i>chromosomic, </i>one can almost say, in the constitution of the individual man of today. This region of the unconscious (or the inconscient) is a veritable field of force: it lies at the root of all surface dynamisms. The surface consciousness, <i>jag-rat, </i>is a very small portion of the whole, it is only the tip of the pyramid or an iceberg,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-42</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the major portion lies submerged beyond our normal view. In reflex movements, in sudden unthinking outbursts, in dreams and daydreams, this undercurrent is silhouetted and made visible and recognisable. Even otherwise, they exercise a profound influence upon all our conscious movements. This underground consciousness is the repository of the most dark and unenlightened elements that grew and flourished in the slime of man\'s original habitat. They are small, ugly, violent, antisocial, chaotic forces, their names are cruelty, lust, hunger, blind selfishness. Nowhere else than in this domain can the great Upanishadic truth find its fullest application—Hunger that is Death.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut this is the seamy side of Nature, there is also a sunny side. If there is a nadir, there must be a corresponding zenith. In the Vedic image, if man is born of the Dark Mother, he is also a child of the White Mother <i>(krishna </i>and <i>shveti). </i>Or again, if earth is our mother, the Heaven is our father—<i>dyaur me pita mata prithivi iyam. </i>In other words, consciousness extends not in depth alone, but in height also —it is vertically extended, infinite both ways.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-43</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">As there is a subconsciousness or unconsciousness, so also there is at the other end super-consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow this superconsciousness is the true origin of creation, although the apparent and objective creation starts with and is based upon Unconsciousness. All norms and archetypes belong to the superconsciousness; for the sake of material creation they are thrown down or cast as seed into the Unconscious and in this process they undergo a change, a deformation and aberration. All the major themes of dream myths and prehistoric legends which the psychologists claim to have found imbedded in man\'s subconscient Consciousness are in fact echoes and mirages of great spiritual —superconscient—realities reflected here below. The theme of the Hero, of the Dual Mother (Dark and Fair), of Creation and Sacrifice, these are, according to Jung, dramatisations of some fundamental movements and urges in the dark subconscient nature. Jung however throws a luminous suggestion in characterising the nature of this vast complex. The general sense, Jung says, is that of a movement forward, of a difficult\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-44</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">journey, of a pull backward and downward, of yawning abysses that call, of a light that beckons. It is an effort, a travail of what lies imbedded and suppressed to come out into the open, into the normal consciousness and thus release an unhealthy tension, restore a balance in the individual\'s system. Modern psychology lays great stress upon the integration of personality. Most of the ills that human nature suffers from, they say, are due to this division or schism in it, a suppressed subconsciousness and an expressed consciousness seeking to express a negation of that subconsciousness. Modern psychology teaches that one should dive into the nether regions and face squarely whatever elements are there, help these to follow their natural bent to come up and see the light of the day. Only thus there can be established a unitary movement, an even consistency and an equilibrium throughout the entire consciousness and being.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo far so good. But two things are to be taken note of. First of all, the resolution of the normal conflict in man\'s consciousness, the integration of his personality, is not wholly practicable within the scope of the present\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-45</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">nature and the field of the actual forces at play. That can give only a shadow of the true resolution and integration. A conscious envisaging of the conflicting forces, a calm survey of the submerged or side-tracked <i>&quot;libidos&quot; </i>in their true nature, a voluntary acceptance of these dark elements as a part of normal human nature, does not automatically make for their sublimation and purification or transformation. The tiling is possible only through another force and on another level, by the intervention and interfusion precisely of the superconsciousness. And here comes the second point to note. For it is this super-consciousness towards which all the strife and struggle of the under-consciousness are turned and directed. The yearning and urge in the subconsciousness to move forward, to escape outside into the light does not refer merely to the march towards normal awareness and consciousness: it has a deeper direction and a higher aim—it seeks that of which it is an aberration and a deformation, the very origin and source, the height from which it fell.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis superconsciousness has a special mode of its quintessential energy which is \nomnipotent\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-46</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in action, immediate in effectivity. It is pure as the purest incandescent solar light and embodies the concentrated force of consciousness. It is the original creative vibration of the absolute or supreme Being. Sri Auro-bindo calls this supreme form of superconscient consciousness-energy, the Supermind. There are of course other layers and strata of super-consciousness leading up to the supermind which are of various potentials and embody different degrees of spiritual power and consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe have spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is also, we must now point out, an Inmost Consciousness. As the Super-consciousness is a consciousness-energy in height, the Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness. If we wish to put it geometrically, we can say, the vertical section of consciousness represents the line from the superconsciousness to the subconscious or <i>vice versa; </i>the horizontal section represents the normal waking state of consciousness; and there is a transverse section leading from the surface first to the Inner\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-47</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and finally to the Inmost. This inmost consciousness—the consciousness most profound and secreted in the cave of the heart, <i>guhahitam gahvareshtham,</i>—is the consciousness of the soul, the Psychic Being, as Sri Aurobindo calls it: it is the immortal in the mortal. It is, as has often been described, the nucleus round which is crystallised and organised the triple nature of man consisting of his mind and life and body, the centre of dynamic energy that secretly vivifies them, gradually purines and transforms them into higher functions and embodiments of consciousness. As a matter of fact, it is this inmost consciousness that serves as the link, at least as the most powerful link, between the higher and lower forms of consciousness, between the Super-conscient and the Subconscient or Inconscient. It takes up within itself all the elements of consciousness that the past in its evolutionary career from the very lowest and basic levels has acquired and elaborated, and by its inherent pressure and secret gestation delivers what was crude and base and unformed as the purest luminous noble substance of the perfectly   organised   superconscient  reality.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-48</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">Indeed that is the mystic alchemy which the philosophers experimented in the Middle Ages. In this context, the Inner Consciousness, we may note, serves as a medium through which the action of the Inmost (as well as that of the Uppermost) takes place.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe can picture the whole phenomenon in another way and say in the devotional language of the Mystics that the Inmost Consciousness is the Divine Child, the Superconscient is the Divine Father and the Inferior Consciousness is the Great Mother <i>(Magna Mater): </i>the Inner and the Outer Consciousness are the field of play and the instrument of action as well of this Divine Trinity.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan, we thus see, is an infinitely composite being. We have referred to the four or five major chords in him, but each one has again innumerable gradations of vibration. Man is a bundle or dynamo of energy and this energy is nothing but the force of consciousness. To different modes or potentials of this energy different names are given. And what makes the thing still more complex is that all these elements exist simultaneously and act simultaneously, although in various degrees and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-49</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">stresses. They act upon each other, and severally and collectively impress upon the nature and character of the individual being and mould and direct his physical status and pragmatic life. A man can however take consciously a definite position and status, identify himself with a particular form and force of consciousness and build bis being and life in the truth and rhythm of that consciousness. Naturally the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on the physical plane in mundane affairs—Buddha, it is said for example, has not been able to rid the earth of age, disease and death (although it was not Buddha\'s intention to do so, his purpose was to show a way of escape, of by-passing the ills of life, and in that he wholly succeeded)—it only means that the right mode or potential of spiritual energy has not been found; for that matter even the mightiest mundane forces are not sovereignly effective in mundane affairs, otherwise the Nazi-Force would have been ruling the world today.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-50</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nStill it must be remembered that all these apparently diverse layers and degrees of being or consciousness or energy form essentially one indivisible unity and identity. What is called the highest and what is called the lowest are not in reality absolutely disparate and incommensurable entities: everywhere it is the highest that lies secreted and reigns supreme. The lowest is the highest itself seen from the reverse \nside, as it\nwere: the norms and typal truths \nthat obtain in the superconsciousness are also the very guiding formulas and \nprinciples in the secret heart of the Inconscience too, only they appear \nexternally as deformations and caricatures of their true reality. But even here \nwe can tap and release the full force of a superconscient energy. A particle of \ndead matter, we know today, is a mass of stilled energy, electrical and radiant\nin \nnature; even so an apparently inconscient \nentity is a packet of Superconsciousness in its highest potential of energy. The \nsecret of releasing this atomic energy of the Spirit is found \nin the Science \nof Yoga.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-51</p>\n	</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_Consciousness as Energy','','publish','closed','open','','004_consciousness-as-energy','','','2021-11-23 17:21:45','2021-11-23 17:21:45','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_consciousness-as-energy/',0,'post','',0),(1573,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-009_Readings in Savitri 2.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">READINGS IN &quot;SAVITRI&quot;\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">(2)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSavitri, the Divine Grace in human form, is upon earth. The Divine Consciousness has abandoned its own supreme transcendental status to enter into the human consciousness and partake of the earthly life: it has taken up a mortal frame, to Jive and dwell here below. Only thus she can transform the lower animal nature into the divine nature, raise man to godhead, make of earth heaven itself.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA prodigal of her rich divinity,\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHer self and all she was she had lent to men,\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHoping her greater being to implant\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat heaven might native grow in mortal soil.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the task is not easy. The flesh is weak: it is incapable of holding or receiving the breath of immortality. Not only so, it has a positive aversion, a bad will: it is refractory, antipathetic to the touch of the spirit. Matter is dull and dumb, dark and obdurate: mortality loves and clings jealously and exclusively to its mortal home. The earthly being does not know, cannot appreciate the gift, the boon that is brought to him, to his very door: he has only\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-77</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">to receive and accept in order to be saved out of all ignorance and grief, impotence and death. The Divine Mother has forgotten herself, has made herself as small and as close and native to earth as any earthly creature, like any one of us, taken upon herself all limitations and indignities, the entire burden of an earthly life, graced with her presence this mortal atmosphere. But\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHard is it to persuade earth-nature\'s change;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMortality bears ill the eternal\'s touch:\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt fears the pure divine intolerance\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOf its assault of ether and of fire;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt murmurs at its sorrowless happiness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAlmost with hate repels the light it brings...\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs, however, &quot;mortality bears ill the eternal\'s touch&quot;, the eternal too is intolerant of the mortal nature—only it is intolerant not in the ignorant blind squeamish weak human way, but in a divine way, for it is armed with weapons of light and knowledge, it assaults with its luminous force, the energy of ether and fire, the higher and nobler elements as against the dense dark dumb earth, the lowest element that clothes the human consciousness. Indeed,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-78</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">mortality is enamoured of the tangled beam of joy and sorrow, of laughter and tears, of light and shadow and cannot contemplate the unalloyed sheer delight in Eternity. It is out of breath in the serene rarefied air of immortality; it pines for the <i>terra firma, </i>the mud and slime. The human consciousness has been fleeing the Hound of Heaven down the corridors of Time, and yet it will be caught in the end and wholly transmuted in the divine embrace into the substance of the Divine Himself. All the unwillingness and protestation and revolt are meant to forge and hammer the final union into something perfect, faultless, absolute.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-79</p></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-009_Readings in Savitri 2','','publish','closed','open','','009_readings-in-savitri-2','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_readings-in-savitri-2/',0,'post','',0),(1574,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-008_Readings in Savitri 1.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">VII\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">READINGS IN &quot;SAVITRI&quot;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(1)\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> A guardian of the unconsoled abyss \n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> Inheriting the long agony of the globe, \n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> A stone-still figure of high and godlilke\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> Pain Stared into space with, fixed regardless eyes \n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> That saw grief\'s timeless depths but not life\'s goal.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAfflicted by his harsh divinity,\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBound to his throne, he waited unappeased\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe daily oblation of her unwept tears.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"> Book 1 Canto 1.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe deepest and the most fundamental mystery of the human consciousness (and in fact of the earth consciousness) is not that there is an unregenerate aboriginal being there as its bed-rock, a being made of the very stuff of ignorance and inconscience and inertia that is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-73</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Matter: it is this that the submerged being is not merely dead matter, but a concentrated, a solidified flame, as it were, a suppressed aspiration that burns inwardly, all the more violent because it is not articulate and in the open. The aboriginal is that which harbours in its womb the original being. That is the Inconscient Godhead, the Divinity in pain— <i>Mater Dolorosa</i>—the Divine Being who lost himself totally when transmuted into Matter and yet is harassed always by the oestrus of a secret flame driving it to know itself, to find itself, to be itself again. It is Rudra, the Energy coiled up in Matter and forging ahead towards a progressive evolution in light and consciousness. That is what Savitri, the universal Divine Grace become material and human, finds at the core of her being, the field and centre of concentrated struggle, a millennial aspiration petrified, a grief of ages congealed, a divinity lone and benumbed in a trance. This divinity has to awake and labour. The god has to be cruel to himself, for his divinity demands that he must surpass himself, he cannot abdicate, let Nature go her own way, the inferior path of ease and escape. The\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-74</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">godhead must exercise its full authority, exert all its pressure upon itself— <i>tapas taptva— </i>and by this heat of incubation release the energy that leads towards the light and the high fulfilment. In the meanwhile, the task is not easy. The divine sweetness and solicitude lights upon this hardened divinity: but the inertia of the Inconscient, the \'Pani\', hides still the light within its rocky cave and would not deliver it. The Divine Grace, mellow with all the tears of love and sympathy and tenderness she has gathered for the labouring godhead, has pity for the hard lot of a humanity stone-bound to the material life, yet yearning and surging towards freedom. The godhead is not consoled or appeased until that freedom is achieved and light and immortality released. The Grace is working slowly, laboriously perhaps but surely to that end: the stone will wear down and melt one day. Is that fateful day come?\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat is the meaning of human life, the significance of even the very ordinary human life. It is the field of a &quot;dire debate&quot;, &quot;a fierce question&quot;, a constant struggle between the two opposing or rather polar forces, the will of aspiration &quot;to be&quot; and the will&quot; of inertia &quot;not\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-75</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to be&quot;—the friction, to use a Vedic image, of the two batons of the holy sacrificial wood, <i>ardni, </i>out of which the flame is to leap forth. The pain and suffering men are subject to in this unhappy vale of tears—physical illness and incapacity, vital frustration or mental confusion—are symbols and expressions of a deeper fundamental Pain. That pain is the pain of labour, the travail for the birth and incarnation of a godhead asleep or dead. Indeed, the sufferings and ills of life are themselves powerful instruments. They inevitably lead to the Bliss, they are the fuel that kindles, quickens and increases the Fire of Ecstasy that is to blaze up on the day of victory in the full and integral spiritual consciousness. The round of ordinary life is not vain or meaningless: its petty innocent-looking moments and events are the steps of the marching Divinity. Even the commonest life is the holy sacrificial rite progressing, through the oblations of our experiences, bitter or sweet, towards the revelation and establishment of the immortal godhead in man.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-76</p></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-008_Readings in Savitri 1','','publish','closed','open','','008_readings-in-savitri-1','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_readings-in-savitri-1/',0,'post','',0),(1575,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-003_Human Progress.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">II\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">HUMAN PROGRESS\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nCreation has evolved. That is to say, there has been a growth and unfoldment and progress. From nebulae to humanity the march cannot but be called an advance, a progress, in more senses than one. But the question is about man. Has man advanced, progressed since his advent upon earth? If so, in what manner, to what extent? Man has been upon earth for the last two million years, they say. From what has happened before him in the course of Nature\'s evolution, it is legitimate to infer that man too, in his turn, has moved forward in the line towards growth and development. In fact, if we admit that man started life as a savage or jungle-man or ape-man, and look at him as he is today, we have perforce to acknowledge that he has not merely changed but progressed too.  The question to be\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">answered is in what sense this progress has been made.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nModern knowledge has taught us that what marks the growth of man is his use of tools. An animal has nothing else than its own limbs as its all-serving tool. Man emerged as man the day he knew how to use tools as an extension of his limbs. And the cycles of human growth have, in consequence, been marked off by the type of tools used. As we all know, anthropologists tell us, there have been four such cycles or ages: (i) the Old Stone Age, (2) the New Stone Age, (3) the Bronze Age and (4) the Iron Age.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the first age, which is by far the longest period, a period of slow and difficult preparation, man had his first lessons in a conscious and victorious dealing with Nature. The day when he first started chipping a stone was a red-letter day for him; for, by that very gesture he began shredding his, purely animal vesture. And when he not only chipped but succeeded in grinding and polishing a piece of stone, he moved up one step further and acquired definitely his humanity. Again, ages afterwards when his hand could wield and manipulate</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">as it liked not only a stone but a metal, his skill and dexterity showed a development unique in its kind, establishing and fixing man\'s manhood as a new emergent factor. In this phase also there was a first period of training and experiment, the period of craftsmanship in Bronze; with the age of iron, man\'s arms and fingers attained a special deftness and a conscious control directed from a cranium centre which has become by now a model of rich growth and complex structure and marvellous organisation. The impetus towards more and more efficiency in the making and handling of tools has not ceased: the craftsmanship in iron soon led to the discovery of steel and steel industry. The temper and structure of steel are symbolic and symptomatic of the temper and structure of the brain that commands the weapon—strong, supple, resistant, resilient, capable of fineness and sharpness and trenchancy to an extraordinary degree.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis growing fineness and efficiency of the tool has served naturally to develop and enrich man\'s external possession and dominion. But this increasing power and dominion over\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Nature is not the most important consequence involved; it is only indicative of still greater values, something momentous, something subjective pregnant with far-reaching possibilities. For the physical change is notning compared with the psychological change, the change in the consciousness. In taking up his tool to chip a stone man has started hewing out and moulding entire Nature: he has become endowed with the sense of independence and agency. An animal is a part and parcel of Nature, has no life and movement apart from the life and movement of Nature—even like Wordsworth\'s child of Nature—\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nRolled round in earth\'s diurnal course \n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> With rocks and stones and trees.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAn animal does not separate itself from Nature, exteriorise it and then seek to fashion it as he wants, try to make it yield things he requires. Man is precisely man because he has just this sense of self and of not-self and his whole life is the conquest of the not-self by the self: this is the Whole story of his evolution. In the early stages his sense of agency and selfhood is at its minimum. The rough-hewn flint\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">instruments are symbolic of the first attempts of the brain to set its impress upon crude and brute nature. The history of man\'s artisan-ship, which is the history of his civilisation, is also the history of his growing self-consciousness. The consciousness in its attempt to react upon nature separated itself from Nature, and at first stood over against it and then sought to stand over and above it. In this process of extricating itself from the sheath in which it was involved and fused, it came back upon itself, became more and more aware of its freedom and individual identity and agency.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe question is now asked how far this self-consciousness—given to man by his progress from stone to steel—has advanced and what is its future. The crucial problem is whether man has progressed in historical times. Granted that man with an iron tool is a more advanced type of humanity than man with a chipped stone tool, it may still be inquired whether he has made any real advance since the day he learnt to manipulate metal. If by advance or progress we mean efficiency and multiplication of tools, then surely there can be no doubt that\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Germany of today (perhaps now we have to say Germany of yesterday and America of today) is the most advanced type of humanity—indeed they do make the claim in that country.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo it is argued that man may have built up more and more efficient organisation in his outer life, he may have learnt to wield a greater variety and wealth of tools and instruments in an increasing degree of refinement and power; but this does not mean that his character, his nature or even the broad mould of his intelligence has changed or progressed. The records and remains of Predynastic Egypt or of Proto-Aryan Indus valley go to show that those were creations of civilised men, as civilised as any modern people. The mind that produced the Rig Veda or the Book of the Dead or conceived the first pyramid is, in essential power of intelligence, no whit inferior to any modern scientific brain. Hence a distinction is sometimes made between culture and civilisation; what the moderns have achieved is progress with regard to civilisation, that is to say, the outer paraphernalia; but as regards culture a Plato, a Laotse, a Yajnavalkya are names to which we still bow down.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOne can answer however that even if in the last eight or ten thousand years which, they say, is the extent of the present cycle, the civilised or cultural life of humanity has not changed much, this does not mean that it cannot and will not change. The paleolithic age, it appears, covered a period of 30 to 40 thousand years; the neolithic age also must have lasted some fifteen thousand years. The metal age is now not more than ten thousand years. So it does not seem to be too late; perhaps it is just time for another radical and crucial change to come as the chronological scheme would seem to demand.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe propose, however, to reopen the question and inquire if there has not been some kind of radical change or progress in the make-up of human nature and civilisation even within the span of historical times. This reminds us of the remarkable conclusion or discovery made by the much maligned and much adulated Psycho-analysts.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nJung speaks of two kinds or grades of thinking : (1) the directed thinking and (2) the wishful thinking; one conscious and objective, the other automatic and subjective. The first\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-19</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">is the modern or scientific thinking, the second the old-world mythopoeic thinking. These two lines of mental movement mark off two definite stages in the cultural history of man. Down to the Middle Ages man\'s mental life was moved and coloured by his <i>libido</i>—desire-soul; it is with the Renascence that he began to free his mind from the libido and transfer and transform the libido into non-egoistic and realistic thinking. In simpler psychological terms we can say that man\'s mentality was coloured and modulated by his biological make-up out of which it had emerged; the age of modernism and scientism began with the development of a rigorous rationalism which means a severance and transcendence of the biological antecedent.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn other words it can be said that the older humanity was intuitive and instinctive, while modern humanity is rationalistic. Now it has been questioned whether this change or reorientation is a sign of progress, whether it has not been at the most a mixed blessing. Many idealists and reformers frankly view the metamorphosis with anxiety. Gerald Heard vehemently declares that the rationalism of the modern age is a narrowing down of the consciousness\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-20</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">to a superficial movement, a foreshortening, and a top-heavy specialisation which means stagnation, decay and death. He would rather release the tension in the strangulation of consciousness, even if it means a slight coming down to the anterior level of instinct and intuition, but of more plasticity and less specialisation: it is, he says, only in conditions of suppleness and variability, of life organised yet sufficiently free that the forces of evolution can act fruitfully. It has also been pointed out that <i>homo sapiens </i>is not a direct descendant of <i>homo neanderthalis </i>who was already a far too specialised being, but of a stock anterior to it which was still uncertain, wavering, groping towards a definite emergence.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, these two positions—of Jung and of Heard—offer us a good basis upon which we can try to estimate the nature of man\'s progress in historical times. Both refer to a crucial change in human consciousness, a far-reaching change having no parallel since it invented the metal tool. The change means the appearance of pure intelligence in man, a change, as we may say, in modern terms, in the  system of reference,   from biological\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-21</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">coordinates to those of pure reason. Only Jung thinks that the reorganisation of the human consciousness is to happen precisely round the focus of pure reason, while Gerald Heard is doubtful about the efficacy of this faculty— of &quot;directive thinking&quot;, as Jung puts it—if it is to lead to overspecialisation, which means the swelling of one member and atrophy of the rest; a greater and supreme direction he seeks elsewhere in a transcendence of intelligence and reason which, besides, is bound to happen in the course of evolution.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe characterise the change as a special degree or order of self-consciousness. Self-consciousness, we have seen, is the <i>sine qua non </i>of humanity. It is the faculty or power by and with which man appears on earth and maintains himself as such, as a distinct species. Thanks to this faculty man has become the tool-making animal, the artisan—<i>homo faber. </i>But on emerging from the original mythopoeic to the scientific status man has become doubly self-conscious. Self-consciousness means to be aware of oneself as standing separate from and against the environment and the world and acting upon it as a free agent, exercising one\'s\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-22</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">deliberate will. Now the first degree of self-consciousness displayed itself in a creative activity by which consciousness remained no longer a suffering organon, but became agrowing and directing, a reacting and new-creating agent. Man gained the power to shape the order of Nature according to the order of his inner will and consciousness. This creative activity, the activity of the artisan, developed along two lines: first, artisanship with regard to one\'s own self, one\'s inner nature and character, and secondly, with regard to the external nature, the not-self. The former gave rise to mysticism and Yoga and was especially cultivated in India, while the second has led us to Science, man\'s physical mastery, which is the especial field of European culture.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow the second degree of self-consciousness to which we referred is the scientific consciousness par excellence. It can be described also as the spirit and power of experimentation, or more precisely, of scientific experimentation: it involves generically the process with which we are familiar in the domain of industry and is termed &quot;synthetic&quot;, that is to say, it means the skill and capacity to create the conditions\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">under which a given phenomenon can be repeated at will. Hence it means a perfect knowledge of the process of things—which again is a dual knowledge: (1) the knowledge of the steps gradually leading to the result and (2) the knowledge that has the power to resolve the result into its antecedent conditions. Thus the knowledge of the <i>mechanism, </i>the detailed working of things, is scientific knowledge, and therefore scientific knowledge can be truly said to be mechanistic knowledge, in the best sense of the term. Now the knowledge of the ends and the knowledge of the means (to use a phrase of Aldous Huxley) and the conscious control over either have given humanity a new degree of self-consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt can be mentioned here that there can be a knowledge of ends without a corresponding knowledge of means, even there can be a control over ends without a preliminary control over means—perhaps not to perfection, but to a sufficient degree of practical utility. Much of the knowledge—especially secular and scientific—in ancient times was of this order; what we mean to say is that the knowledge was more instinctive or intuitive than rational or\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-24</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">intellectual. In that knowledge the result only, the end that is to say, was the chief aim and concern, the means for attaining the end was, one cannot perhaps say, ignored, but slurred or slipped over as it were: the process was thus involved or understood, not expressed or detailed out. Thus we know of some mathematical problems to which correct solutions were given of which the process is not extant or lost as some say. Our suggestion is that there was in fact very little of the process as we know it now—the solution was reached <i>per saltum, </i>that is to say, somehow, in the same manner as we it find happening even today in child prodigies.\n</p>\n<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">\nOne can point out however that even before the modern scientific age, there was an epoch of pure intellectual activity, as represented, for example, by scholasticism. The formal intel-lectualism which was the gift of the Greek Sophists or the Mimansakas and grammarians in ancient India has to be recognised as a pure mental movement, freed from all life value or biological bias. What then is the difference? What is the new characteristic element brought in by the modern scientific intellectualism?\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-25</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe old intellectualism, generally and on the whole, was truly formal and even to a great extent verbal. In other words, it sought to find norms and categories in the mind itself and impose them upon objects, objects of experience, external or internal. The first discovery of the pure mind, the joy of indulging in its own free formations led to an abstraction that brought about a cleavage between mind and nature, and when a harmony was again attempted between the two, it meant an imposition of one (the Mind) upon another (Matter), a subsumption of the latter under the former. Such scholastic formalism, although it has the appearance of a movement of pure intellect, free from the influence of instinctive or emotive reactions, cannot but be, at bottom, a mythopoeic operation, in the Jungian phraseology; it is not truly objective in the scientific sense. The scientific procedure is to find Nature\'s own categories—the constants, as they are called—and link up mind and intellect with that reality. This is the Copernican revolution that Science brought about in the modern outlook. Philosophers like Kant or Berkeley may say another thing and even\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-26</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">science itself just nowadays may appear hesitant in its bearings. But that is another story which it is not our purpose to consider here and which does not change the fundamental position. We say then that the objectivity of the Scientific outlook, as distinguished from the abstract formalism of old world intellectualism, has given a new degree of mental growth and is the basis of the &quot;mechanistic&quot; methodology of which we have been speaking.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndeed, what we lay stress upon is the methodology of modern scientific knowledge—the apparatus of criticism and experimentation.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe have said that this &quot;methodologism&quot;— the knowledge of means and the consequent control over means—the hall-mark of modern scientific knowledge—is a new degree of self-consciousness which is the special characteristic of the human consciousness. Put philosophically, we can say that the discovery of the <i>subject </i>and its growing affirmation as an independent factor in a subject-object relation marks the evolutionary course of the human consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA still further unveiling seems to be in progress now. The subject has discovered itself\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-27</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">as separate from the observed object and still embracing it: but a given subject-object relationship in its turn again is being viewed as itself an object to another subject consciousness, a super-subject. That way lie the ever widening horizons of consciousness opened up by Yoga and spiritual discipline.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn other words, the self-consciousness which marks off man as the highest of living beings as yet evolved by Nature is still not her highest possible instrumentation. As has been experienced and foreseen by Yogins in all ages and climes and as it is being borne in upon the modern mind more and more imperatively, this self-consciousness has to be consciously transcended, lifted, transmuted—worked out into the superconsciousness. Such is Nature\'s evolutionary <i>nisus </i>and such is the truth and fact man is being driven to face in his inner individual consciousness as well as outer collective life.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe can thus note, broadly speaking, three stages in the human cycle of Nature\'s evolution. The first was the period of emergence of self-consciousness and the trials and experiments it went through to establish and confirm itself.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">The ancient civilisations represented this character of the human spirit. The subject freeing itself more and more from its environmental tegument, still living and moving within it and dynamically reacting upon it—this was the character we speak of. Next came the period when the free and dynamic subject feeling itself no more tied down to its natural objective sphere sought lines of development and adventure on its own account. This was the age of speculation and of scholasticism in philosophy and intellectual enquiry and of alchemy in natural science—a period roughly equated with the Middle Age. The Scientific Age coming last seeks to re-establish a junction and coordination between the free and dynamic self-consciousness and the mode and pattern of its objective field, involving a greater enrichment on one side—the subjective consciousness—and on the other, the objective environment, a corresponding change and effective reorganisation.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe present age which ushers a fourth stage—significantly called <i>turiya </i>or the transcendent, in Indian terminology—is pregnant with a fateful crisis.   The  stage of self-\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">consciousness to which scientific development has arrived seems to land in a <i>cul de sac, </i>a blind alley: Science also is faced, almost helplessly, with the antinomies of reason that Kant discovered long ago in the domain of speculative philosophy. The way out, for a further growth and development and evolution, lies in a supersession of the self-consciousness, an elevation into a superconsciousness—as already envisaged by Yogis and Mystics everywhere— which will give a new potential and harmony to the human consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis superconsciousness is based upon a double movement of sublimation and integration which are precisely the two things basically aimed at by present-day psychology to meet the demands of new facts of consciousness. The rationalisation, specialisation or foreshortening of consciousness, mentioned above, is really an attempt at sublimation of the consciousness, its purification and ascension from baser—animal and vegetal—confines: only, ascension does not mean alienation, it must mean a gathering up of the lower elements also into their higher modes. Integration thus involves a descent, but, it has to be\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">pointed out, not merely or exclusively that, as Jung and his school seem to say. Certainly one has to see and recognise the aboriginal, the infra-rational elements embedded in our nature and consciousness, the roots and foundations that lie buried under the super-structure that Evolution has erected. But that recognition must be accompanied by an upward look and sense: indeed it is healthy and fruitful only on condition that it occurs in a consciousness open to an infiltration of light corning from summits not only of the mind but above the mind. If we go back, it must be with a light that is ahead of us: that is the sense of evolution.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n	</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-003_Human Progress','','publish','closed','open','','003_human-progress','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_human-progress/',0,'post','',0),(1576,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-016_Panacea Of ^^ISMS^^.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n \n<p class=\"para_center\">PANACEA OF &quot;ISMS&quot;\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">COMMUNISM\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nCommunism cannot save humanity. For if it means the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, well, a healthy normal society will not bear or tolerate it long—no Dictatorship, whether of one or of many, is likely to endure or bring in the millennium. In that sense communism is only a <i>fascismo </i>of small people fighting against a <i>fascismo </i>of big people. A society is not normally made up of proletarians only: it does not consist merely of lotus-eaters nor does it consist of hewers of wood and drawers of water (peasants and labourers) alone. Even a proletariate society will slowly and inevitably gravitate towards a stratification of its own. In its very bosom\nthe bureaucracy, the military, the officialdom of a closed body will form a class of its own. A Lenin cannot prevent the advent of a Stalin. Even if the proletarians form the majority, by far a very large majority, even then the tyranny of the majority is as reprehensible as the tyranny of the minority. Communis</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-122</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\npins its faith on. struggle—the class struggle, it<i> </i>\nsays, is historically true and morally justifiable. But this is a postulate all are not bound to accept. Then again, if communism means also materialism (dialectical or any other), that also cannot meet and satisfy all the needs and urges of man, indeed it leaves out of account all the deeper yearnings that lie imbedded in him and that cannot be obliterated by a mere denial. For surely man does not live by bread alone, however indispensable that article may be to him: not even culture—the kind admitted by communism, severely intellectual, rational, scientific, pragmatic-can be the be-all and end-all of human civilisation. Communistic Russia attempted to sweep away all traces of religion and church and piety; the attempt does not seem to have been very successful.<i> </i>\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs a matter of fact, Communism is best taken as a symptom of the disease society suffers from and not as a remedy. The disease is a twofold bondage from which man has always been trying to free himself. It is fundamentally the same bondage which the great French Revolution sought most vigorously and violently to shake off—an economic and an ideological bondage, that is to say,\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-123</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">translated in the terms of those days, the tyranny of the court and the nobility and the tyranny of the Church. The same twofold bondage appears again today combated by Communism, viz., Capitalism and Bourgeoisie. Originally and essentially, however, Communism meant an economic system in which there is no personal property, all property being held in common. It is an ideal that requires a good deal of ingenuity to be worked out in all details, to say the least. Certain religious sects within restricted membership tried the experiment. Indeed some kind of religious mentality is required, a mentality freed from normal mundane reactions, as a preliminary condition in order that such an attempt might be successful. A perfect or ideal communism may be possible only when man\'s character and nature has undergone a thorough and radical change. Till then it will be a Utopia passing through various avatars.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">SOCIALISM\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNor can socialism remedy all the ills society suffers from, if it merely or mainly means the abolition of private enterprise and the assumption by the State of the entire\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-124</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">economic and even cultural or educational apparatus of the society. Even as an economic proposition State Socialism, which is only another name of Totalitarianism, is hardly an unmixed good. First of all, however selfish and profiteering the individual may be, still, one must remember that it is always the individual who is adventurous and inventive, it is he who discovers, creates new things and beautiful things. A collective or global enterprise makes for massiveness and quantity, but it means also uniformity, often a dead uniformity: for variety, for originality, as well as for the aesthetic tone and the human touch, the personal element is needed, seems to be indispensable. Education in such a system would mean a set routine and pattern, an antidote to another malady in the social  body—the panellation, the</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-125</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">fragmentation into a thousand petty interests-all aggressive and combative—of the economic strength of a community, and also the stupendous inequality and maldistribution of wealth and opportunity. But it brings in its own poison.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a great illusion, as has been pointed out by many, that a collective and impersonal body cannot be profiteers and war-mongers. A nation as a whole can very well be moved by greed and violence and <i>Sieglust </i>(passion for conquest)—Nazism has another name, it is also called National Socialism. Everything depends not upon the form, but the spirit that animates the form. It is the spirit, man\'s inner nature that is to be handled, dealt with and changed; outer systems and forms have only a secondary importance.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">NATIONALISM\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAgain, Nationalism is also not the <i>summum bonum </i>of collective living. The nation has emerged out of the family and the tribe as a greater unit of the human aggregate. But this does not mean that it is the last word on the subject, that larger units are not to be found or formed. In the present-day juncture it is nationalism that has become a stumbling-block to a fairer\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-126</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">solution of human problems. For example, India, Egypt, Ireland, even Poland, whatever may be the justifying reasons, are almost exclusively, chauvinistically, nationalistic. They believe that the attainment of their free, unfettered, separate national existence first will automatically bring in its train all ideal results that have been postponed till how. They do not see, however, that in the actual circumstances an international solution has the greater chance of bringing about a happier solution for the nation too, and not the other way round. The more significant urge today is towards this greater aggregation—Pan-America, Pan-Russia, Pan-Arabia, a Western European Block and an Eastern European Block are movements that have been thrown up because of a greater necessity in human life and its evolution. Man\'s stupidity, his failure to grasp the situation, his incapacity to march with Nature, his tendency always to fall back, to return to the out-dated past may delay or cause a turn or twist in this healthy movement, but it cannot be permanently thwarted or denied for long. Churchill\'s memorable call to France, on the eve of her debacle, to join and form with Britain a single national union, however sentimental or even ludicrous it may appear to\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-127</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">some, is, as we see it, the cry of humanity itself to transcend the modem barriers of nationhood and rise to a higher status of solidarity and collective consciousness.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">INTERNATIONALISM\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet internationalism is not the one thing needful either. If it means the obliteration of all national values, of all cultural diversity, it will not certainly conduce to the greater enrichment and perfection of humanity. Taken by itself and in its absolute sense, it cannot be a practical success. The fact is being proved every moment these days. Internationalism in the economic sphere, however, seems to have a greater probability and utility than in the merely political sphere. Economics is forcing peoples and nations to live together and move together: it has become the soldering agent in modem times of all the elements—the groups and types of the human family that were so long separate from each other, unknown to each other or clashing with each other. But that is good so far as it goes. Powerful as economic forces are, they are-not the only deciding or directing agents in human affairs. That is the great flaw in the &quot;Internationale&quot;,\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-128</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the Marxian type of internationalism which has been made familiar to us. Man is not a political animal, in spite of Aristotle, nor is he an economic animal, in spite of Marx and Engels. Mere economics, even when working for a greater unity of mankind, tends to work more for uniformity: it reduces man to the position of a machine and a physical or material machine at that. By an irony of fate the human value for which the international proletariate raised its banner of revolt is precisely what suffers in the end. The Bevendge Plan, so much talked of nowadays, made such an appeal, no doubt because of the economic advantages it ensures, but also, by far and large, because it views man as a human being in and against the machine to which he belongs, because it is psychologically a scheme to salvage the manhood of man, so far as is possible, out of a rigidly mechanistic industrial organization.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">HUMANISM \n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo the cry is for greater human values. Man needs food and shelter, goes without saying, but he yearns for other things also, air and light: he needs freedom, he needs culture\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><br>\n</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-129</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">—higher thoughts, finer emotions, nobler urges—the field and expression of personal worth. The acquisition of knowledge, the creation of beauty, the pursuit of philosophy, art, literature, and science in their pure forms and for their own sake are things man holds dear to his heart. Without them life loses its charm and significance. Mind and sensibility must be free to roam, not turned and tied to the exclusive needs and interests of physical life, free, that is to say, to discover and create norms and ideals and truths that are values in themselves and also lend values to the matter-of-fact terrestrial life. It is not sufficient that all men should have work and wages, it is not sufficient that all should have learnt the three R\'s, it is<i> </i>\nit is<i> </i>not sufficient that they should understand their rights—social, political, economic—and claim and vindicate them. Nor is it sufficient for men to become merely useful or indispensable—although happy and contented-members of a collective body. The individual must be free, free in his creative joy to bring out and formulate, in thought, in speech, in action, in all the modes of expression, the truth, the beauty, the good he experiences within. An all-round culture, a well-developed mind, a well-organised life, a well-formed\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-130</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">body, a harmonious working of all the members of the system at a high level of consciousness—that is man\'s need, for there lies his self-fulfilment. That is the ideal of Humanism—which the ancient Graeco-Roman culture worshipped, which was again revived by the Renaissance and which once again became a fresh and living force after the great Revolution and is still the high light to which Science and modem knowledge turns.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">THE MORE BEYOND\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd yet this is not the grand finale, the <i>nec plus ultra. </i>For, man does not stop with man; in the tremendous phrase carved by Nietzsche, &quot;Man is a thing that shall be surpassed.&quot; Until and unless man surpasses himself, finds a focus and fulcrum outside and beyond his normal human—too human—self, he cannot entirely and radically change his nature and rebuild his society on an<i> </i>\naltogether different pattern. Man has to reach his divine status, become the Divine, within and outside, body and soul; then only can the ills to which he is exposed totally vanish and then alone can he enjoy individually and collectively a perfect life on earth. Naturally man is not expected</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-131</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to accomplish this mighty work alone and unaided, he can rest assured and comforted, for Nature herself is moving inexorably towards that consummation.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-132</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>','-016_Panacea Of \'ISMS\'','','publish','closed','open','','016_panacea-of-isms','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/016_panacea-of-isms/',0,'post','',0),(1577,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-003_The Message Of the Atomic Bomb.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>THE MESSAGE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe moralist—the Christian moralist particularly—has dubbed the atomic bomb as the Devil\'s engine; while the practical politician retorts that the accursed machine has cut short the war, saved more lives on the whole and reduced the extent and duration of suffering and agony. In any case the new weapon is so radical and devastating in its effectiveness that even politicians do not seem to be without a qualm and heart-burning, not in the moral but in the physical and nervous sense. The atom bomb is a bombshell not upon your enemies alone, but it is a boomerang likely to turn back upon yourself, upon the whole of humanity and human civilisation. Archimedes asked for a fulcrum outside the earth to be able to move it out of its orbit; we have found out something with which one hopes and fears one would do much more.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan\'s invention of death-dealing weapons has an interesting history. It is, curious to say, the history of his progress and growing civilisation. The primitive man fought with the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-19</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">strength of his God-given limbs—tooth and nail—to which he subsequently added the crudest of weapons, clubs, of wood or flint. A revolution was brought about when iron was discovered and archery invented. Next revolution came with the appearance of gunpowder on the stage. And then the age of gun-cotton and T.N.T. which held sway till the other day. An interim period of poison gas and chemical warfare was threatened, but everything now has gone overboard with the advent of the atomic bomb and the threatened advent of the Cosmic Death-Ray.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn one sense certainly there has been a progress. This march of machinery, this evolution of tools means man\'s increasing mastery over Nature, even though physical nature. The primitive man like the animal is a slave, a puppet driven helplessly by Nature\'s forces. Both lead more or less a life of reflex action: there is here no free, original initiation of action or movement. The slow discovery of Nature\'s secrets, the gradual application and utilisation of these secrets in actual life meant, first, a liberation of man\'s conscious being originally imbedded in Nature\'s inertial movements, and then, a growing power to react upon Nature and mould and change it according to the will\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-20</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of the conscious being. The result at the outset was a release and organisation on the mental level, in the domain of reason and intelligence. Of course, man found at once that this increasing self-consciousness and self-power meant immense possibilities for good, but, unfortunately, for evil also. And so to guard against the latter contingency, rules and regulations were framed to control and canalise the new-found capacities. The Dharma of the Kshatriya, the honour of the Samurai, the code of Chivalry, all meant that. The power to kill was sought to be checked and restrained by such injunctions as, for example, not to hit below the belt, not to fight a disarmed or less armed opponent and so on. The same principle of morals and manners was maintained and continued through the centuries with necessary changes and modifications in application and finds enshrined today in International Covenants and Conventions.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut a new situation has arisen for some time past. The last Great War (World War No. I) was crucial in many ways in the life of humanity. It opened a new direction of man\'s growth, opened and then closed also apparently. I am referring to the tragedy of the League of Nations. That was an attempt\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-21</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">on the part of man (and Nature) to lift the inner life and consciousness to the level of the outer achievements. The attempt failed. Man could not rise to the height demanded of him. Now the second World War became logically more devastating and shattering; it has given the go-by to all ethical standards and codes of honour. The poison gas was not used not because of any moral restraint or disinclination, but because of practical and utilitarian considerations. The Atom Bomb, however, has spoken the word.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat word is a warning that unless man changes, becomes master of himself, he cannot be truly master of the world. He cannot command the forces he has unleashed unless he has command over his own nature. The external immensity, the bloated mass that his physical attainments are, unless armoured and animated by an inner growth, will crash by its own weight. The mammoth, the mastodon, the huge pachyderms, in spite of, rather because of their inordinately one-sided growth could not stand the demand of life and perished. Likewise man will not possess the world but the world will engulf and devour him in its aboriginal hunger of unconsciousness, if he does not take a right-about turn and declare\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-22</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">his conversion. The Frankenstein that man has raised can no longer be met by merely human devices—reason and morals—but by a higher discovery and initiation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Bomb has shaken the physical atmosphere of the earth as no other engine has done. It has shaken the moral atmosphere too not in a lesser degree. Reason and moral sense could not move man, so Fear has been sent by the Divine Grace. Dante said that God created Hell in his mood of infinite love and justice— that seems to be the inevitable gate through which one has to pass to arrive at the Divine. We are indeed in hell today upon earth, a worse can hardly be tolerated.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndeed this is the bleak winter of human consciousness—yet can spring be far behind?\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-003_The Message Of the Atomic Bomb','','publish','closed','open','','003_the-message-of-the-atomic-bomb','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_the-message-of-the-atomic-bomb/',0,'post','',0),(1578,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-010_The Way To Unity.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>THE WAY TO UNITY </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nCommon love, common labour and, above all, as the great French thinker, Ernest Renan,* pointed out, common suffering—that is the cement which welds together the disparate elements of a nation—a nation is not formed otherwise. A nation means peoples differing in race and religion, caste and creed and even language, fused together into a composite but indivisible unit. Not pact nor balancing of interests nor sharing of power and profit can permanently combine and unify connecting\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n*&quot;Dans le passé, un héritage de gloire et de regrets à partager, dans l\'avenir un même programme à réaliser; avoir souffert, joui, espéré ensemble, voilà ce qui vaut mieux que des douanes communes et des frontières conformes aux idées stratégiques: voilà ce que l\'on comprend malgré les diversités de race et de langue. Je disais tout à l\'heure ; &quot;avoir souffert ensemble&quot;; oui, la souffrance en commun unit plus que la joie. En fait de souvenirs nationaux, les deuils valent mieux que les triomphes...&quot;\n\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Ernest Renan : &quot;Qu\'est-ce qu\'une nation?&quot;</i>\n\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTranslation : &quot;In the past a heritage of glory and regrets to share, in the future the same programme to realise; to have suffered, enjoyed, hoped together, that indeed is better than common customs and strategic frontiers; that is what one understands in spite of diversities of race and language. I said just now: &quot;to have suffered together&quot;; yes, common suffering unites more than common joy. In respect of the memories of a nation griefs are worth more than triumphs...&quot;\n\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Ernest Renan : &quot;What is a nation ?&quot;</i>\n\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-50</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">groups and collectivities. Hindus and Muslims, the two major sections that are at loggerheads today in India, must be given a field, indeed more than one field, where they can work together; they must be made to come in contact with each other, to coalesce and dovetail into each other in as many ways and directions as possible. Instead of keeping them separate in water-tight compartments, in barred cages, as it were, lest they pounce upon each other like wild beasts, it would be wiser to throw them together; let them breathe the same air, live the same life, share the same troubles, the same difficulties, solve the same problems. That is how they will best understand, appreciate and even love each other, become comrades and companions, not rivals and opponents.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo have union, one must unite—division can never lead to unity. Also this unity is established automatically and irrevocably, not by any abstract sense of justice and equality, nor by any romantic or imaginative feeling of fraternity, but by a dynamic <i>living together. </i>A common political and civic and economic life creates a field of force that can draw together into a harmonious working the most contrary and refractory elements.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-51</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"> We have said, however, time and again, that the present war is a great opportunity offered by Nature and Providence, opportunity that comes only once in a way; it is precisely the field of which we speak, the field <i>par excellence, </i>which can compel all centrifugal elements to come together, labour together, enjoy and suffer together and turn and trans mute them into the very strongest centripetal components.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-52</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-010_The Way To Unity','','publish','closed','open','','010_the-way-to-unity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/010_the-way-to-unity/',0,'post','',0),(1579,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-007_Vansittartism.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>VANSITTARTISM\n</H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nGermany is considered now, and naturally with great reason, as the arch criminal among nations. Such megalomania, such lust for wanton cruelty, such wild sadism, such abnormal velleities no people, it is said, have ever evinced anywhere on the face of the earth: the manner and the extent of it all are appalling. Hitler is not the malady; removal of the Fuehrer will not cure Germany. The man is only a sign and a symbol. The whole nation is corrupt to the core: it has been inoculated with a virus that cannot be eradicated. The peculiar German character that confronts and bewilders us now, is not a thing of today or even of yesterday; it has been there since Tacitus remarked it. Even Germans themselves know it very well; the best among them have always repudiated their mother country. Certainly there were peoples and nations that acted at times most barbarously and inhumanly.   The classical example of the Spanish Terror in America is there. But all pales into insignificance when compared to the German achievement and ideal in this respect.   For here is a people\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">violent and cruel, not simply because it is their character to be so and they delight in being so, but because it forms the bedrock of their philosophy of life, their <i>Weltanschauung.</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is the very core of the matter. Germany stands for a philosophy of life, for a definite mode of human values. That philosophy was slowly developed, elaborated by the German mind, in various degrees and in various ways through various thinkers and theorists and moralists and statesmen, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. The conception of the State as propounded even by her great philosophers as something self-existent, sacrosanct and almost divine—august and grim, one has to add—is profoundly significant of the type of the subconscient dynamic in the nation: it strangely reminds one of the state organised by the bee, the ant or the termite. Hitler has only precipitated the idea, given it a concrete, physical and dynamic form. That philosophy in its outlook has been culturally anti-Latin, religiously anti-Christian. Germany cherishes always in her heart the memory of the day when her hero Arminius routed the Roman legions of Varus. Germany stands for a mode of human consciousness that is not in line with the major current of its\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">evolutionary growth: she harks back to something primeval, infra-rational, infra-human.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSuch is the position taken up by Lord Vansittart who has given his name to the new ideology of anti-Germanism. Vansittartism (at least in its extreme variety) has very little hope for the mending of Germany, it practically asks for its ending.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA son of the soil, an eminent erstwhile collaborator of Hitler, who has paid for his apostasy, offered a compromise solution. He says, Germany, as a matter of fact, is not one but two: there is the Eastern Germany (the Northern and the Eastern portion) and there is the Western Germany (the South and the West) and the two are distinct and different— even antagonistic—in temperament and character and outlook. The Western Germany is the true Germany, the Germany of light and culture, the Germany that produced the great musicians, poets and idealists, Goethe and Heine and Wagner and Beethoven. The other Germany represents the dark shadow. It is Prussia and Prussianised Germany. This Germany originally belonged to the bleak, wild, savage, barbarous East Europe and was never thoroughly reclaimed and its union with the Western half was more political than psychological.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo this ex-lieutenant of Hitler proposed to divide and separate the two altogether and form two countries or nations and thus eliminate the evil influence of Prussianism and Junkerism.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe more democratic and liberal elements among the Allies do not also consider that Germany as a whole is smitten with an original sin and is beyond redemption. They say Germany too has men and groups of men who are totally against Hitler and Hitlerism; they may have fallen on evil days, but yet they can be made the nucleus of a new and regenerated Germany. Furthermore, they say if Germany has come to be what she is, considerable portion of the responsibility must be shared by the unprogressive and old-world elements among the Allies themselves who helped or pitied or feared the dark Germany.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHence it is suggested that for the postwar reconstruction of Germany what is required is the re-education of its people. For, only a psychological change can bring about a durable and radical change. But certain proposals towards this end raise serious misgivings, since they mean iron regimentation under foreign control. Even if such a thing were possible and feasible, it is doubtful if the purpose could be best served in this\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">way. Measures have to be taken, no doubt, to uproot Prussianism and Junkerism and prevent their revival, no false mercy or sympathy should be extended to the enemies of God and man. But this is only a negative step, and cannot be sufficient by itself. A more positive and more important work lies ahead. The re-education of Germany must come from within, if it is to be permanent and effective. What others can do is to help her in this new orientation. As we have said, there are the progressive elements in Germany too, although submerged for the moment. The task of reconstruction will precisely consist in calling up and organising and marshalling these forces that are for the Light. The Allied organisation, it may be noted, itself has grown up in this way. When one remembers how Britain stood alone at one time against the all-sweeping victorious march of the Titan, how slowly and gradually America was persuaded to join hands, at first in a lukewarm way, finally with all its heart and soul and might and main, how a new France is being built up out of a mass of ruins, we can hope that the same process will be adopted in the work that lies ahead even after victory, with regard to Italy and with regard to Germany. In the second case the task is difficult but it has got to be done.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-40</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-007_Vansittartism','','publish','closed','open','','007_vansittartism','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_vansittartism/',0,'post','',0),(1580,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-008_India One And Indivisible.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>PART II </H3>\n<br>\n<H3>THE ROLE OF INDIA </H3>\n<br>\n<hr>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para_center\">INDIA ONE AND INDIVISIBLE\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndia is one and indivisible, culturally and spiritually; politically too she must be one and indivisible and is, as a matter of fact, already on the way towards that consummation, in spite of appearances to the contrary. It has got to be so, if India is to be strong and powerful, if her voice is to be heard in the comity of nations, if she is to fulfil her mission in the world.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is no use laying stress on distinctions and differences : we must, on the contrary, put all emphasis upon the fundamental unity, upon the demand and necessity for a dynamic unity. Naturally there are diverse and even contradictory elements in the make-up of a modern nation. France, for example, was not one. but many to start with and for long. We know of the mortal feud between the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs and the struggle among the Barons generally, some even siding with foreigners against their own countrymen (an Indian parallel we have in the story of Prithwiraj and Jayachand), poor Jeanne d\'Arc lamenting over the \'much pity\' that was in\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-43</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">sweet France. There were several rival languages—Breton, Gascon, Provencal, besides the French of Isle de France. Apart from these provincial or regional rivalries there were schisms on religious grounds—Huguenots and Catholics, Jansenists and Arians were flying at each other\'s throat and made of France a veritable bedlam of confusion and chaos. Well, all that was beaten down and smoothed under the steam-roller of a strong centralised invincible spirit of France, one and indivisible and inexorable, that worked itself out through Jeanne d\'Arc and Francis the First and Henry the Great and Richelieu and Napoleon. But all nations have the same story. And it is too late now in the day to start explaining the nature and origin of nationhood; it was done long ago by Mazzini and by Renan and once for all.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndeed, what we see rampant in India today is the mediaeval spirit. This reversion to an older—an extinct, we ought to have been able to say-type of mentality is certainly a fall, a lowering of the collective consciousness. It has got to be remedied and set right. Whatever the motive forces that lie at the back of the movement, motives of fear or despair or class interest or parochial loyalty, motives of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-44</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">idealism, misguided and obscurantist, they have to be taken by the horns and dominated and eliminated. A breath of modernism, some pure air of clear perception and knowledge and wider consciousness must blow through the congested hectic atmosphere of the Indian body politic.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt will do no good to any one to try to Balkanise India. The Balkan malady is no longer tolerated even in its homeland; it cannot be transported to India in this century and after this Great War. To be and remain free and strong and invincible, India must be and remain indivisible. The strength of the United States of America, of the united Soviets of the Russias, of the British Commonwealth <i>(pace </i>Churchill) lies precisely in each one of them being a large unified aggregate, all members pooling their resources together. India cannot maintain her freedom, nor utilise her freedom to its utmost effectivity unless she is one and indivisible. The days of small peoples, of isolated independence are gone—gone for ever even like Thebes and Nineveh, like Kosala of Dasarathi and Mathura of Yadupati.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndia can be and is to be a federation of autonomous units. But then we must very\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-45</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">carefully choose or find out the units, those that are real units and not fractions (especially irrational fractions) and at the same time lay as much stress on federation as on autonomy. To choose or create units on the basis of religion or race or caste or creed, that is exactly what we mean by irrationalism, in other words, mediaevalism. The Units must be, on one side, geographical wholes, and, on the other, cultural (or spiritual—not religious) wholes.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-46</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-008_India One And Indivisible','','publish','closed','open','','008_india-one-and-indivisible','','','2021-11-23 17:21:46','2021-11-23 17:21:46','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_india-one-and-indivisible/',0,'post','',0),(1581,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-015_On Social Recnstruction.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>ON SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">I\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is one of the great errors of the human mind to take equality as identical with uniformity. When Rousseau started the revolutionary slogan &quot;Men are born equal&quot;, men were carried away in the vehemence of the new spirit and thought that there was absolutely no difference between man and man, all difference must be due to injustice, tyranny and corruption in the social system. Rousseau\'s was a necessary protest and corrective against the rank inequality that was the order of the day. All men are, however, equal not in the sense that all material particles—sea-sands or molecules or atoms, for example—may be equal, that is to say, same in dimension and mass and energy. That is the materialistic mechanistic view, imposed by the first discoveries and conclusions of modern Science, but which has lost much of its cogency in recent times even in respect of the physical world.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-100</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll men are equal, not in the sense that all have the same uniform value, but that each has his own value. It is the recognition of the personal worth of each individual that gives him true equality with others and not the casting of all into the same mould and pattern, fitting<sub> </sub>all on to the Procrustean bed, which indeed would mean just the negation of equality. This variability is the very basis of a living equality. Physically all men have not the same height or weight or growth, even so internally too all have not the same magnitude of being or similar power of consciousness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> A social organization must have two fundamental objects. The central purpose is to serve and help the individual. That is the first thing to be remembered. Organization for the sake of organization is not the end. Organization for the sake of perpetuating a system, however laudable it may be, is not the end either. It is, as I say,by the service that an organization renders to its individual members, and not merely by its mechanical order and efficiency that it is to be judged. This service, I have said, is twofold. First, each individual must find his proper vocation: the right man in the right place. The function of each man must be in accordance with his nature and character. Secondly, each</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-101</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\"><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">person, while fulfilling his Dharma, (that is the right word) must be trained, must have the opportunity to grow and increase in his being and consciousness. First of all, a prosperous, at least an adequately equipped outer life, and then as adequate a <i>lebensraum </i>for the inner personality to have its free and full play and expression.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA totalitarian equality takes men as blocks or chunks of wood and also cuts and clips them as such whenever and wherever needed, thrusts them indiscriminately into any nook and comer of the social framework for the sake of its upkeep and maintenance. It is something that is characteristic of a modem army— thoroughly mechanised—in which men are not different from the nuts and bolts of a machine, all forming a stream-lined massive unity, where persons and individuals as such have no value or consideration, they are dumb and almost dead materials and when worn out just simply to be replaced by others. If it is to be compared to any living thing, we can think of only the regimentation that obtains in an ant-hill or a bee-hive.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMechanical and totalitarian equality does injustice, to say the least, to the individual, for it does not take into account the variable value and the particularity of each individual. It usually gives him a position and function in\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-102</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the society to which his inner nature and character do not at all respond. The result of such indifference to individuality is evident also in a modem society based as it is on so-called freedom, that is to say, on open competition and struggle. The tragedy of a Bankim eking; out his subsistence as a bureaucratic official is not a rare spectacle but the very rule of the social system in vogue. Indeed the so-called steel-frame of governmental organization of our days sucks in all the best brains and few can survive this process of &quot;evisceration, deprivation, destitution, desiccation and evacuation&quot;, to use the glowing and graphic words of T. S. Eliot, although in another connection; few can maintain or express after passing through this grinding or sucking machine their inner reality, the truth and beauty personal to them. The poet regrets\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPerhaps in this neglected spot is laid <br>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"> Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire—\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">but why, why is it so ? Because\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nChill penury repressed their noble rage\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"> And froze the genial current of the soul.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe chill penury was nothing else than the uncongenial atmosphere which did not favour\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-103</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the growth of the soul, allow it to follow its own line of development and fulfilment.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAt times a remedy was tried: the social pattern was sought to be constructed upon the principle of &quot;Career open to talents&quot;; this was a motto which the great Napoleon endeavoured to carry out in practice. Instead of claims of birth, age or position, he looked for real merit as the &quot;Open Sesame&quot; to the highest ranks involving the gravest duties and responsibilities. Even he, however, could not preserve or carry out fully his good intentions. The Imperator (the First Consul) tried the experiment, but the Emperor already slipped off from the ideal.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut to tell the truth, this remedy, even\nif successful, is not enough. Something radical is needed. Indeed, it is because the radical cure is not sought and attempted that the disease continues or reappears even if held in abeyance for a time.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe have said individual or personal worth\nshould be the chief concern of the social governance, to bring it to birth, to maintain and foster it is its principal function. This means naturally freedom, but not the freedom that is demanded by the individualist as against the socialist or the collectivist. For there freedom means freedom for competition and\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-104</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">rivalry, freedom for the egos, for selfish interests to fight and battle and survive who can. That is the motto of the competitive society in which we have been living for some time past. That system has become intolerable and hence all the seismic troubles in society today. What is needed is real freedom. For it is easy to see that under the competitive system the apparent freedom is only apparent, a make-believe. It is not freedom, that is to say, free choice and initiation that can work here, it is the pressure from rivals, the impact of adverse circumstances that determine one\'s will and choice. In the second place, it is not the deeper urges or capacities that are touched and awakened in this way, it is the superficial impulses and preoccupations that find a vent. Man is here only a link in a chain of reactions over which he has hardly any real control: one\'s decision is limited by conditions beyond one\'s reach, one\'s hands are forced, as the common phrase goes.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe problem then is this: how to arrive at the inner freedom, how to contact the inner man, the true person and personality ? For we are aiming at nothing less than the Soul, the Self, the Divine in man, God\'s purpose in the Individual, the Individual as Goa\'s instrument.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-105</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">That is the <i>beau id</i>é<i>al, </i>so to say, in the human personality which all schemes of social reconstruction must have constantly in view.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe question now is to devise ways and means of materialising this ideal. Circumstanced as man is, in doubt and darkness with regard to his inner nature, one most often does not know one\'s true vocation; those who do know their minds and are sure of their &quot;mission in life&quot; are the fortunate few, and very few indeed they are. Of the vast majority, some discover themselves only at the fag-end of their life or when they are already far too committed and in harness in alien fields and among alien faces; others do not discover themselves at all, they need no such revelation: these form the general mass in which the individuals have not developed so far as to come out into any bold relief, they are cast into the stereotype mould, moved more or less by the same general forces of nature and are indistinguishable from each other. It is upon this mass of uniformity that the totalitarian regimentation bases itself easily and naturally.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nStill even if human nature in the mass is like this, what the totalitarian system does is to fix and eternise the mould. To admit Nature as it is and leave it at that, to arrange and\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-106</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">organize things within that given framework, is, to say the least, only another form of the old <i>laissez faire </i>system. Take Nature as it is, but go farther and beyond. That is the problem of all human endeavour.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn ancient times too there were conscious attempts to build and remould human society. The Rishis were not merely spiritual seers, but creators of the social order also. They saw by their vision the inner truths of things, they found principles and laws, right principles and correct laws which establish peace and stability, on the one hand, no doubt, but on the other hand serve also as the frame for the growth and fulfilment of the individual being. The king with his executive body was there to see that the laws were observed and honoured. The later law-givers (the makers of codes, <i>smritis) </i>had not the direct and large vision of the Rishis, but they tried their best to maintain the laws as they understood them; elaborate them, change or modify wherever possible or heeded under given circumstances. In ancient Europe too, it was Plato who envisaged the ideal Republic, a government of philosophers -the wise who are not actively engaged in the turmoil of life, but stand aloof and detached and can see more of the game and accordingly\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-107</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">legislate all the better. In modem times also the rise of a Feuhrer or a Dictator seems to have been a psychological necessity: the mass consciousness is in sore need of a guide, and as the right guide is not easily available, the way of the false prophet is smooth and wide open. As a protection and antidote against such a calamity, we tried here and there to found and organise a government of all talents.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut again, who are the talents and where are they? For a modern society produces at best clever politicians, but very few great souls if at all, who can inspire, guide and create. Not a system or organization, but such centres of forces, with creative vision and power, it is that that mankind sorely needs at this hour. System and organization come after, they can only be the embodiment of a creative vision.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">II\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe economic status is not the only or even the chief or real status of man in the society. This should be an obvious truth. To reform or rebuild the society it is not enough to find a new economic basis, however more equitable and efficient. A man\'s value does not depend upon his wages nor even upon his\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-108</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">wage-earning capacity. A man\'s worth is not the function of his <i>labour. </i>To equate the two has been the capital error of &quot;Das Kapital&quot; That is not the Copernican revolution that is needed in the social body today.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMoney was always a power and those who had money were always powerful in all ages and countries. Poverty annuls the entire host of good qualities you may have, says the Sanskrit proverb. Only this money power has been shifted from class to class or section to section in a society. In the modem age the demand and tendency is that those who are the first and immediate agents in the chain of the production of wealth should be given all the profit and all the advantage (barring of course the State itself which has the prior and major claim so long as it exists). The rest are considered as mere parasites. Those who do not thus directly produce or help in producing wealth are a burden upon the society and they have no justifiable place there: either they should change their vocation, declass themselves and become labourers or they must go to the wall, subsist somewhere somehow till they finally pass out of existence.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis theory of money power, in spite of its factual or practical truth, is not the whole\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-109</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">truth. This is, I should say, the very old Ptolemaic social system, in a new garb, which turns round man as an economic—and physical—being. The Copernican system would view man chiefly as a psychological centre. A truly rational economic system can be based upon such an inner view of the situation. A merely economic view would take man as nothing more than a wage-earning machine and that will give the society and its government a mechanistic pattern. It will forget this simple truism that a man\'s worth is not and need not be always commensurate with his wage-earning capacity or even his <i>usefulness </i>as a citizen (in the way the atom-bomb Scientists are proving useful today).\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPersonal value will mean then not productive value, but creative value, that is to say, the capacity to create values, that means the consideration of the psychological and moral make-up of the individual.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is the thing in human society which\nmakes it valuable, worthy of humanity, gives it a place of honour and the right to live and continue to live? It is its culture and civilisation, as everyone knows. Greece or Rome, China or India did not attain, at least according to modem conceptions, a high stage in economic\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-110</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">evolution: the production and distribution of wealth, the classification and organization of producers and consumers, their relation and functions were, in many respects, what is called primitive. An American of today would laugh at their uncouth simplicity. And yet America has to bow down to those creators of other values that are truly valuable. And the values are the creations of the great poets, artists, philosophers, law-givers, sages and seers. It is they who made the glory that was Greece or Rome or China or India or Egypt. Indeed they are the builders of Culture, culture which is the inner life of a civilisation. The decline of culture and civilisation means precisely the displacement of the &quot;cultured&quot; man by the economic man. In the present age when economic values have been grossly exaggerated holding the entire social fabric in its stifling grip, the culture spirit has been pushed into the background and made subservient to economic and other cruder forces. That was what Julien Benda, the famous French critic and moralist, once stigmatised as &quot;La Trahison des Clercs&quot;; only, the \'clercs&quot; did not voluntarily betray, but circumstanced as they were they could do no better. The process reached its climax—perhaps one should say the very nadir—in the Nazi experiment\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-111</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and something of it still continues in the Russian dispensation. There the intellectuals or the intelligentsia are totally harnessed to the political machine, their capacities are prostituted in the service of a socio-economic plan. Poets and artists and thinkers are made to be protagonists and propagandists of the new order. It is a significant sign of the times how almost the whole body of scientists— the entire Brain Trust of mankind today, one might say—have been mobilised for the fabrication of the Atom Bomb. Otherwise they cannot subsist, they lose all economic status.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the older order, however, a kindlier treatment was meted out to this class, this class of the creators of values. They had patrons who looked after their physical well-being. They had the necessary freedom and leisure to follow their own bent and urge of creativity. Kings and princes, the court and the nobility, in spite of all the evils ascribed to them, and often very justly, have nevertheless been the nursery of art and culture, of all the art and culture of the ancient times. One remembers Shakespeare reading or enacting his drama before the Great Queen, or the poignant scene of Leonardo dying in the arms\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-112</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of Francis the First. Those were the truly great classical ages, and art or man\'s creative genius hardly ever rose to that height ever since. The downward curve started with the advent and growth of the bourgeoisie when the artist or the creative genius lost their supporters and had to earn their own living by the sweat of their brow. Indeed the greatest tragedies of frustration, because of want and privation, occur, not as much among the &quot;lowest&quot; classes who are usually considered as the poorest and the most miserable in society, but in that section from where come the intellectuals, &quot;men of light and leading,&quot; to use the epithet they are honoured with. For very few of this group are free to follow their inner trend and urge, but have either to coerce suppress them or stultify them in the service of lesser alien duties, which mean &quot; forced labour.&quot; The punishment for refusing to be drawn away and to falsify oneself is not unoften the withdrawal of the bare necessities of life, in certain cases sheer destitution. A Keats wasting his energies in a work that has no relation to his inner life and light, or a Madhusudan dying in a hospital as a pauper, are examples significant of the nature of the social structure man lives in.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-113</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is one of the great illusions—or perhaps a show plank for propaganda—to think or say that the so-called poorer calsses are the poorest and the most miserable. It is not so in fact. Really poor are those who have a standard of life commensurate with their inner nature and consciousness—of beauty and orderliness and material sufficiency and yet their actual status and function in society do not provide them with the necessary wherewithals and resources. No amount of philanthropic sentimentalising can suppress or wipe off the fact that the poor do not feel the pinch of poverty so much as do those who are poor and yet are to live and move as not poor. It all depends upon one\'s standard. One is truly rich or poor not in proportion to one\'s income, but in accordance with one\'s needs and the means to meet them. And all do not have the same needs and requirements. This does not mean that the needs of the princes, the aristocrats, the magnates are greater than those of the mere commoner. No, it means that there are people, there is a section of humanity found more or less in all these classes, but mostly in less fortunate classes, whose needs are intrinsically greater and they require preferential treatment. There should be none poor or\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-114</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">miserable in society, well and good. But this should not mean that all the economic resources of the society must be requisitioned only to enrich—to pamper—the poor. For there is a pampering possible in this matter. We know the <i>nouveaux riches, </i>the <i>parvenus </i>and the kind of life they lead with their fair share boldly seized. A levelling, a formal equalisation of the economic status, although it may mean uplift in certain cases, may involve gross injustice to others. The ideal is not equal dis-tribution but rational distribution of wealth, and that distribution should not depend upon any material function, but upon psychological demands. Is this bourgeois economics? Even if it is so, the truth has to be faced and recognised. You can call truth by the name bourgeois and hang it, but it will revive all the same, like the Phoenix out of the ashes.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf it is said that the proletarian—the manual labourer—is given economic freedom not for the sake of that freedom merely, but for the sake of the cultural opportunity also that he will have in that way. None can demur to this noble and generous ideal, but what must not be forgotten in that preoccupation is the fact that there exists already a culturally\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-115</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">predisposed class in the present society who also require immediate care and nourishment so that they may grow and flourish as they should. In our eagerness to take up the enterprise and adventure of reclaiming deserts and heaths and moorlands, there is a chance of our losing sight of the precious fertile lands, rich in possibilities that we already possess. The economic status has to be improved for all who are adversely placed in the modem system, certainly; but for a real improvement based upon just and true needs, for an adjustment that will make for the highest good of the society, what is first required is to ascertain the psychological status which should alone, at least chiefly, determine the economic status.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the old Indian social organisation there was at the basis such a psychological pattern and that must have been the reason why the structure lasted through millenniums. It was a hierarchical system but based upon living psychological forces. Each group or section or class in it had inevitably its appropriate function and an assured economic status. The Four Orders—the Brahmin (those whose pursuit was knowledg - acquiring and giving knowledge), the Kshattriya (the fighters, whose business it was to give physical protection),\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-116</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the Vaishya (traders and farmers who were in charge of the wealth of the society, its production and distribution) and the Sudra ( servants and mere labourers )—are a natural division or stratification of the social body based upon,the nature and function of its different members. In the original and essential pattern there is no sinister mark of inferiority branded upon what are usually termed as the lower orders, especially the lowest order. If some are considered higher and are honoured and respected as such, it meant simply that the functions and qualities they stand for constitute in some way higher values, it did not mean that the others have no value or are to be spumed or neglected. The brain must be given a higher place than the stomach, although all its support and nourishment come from there. Hierarchy means, in modem terms, that the essential services must pass first, should have certain priorities. And according to the older view-point, the Brahmin, being the emblem and repository of knowledge, was considered as the head of the social body. He is the fount origin of a culture, the creator of a civilisation; the others protect, nourish and serve, although all \nare equally necessary for \nthecommon.\nwelfare.</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-117</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFundamentally all human society is built upon this pattern which is psychological and which seems to be Nature\'s own life-plan. There is always this fourfold stratification or classification of members in any collective human grouping: the Intellectual (taken in the broadest sense) or the Intelligentsia, the Military, the Trader and the Labourer. In the earlier   civilisations—when   civilisation   was being formed—especially in the East, it was the first class that took precedence over the rest and was especially honoured; for it is they who give the tone and temper and frame of life in the society. In later epochs, in the mediaeval age for example, the age of conquerors and conquistadors, and of Digvijaya, man as the warrior, the Kshattriya, the Samurai or the Chivalry was given the place of honour. Next came the age of traders and merchants, and the industrial age with the invention of machines. Today the labourer is rising in his turn to take the prime place.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs we have said, a normally healthy Society is a harmonious welding of these four elements. A society becomes diseased when only one member gets inflated and all-powerful at the expense of others or whenever there is an unholy alliance of some against the rest.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-118</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Priest-craft, the Church militant, Fanaticism (religious or ideological), Inquisition are corruptions that show themselves when the first principle, the principle of Brahminhood, becomes exclusive and brings in arrogance and igrio-ranee. Similarly colonisation and imperialism of the type only too familiar to us are aberrations of the spirit that the second principle embodies—the spirit of the Kshattriya. Likewise financial cartels, the industrial magnates, the profiteer, the <i>arriviste </i>are diseased growths in the economic body of a modem society which has forgotten the true Vaishya spirit that seeks to produce wealth in order to share and distribute fairly and equitably. The remedy of these ills society has suffered from is not the introduction of a fourth evil, the tyranny of the Fourth Estate of the proletariate. The Fourth was reduced, it is true, to a state of slavery and serfdom, of untouchability, at its <i>reductio ad absurdum. </i>The cure, we say, is not in blind revolt and an inauguration of the same evil under a new name and form, which means its perpetuation, but in the creation of a new life and soul, that can happen only with the creation of a new head and front Zeus-like that would give birth to the goddess of light and knowledge, inspirer of a true Brahminhood.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-119</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe repeat a fair and sure economic basis has to be found for the down-trodden, proletarian or other. For the proletariate is not the only unfortunate in the human society. There are whole groups of the unfortunate in the three other Estates also. Or perhaps if we like we can extend the meaning of the term &quot;proletariate&quot; and include in it all the less favoured sections of all the Four Orders.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs already stated, the remedy is to be sought in the salvage of the individual. The present trend of social forces is towards movements in the mass. That was necessary perhaps; for larger, wider, indeed world-wide unities have to be found and established for the unification of the whole of humanity. But in the drive towards that goal Nature seems to have overlooked for the moment the case of the individual, and naturally, man has been blind and one-sided in his attempts to reform and and rebuild society and the world. This neglected thread has to be taken up again and put back into the web of social life. The value of the individual, the worth and speciality of each person has to be found and recognised; indeed it is round that centre that society can best be reformed and remade. And this can only be done by a spiritual\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-120</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">outlook. For, the true individual is founded in the spirit, the spiritual consciousness; so long as man is limited to his body, life and mind, and his functions are solely determined by his earthly nature, so long he must needs be taken as a mere element in the mass, the cosmic mass. The true individual or person emerges only when something of man\'s spiritual being finds expression in these lower elements of his nature. And when man totally transcends his inferior sphere of existence and rises into his divine status where things are marshalled and organised through each individual truth-centre, then only there is the chance of a perfect social system descending upon earthly life.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPerhaps this is a far cry from the level of our normal humanity. But things have to be regarded and moulded from the highest heights; otherwise there will be no real solution, there can be only a temporary make-believe and a final frustration.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-121</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-015_On Social Reconstruction','','publish','closed','open','','015_on-social-reconstruction','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/015_on-social-reconstruction/',0,'post','',0),(1582,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-004_National And International.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA leading Nationalist has opined that he does not understand the &quot; slogan &quot; of viewing the nation against a background of internationalism. We can only say that the patriot has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing always like the old guards attached to the old regime who do not see how much water has flown below their feet while they stood gazing at the sky or shut themselves up in their ivory tower. Well, a village headman could in the same way assert that he does not know and cares not to know how to look upon his village against the background of the whole nation: still the village exists only in and through the life of the nation. Even so, the nation which grew out of the fusion of clans and tribes has to outgrow itself; it has to live today, if she wishes to live, in and through the life of humanity as a whole.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nKurukshetra is a turning-point in history. The battle was between an old order that had . to go and a new order that was taking birth. The old order was supported, on the one hand, by Bhishma and Drona, personating its codes\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-24</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and laws, <i>its </i>morals, and, on the other, by Duryodhana and Sisupala as its dynamic actors and executors. The new order was envisaged by Krishna and its chief protagonists were the five brothers. The old order meant the supremacy of the family and the clan: that was the central unit round which society grew and was held together. Krishna came to break that mould and evolve a higher and larger unit of collective life. It was not yet the nation, but an intermediary stage something like a League of clans, (as we in our day are trying another higher stage in the League of Nations). The Rajasuya celebrates the establishment of this New Order of a larger, a greater human organisation, Dharmarajya, as it was called.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe have just passed through another, a far greater, a catastrophic Kuruksherta, the last Act (Shanti Parvam) of which we are negotiating at the present moment. The significance of this cataclysm is clear and evident if we only allow ourselves to be led by the facts and not try to squeeze the facts into the groove of our past prejudices and set notions. All the difficulties that are being encountered on the way to peace and reconstruction arise mainly out of the failure to grasp what Nature has forced upon us. It is as simple as the first\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-25</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">axiom of Euclid: Humanity is one and all nations are free and yet interdependent members of that one and single organism. No nation can hope henceforth to stand in its isolated grandeur—not even America or Russia. Subject or dependent nations too who are struggling to be free will be allowed to work out their freedom and independence, on condition that the same is worked out in furtherance and in collaboration with the ideal of human unity. That ideal has become dynamic and insistent—the more man refuses to accept it, the more he will make confusion worse confounded.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-26</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-004_National And International','','publish','closed','open','','004_national-and-international','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_national-and-international/',0,'post','',0),(1583,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-012_New World Condiions.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>NEW WORLD-CONDITIONS </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is a trite saying that one must change with the changing times. But how many can really do so or know even how to do so? In politics, \nas in life generally (politics is a part of life, the &quot; precipitated &quot; part, one may say in chemical language), the principle is well-known, though often in a pejorative sense, as policy or tactics. Anyhow the policy pays: for it is one of the main lines, if not the main line of action along which lies success in the practical field. And precisely he who cannot change, who does not see the necessity of change, although conditions and circumstances have changed, is known as the ideologist, the doctrinaire, the fanatic. The no-changer does not change with the times: for, according to him, that is the nature of the weather-cock, the time-server. On the contrary, he seeks to impose his ideas (sometimes called ideals), notions, prejudgments and even prejudices upon time and circumstance. Such an endeavour, on most occasions, can have only a modicum of success; and a blind insistence may even lead to disaster. It may not be difficult to modify some surface movements</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-58</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of the oceanic surge of life, but to control and command it is quite a different proposition. This, however, is not to say that opportunism, slavery to circumstances should be the order of the day. Not at all. One is not asked to sacrifice the bed-rock truth and principle and run after the fleeting mode, the momentary need, the passing interest, to follow always the comfortable line of least resistance. But one has to distinguish. There are things of local and transient utility and there are things of abiding value brought up by deeper world-currents in the conditions and circumstances that face us. When such great occasions-golden opportunities they are called—come, they come with their own norms, and then it is foolish to force upon them the narrow strait-jacket forms fabricated by our old habits and preconceived notions.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe talk even today of British Imperialism, of the Shylock nature of the white coloniser and exploiter—</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n		<blockquote>\n			<p class=\"para\"><i>A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch </i></p>\n			<p class=\"para\"><i>Uncapable of pity, void and empty</i></p>\n			<p class=\"para\"><i>From any dram of mercy.</i> </p>\n		</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe do not doubt that it is the deliberate policy of these Vampires\' to keep us Indians\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-59</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">down eternally as their serfs and slaves. But whatever be the truth of the fact in the past, it is a pity we do not see that things have changed a good deal and are changing steadily and profoundly and inexorably. It is not, as it is so often demanded, that there has been a change of heart, in the sense that one has become saintly, self-forgetful, self-sacrificing, altruistic. We, on our part, have not become so and it is idle to expect of others to be so. What has happened is a physical change, a change, almost a revolution in the external conditions of life in the world, in the geographical and economic conditions, for example. The geographical revolution is this that all the nations and peoples of the earth have been thrown together to intermingle, have been forced to come into close and inextricable communion with one another: all barriers of distance and physical inaccessibility have been removed and practically eliminated. The universe may be expanding, but the earth has shrunk and has become very small indeed. A signal example of the kind of blunder that one could commit in this respect was that of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, who said, not knowing what he said, on the eve of the present war, that Czecho-Slovakia Was\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-60</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a far-off foreign country whose fate is of no concern or consequence to the British. Well, Time-Spirit must have had a hearty laughter over the wisdom of the statesman: it did not take long for the British to see that Czechoslovakia is dangerously near, indeed, it touches the very frontier of the British Isles. We have flown over the mighty &quot; humps &quot; that separated countries and continents and levelled them and made of the earth one even continuous plain, as it were. Neither the Poles nor the peaks of the Himalayas can hide any longer their millennial secrets from man\'s newly acquired Argus eye. The span and accuracy of our flying capacity have left no corner of the earth to lie in quiet and splendid isolation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe geographical revolution has led inevitably to the economic revolution which is not less momentous, pregnant with prophecies of brave new things. We all know that the modern world was ushered in with the industrial revolution. As a result of this new dispensation, world and society gradually divided into two camps: on one side, the industrialists and on the other the agriculturists, or, in a general way, the possessors of raw materials. The Imperialists formed the first group, while the latter, dominated by these, belonged to the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-61</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Colonies. The &quot;backward&quot; countries and people who could not take to industry, but continued the old system became a helpless prey to the industrial nations. Africa and Asia and the South American countries came under the domination of European nations, rather the West European Nations : they became the suppliers of raw materials and also the market for finished products. Also within the same country occupying the imperial status, there came a division, a class division, as it is called. A few industrial magnates or trusts (France had its famous Two-Hundred Families) monopolised all the wealth, became the top-dog, the &quot;Haves&quot;, the others were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, serfs and slaves, the &quot;Have-Nots&quot;. Exploitation was the motto of the age. The &quot;exploiters&quot; and the &quot;exploited&quot;, this trenchant duality was the whole truth of the social scheme and that summed up the entire malady of the collective life. Then came the First World War and the Bolshevic Revolution which brought to a head the great crisis and initiated the change-over to new conditions. The French Revolution called up from the rear of social ranks and set in front the Third Estate and gradually formed and crystallised, with the aid of the Industrial\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-62</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Revolution, what is known as the Bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution went a step farther. It dislodged the bourgeoisie and installed the Fourth Estate, the proletariate, as the head and front of society, its centre of power and governmental authority. In the meantime there was developing in the bourgeois society, too, a kind of socialism which aimed at the uplift and remoulding of the working class into a total social power. But the process could not go far enough. The Industrial League, no doubt, began to release some of its monopolies, delegate some of its power and authority to the Proletariate and sought an armistice and <i>entente; </i>but still it is they who wielded the real power and gave to society the tone and impress of their characteristic authority. The Russian experiment made a bold departure and attempted to build up a new society from the very bottom: the manual labourers, they who produce with the sweat of their brow and make a society living and prosperous must also be its rulers. Now whatever the success or failure in regard to the perfect ideal, the thing achieved is solid; certain forces have been released that are working inexorably in and through even contrary appearances, they have come to stay and cannot be negatived. The urge, for example,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-63</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">towards a more equitable distribution of wealth and wealth-producing implements, an even balancing of economic values has been growing and gathering strength: it has become an asset of the body social. Instead of an unfettered competition between rival agencies, the mad drive for a jealous and closely guarded appropriation (rather, mis-appropriation) by private cartels, there has arisen an inevitable need for a unitary or co-operative control under a common direction, whether it be that of the state or some other body equally representing the common interest. In other words, the principle of co-operation has now become a living reality, a thing of practical politics. All effort towards progress and amelioration, cure of social ills and regaining of health and strength must he in that direction: anything going the contrary way shall perforce be out of tune with the Time-Spirit and can cause only confusion, bring in stagnation or even regression.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFirst of all, the colonies, which mean practically the Eastern hemisphere, can no longer be regarded, even by those who would very much wish to, as the field of exploitation, the granary of raw materials or the dumping ground of finished articles. Industrialism, the spirit and urge of it at least, has reached these places\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-64</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">too: the exploiters themselves have been mstrumental in bringing it about. The growing industrialism in countries so long held in subjection or tutelage, as safe preserves, need not necessarily mean a further spell of keen competition. If we look closely, we see things moving in a different direction. It is self-evident that all countries do not and cannot grow or manufacture all things with equal ease and facility. Countries are naturally complementary or supplementary to each other with regard to their raw produce or industrial manufacture. And an inevitable give and take, mutual understanding and help must follow such an alignment of economic forces.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt must also be noted that all countries need not and cannot have the same pattern of economic life, even that of a successful economic life. A vast country like India, with the manifold resources of a whole continent, can at once be industrial and agricultural— modern America, to some extent, is an example of this type. She can follow both the lines of economic development with equal vigour and success. And in the midst of an intensive and extensive agricultural and industrial occupation, there may be still room for the age-long, old-world cottage industry, for the individual\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-65</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">artisan or craftsman whose God-given hand may always give to things an added value beyond the reach of the mere machine.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWith this perspective in view, keeping always in front the probable shape of things to come, one must learn to consider the present, look for those forces that make for the new world and thus help the course of evolution and progress. Nature does not care for her past formations, she is not bound to them; she is always throwing up chances and opportunities—variations—for new developments. Nature red in tooth and claw is only one side of the shield; and the picture is not as true today as it was even a few hundred years ago, in spite of the spells of devastating carnage she still allows in her surface movements. It may be that the very pressure and insistence of an inner harmony has brought to the fore, made acute difficulties and contraries that have to be met and solved for good.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nInternational co-operation has become a thing of immediate necessity, of practical utility. We met in San Francisco, not out of the spirit of sheer idealism or altruism but because we were forced to it. Circumstances have come to such a pass that even local needs, natural aspirations can be best met and served in and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-66</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">through international understanding. It is the solution of international problems, the amelioration of international relations first that would more easily lead to the solution of national problems than the other way round, which was perhaps the normal direction of the world-forces even a decade or two ago. Such world-organisations as the UNRRA or even the Red Cross, although they do not go deep enough into the root problems and are not powerful enough to mould or control world-forces, appearing more or less as charitable institutions, are still concrete expressions of an urgent immediate demand for mutuality and solidarity among the nations, even between warring nations.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe relation between India and Britain is peculiar and has an especial significance. It is not enough to say that Britain is the imperialist overlord and India the subject underling. The two stand for two world-forces and their relation is symbolic. The difficulty that will be solved between them will be a world-difficulty Solved; what they achieve in common will be a world-achievement. India means nations in bondage aspiring to be free, peoples living in conditions of want and weakness and internecine quarrel,  still struggling towards a\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-67</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">harmonious and prosperous organised life; she is the cry of the down-trodden demanding her share of earth\'s air and light—life-room. Britain represents the other side, the free people, organised, strong and successful. Neither America nor Russia fills this role. America is young; she has a wonderful grasp over life\'s externals; none can compare or compete with her in the ordering and marshalling of an efficient pattern of life, but what escapes her is the more abiding and deeper truth of life and living. Russia started to create on totally new foundations, indeed the outer aspect here has changed very much. But the forces that ruled Russia\'s past do not seem to have changed to the same extent. In spite of the rise of the proletariate, in spite of all local autonomies, it is doubtful if the true breath of freedom is blowing over the country, if the country is creating out of a deeper soul-vision. Life movement in either of these two countries seems to have a rigid mould; that is because they seek to build or reform, that is to say, fabricate life, in other words, they impose upon life a pattern conceived by notions and prejudgments, even perhaps idio-syncracies. The British are more amenable to change, precisely because they do not force a change and do not know they are changing.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-68</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe British Empire is more loosely formed, its units have more freedom than is the case with other Empires built upon the pattern of the extremely centralised Roman Empire. Truly it has the spirit of a commonwealth. The spirit of decentralisation and federation that is increasing today and has seized even old-world Empires—the Dutch, the French, the Russian —has come largely from the British example. Therefore, the unavelling of the Britain and India tangle would mean the solution of a world-problem. These two countries have been put together precisely because the solution is possible here and an ideal solution for all others to profit by.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe British people do not move by ideals and idealism, as the French do, for example. The French rise naturally in revolt and rebellion and revolution for the sake of an idea— the motto of the Great Revolution was &quot;Liberty or Death&quot;. Without an upsetting they cannot bring about a change; for the social moulds are rigid and more presistent. The Anglo-Saxons, \non the contrary, go by an unfailing instinct, as it were, gradually and slowly, but surely and inevitably—&quot; from precedent to precedent&quot;, as they themselves say. A life-intuition guides them: the inherent merit of an</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-69</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">ideal has not such a great value in their eye, but if the ideal means a practical utility, a thing demanded by time and circumstances, a clear issue out of a dead impasse, well, they hesitate no longer and go about it in right earnest as practical men of affairs.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, there can be no doubt that the British wish, are even eager, to have a settlement with India: they wish to have an India free and united and strong and they are willing to lend their help as far as lies in their power and competence,—not because it is an ideal, something good in the abstract and therefore worth pursuing and they are altruistic or philanthropic by nature, but because it is a matter of self-interest to them, it is a thing to be done because of the actual life conditions. A strong free and friendly India is an asset they wish to build and conserve. They feel that the old-world methods of one-sided exploitation is neither possible nor desirable any longer; they must move with the moving times. And, as I have already said, they do not move principally by ideas and notions and brain formations, they are in closer touch with life forces and are more easily responsive to these.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTrue, there are contrary voices. But as one swallow does not make a summer, even so, many\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-70</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">such voices cannot perpetuate the past. The name, even the form of Imperialism is there, but the substance of it is how much changed, if one goes behind! The. British Empire, as it stands today, is composed of three strands, we may say: the first, the front line, consists of Canada and Australia, the second, of Ireland, Egypt and Irak, and the third, mainly of India. This graded pattern shows that it is something fluid and even progressive, there is nothing rigid and final about it. The very nature of the composition seems to exert a pressure working for an equality, an equilibrium of partnership building up a genuine Commonwealth. The model is catching. An Imperialistic Russia, that has found a new <i>avatar </i>in Stalin, has become a champion of federalism, as the best way of preserving the imperial integrity!\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndia should consider the present situation with calmness, detachment and wisdom, not hark back to the past, brooding over the mistakes and misdeeds of her erstwhile masters —they are no longer masters; yes, forgiving and forgetting, one must face squarely the new situation and make the best use of it. India, that claims a spiritual heritage and a high and hoary civilisation, can afford to be idealistic even and envisage a deeper and higher law of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-71</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Nature, of universal harmony and solidarity, of conscious co-operation. Apart from that, if as practical men, we look to our self-interest, then also it will be wise for us to take up the same line of procedure, <i>viz., </i>what idealism demands. A nation too, like the individual, can be swayed by pride, prejudice, passion, a false sense of prestige and a spirit of vengeance. However natural these reactions may seem to be, in view of the conditions of their incidence, they possess, more often than not, the property of the boomerang, they hit back the originating source itself. It has been said, for example, that the origin of the present war — the rise of Hitler—is due to the Versailles Treaty that ended the last war, which was, in its turn a war of <i>revenge </i>having its origin on the field of Sedan; this campaign of 1870 \nagain was <i>the </i>natural and inevitable outcome of the Napoleonic conquest. Thus there has been a seesaw movement in national relations without a difinite issue. And pessimists of today aver that we are not come to the end of the spiral.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut we do not subscribe to such prognostics. There is no inevitability of the kind. &quot;Time must have a stop.&quot; The two lower limbs of the dialectic must be rounded in then by a higher reality. For two reasons. First of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-72</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">all, Nature herself moves towards synthesis and harmony—discord and difference are part only of the process working for that eventual consummation. Secondly, the human spirit is there, with the urge of its inevitable destiny, to create its power in the vision and consciousness of the hidden truth and reality which surface contingencies seem often to deny.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nLet India\'s freedom mean precisely this higher synthesis so much needed and so long expected in the life of humanity.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-73</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-012_New World Conditions','','publish','closed','open','','012_new-world-conditions','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/012_new-world-conditions/',0,'post','',0),(1584,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-005_The Right Of Absolute Freedom.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>THE RIGHT OF ABSOLUTE FREEDOM </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA nation cannot claim the right, even in the name of freedom, to do as it pleases. An individual has not that right, the nation too has not. A nation is a member of humanity, there are other members and there is the common welfare of all. A nation by choosing a particular line of action, in asserting its absolute freedom, may go against other nations, or against the general good. Such freedom has to be curbed and controlled. Collective life—if one does not propose to live the life of the solitary—the animal or the saint—is nothing if not such a system of controls. &quot; The whole of politics is an interference with personal liberty. Law is such an interference; protection is such an interference; the rule which makes the will of the majority prevail is such an interference. The right to prevent such use of personal liberty as will injure the interests of the race is the fundamental law of society. From this point of view the nation is only using its primary rights when it restrains the individual from buying or selling foreign goods.&quot; Thus spoke a great Nationalist leader in the days of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-27</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Boycott and Swadeshi. What is said here of the individual can be said of the nation too in relation to the greater good of humanity. The ideal of a nation or state supreme all by itself, with rights that none can challenge, inevitably leads to the cult of the Super-state, the Master-race. If such a monster is not to be tolerated, the only way left is to limit the absolute value of nationhood, to view a nation only as a member in a comity of nations forming the humanity at large.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA nation not free, still in bondage, cannot likewise justify its claim to absolute freedom by all or any means, at all times, in all circumstances. There are times and circumstances when even an enslaved nation has to bide its time. Man, in order to assert his freedom and individuality, cannot sign a pact with Mephis-topheles; if he does so he must be prepared for the consequences. The same truth holds with regard to the nation. A greater danger may attend a nation than the loss of freedom— the life and soul of humanity itself may be in imminent peril. Such a cataclysmic danger mankind has just passed through or is still passing through. All nations, however circumstanced in the old world, who have stood and fought on the side of humanity, by that very\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">gesture, have acquired the right,—and the might too,—to gain freedom and greatness and all good things which would not be possible otherwise.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWithin the nation all communities must be ready to give and take and settle down amicably. Within humanity too all nations must live the same principle. The days of free competition must be considered as gone for good; instead the rule of collaboration and co-operation has to be adopted (even between past enemies and rivals). In mutual aid and self-limitation lie also the growth and fulfilment of each collective individuality. That is the great Law of Sacrifice enunciated ages ago by Sri Krishna in the Gita—&quot;By increasing each other all will attain the <i>Summum Bonum.&quot;</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-005_The Right Of Absolute Freedom','','publish','closed','open','','005_the-right-of-absolute-freedom','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_the-right-of-absolute-freedom/',0,'post','',0),(1585,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-006_Federated Humanity.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>FEDERATED HUMANITY </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe last great war, out of its bloody welter, threw up a <i>mantra </i>for the human consciousness to contemplate and seize and realise: it was <i>self-determination. </i>The present world-war has likewise cast up a <i>mantra </i>that is complementary. The problem of the unification of the whole human race has engaged the attention of seers and sages, idealists and men of action, since time immemorial; but only recently its demand has become categorically imperative for a solution in the field of practical politics. Viewed from another angle, one can say that it is also a problem Nature has set before herself, has been dealing with through the ages, elaborating and leading to a final issue.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe original unit of the human aggregate is the family; it is like the original cell which lies at the back of the entire system that is called the human body or, for that matter, any organic body. A living and stable nucleus is needed round which a crystallisation and growth can occur. The family furnished such a nucleus in the early epochs of humanity. But with the growth of human life there came\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a time when, for a better and more efficient organization in collective life, larger units were needed. The original unit had to be enlarged in order to meet the demands of a wider and more complex growth. Also it is to be noted that the living body is not merely a conglomeration of cells, all more or less equal and autonomous—something like a democratic or an anarchic organization; but it consists of a grouping of such cells in spheres or regions or systems according to differing functions. And as we rise in the scale of evolution the grouping becomes more and more complex, well-defined and hierarchical. Human collectivity also shows a similar development in organization. The original, the primitive unit—the family—was first taken up into a larger unit, the clan; the clan, in its turn, gave place to the tribe and finally the tribe merged into the nation. A similar widening of the unit can also be noticed in man\'s habitat, in bis geographical environment. The primitive man was confined to the. village; the village gradually grew into the township and the city state. Then came the regional unit and last of all we arrived at the country.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nUntil the last great war it seemed that the nation (and country) was the largest living\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">unit that human collectivity could admit without the risk of a break-up. Now it was at this momentous epoch that the first concept or shape of a larger federation—typified in the League of Nations—stirred into life and began to demand its <i>lebensraum. </i>It could not however come to fruition and stability, because the age of isolated nationhood had not yet passed and the principle of self-determination yet needed its absolute justification.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe present war puts the problem in the most acute way. Shall it be still a nation or shall it be a &quot;commonwealth&quot; that must henceforth be the dynamic unit? Today it is evident, it is a fact established by the sheer force of circumstances that isolated, self-sufficient nations are a thing of the past, even like the tribes of the Hebrews or the clans of the Hittites. A super-nation, that is to say, a commonwealth of nations is the larger unit that Nature is in travail to bring forth and establish. That is the inner meaning of the mighty convulsions shaking and tearing humanity today. The empire of the past—an empire of the Roman type and pattern—was indeed in its own way an attempt in the direction of a closely unified larger humanity; but it was a crude and abortive attempt, as Nature\'s\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">first attempts mostly are. For the term that was omitted in that greater synthesis was self-determination. Centralisation is certainly the secret of a large organic unity, but not over-centralisation; for this means the submission and sacrifice of all other parts of an organism to the undue demands and interests of only one organ which is considered as the centre, the <i>metropolis. </i>Such a system dries up in the end the vitality of the organism: the centre, sucking in all nourishment from the outlying members suffers from oedema and the whole eventually decays and disintegrates. That is the lesson the Roman Empire teaches us.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe autocratic empire is dead and gone: we need not fear its shadow or ghostly regeneration. But the ideal which inspired it in secret and justified its advent and reign is a truth that has still its day. The drive of Nature, of the inner consciousness of humanity was always to find a greater and larger unit for the collective life of mankind. That unit today has to be a federation of free peoples and nations. In the place of nations, several such commonwealths must now form the broad systems of the body politic of human collectivity. That must give the pattern of its texture, the outline  of its configuration—the shape of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">things to come. Such unit is no longer a hypothetical proposition, a nebula, a matter of dream and imagination. It has become a practical necessity; first of all, because of the virtual impossibility of any single nation, big or small, standing all by itself alone—military and political and economic exigencies demand inescapable collaboration with others, and secondly, because of the still stricter geographical compulsion—the speed and ease of communication has made the globe so small and all its parts so interdependent that none can possibly afford to be exclusive and self-centred.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe organization of this greater and larger unit is the order of the day. It does not seem possible at this stage to go straight to the whole of humanity at large and make of it one single indivisible entity, obliterating all barriers of race and nation. An intermediate step is still necessary even if that remains the final end. Nationhood has been a helper in that direction; it is now a bar. And yet an indiscriminate internationalism cannot meet the situation today, it overshoots the mark. The march of events and circumstances prescribe that nations should combine to form groups or, as they say in French, societies of nations. The combination, however, must be freely\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">determined, as voluntary partnership in a common labour organisation for common profit and achievement. This problem has to be sloved first, then only can the question of nationalism or other allied knots be unravelled. Nature the Sphinx has set the problem before us and we have to answer it here and now, if humanity is to be saved and welded together into a harmonious whole for a divine purpose.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-006_Federated Humanity','','publish','closed','open','','006_federated-humanity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_federated-humanity/',0,'post','',0),(1586,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-013_The Basis of Unity.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>THE BASIS OF UNITY </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">I\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA modern society or people cannot have religion, that is to say, credal religion, as the basis of its organized collective life. It was mediaeval society and people that were organized on that line. Indeed mediaevalism means nothing more—and nothing less—than that. But whatever the need and justification in the past, the principle is an anachronism under modern conditions. It was needed, perhaps, to keep alive a truth which goes into the very roots of human life and its deepest aspiration; and it was needed also for a dynamic application of that truth on a larger scale and in smaller details, on the mass of mankind and in its day to day life. That was the aim of the Church Militant and the Khilafat; that was the spirit, although in a more Sattwic way, behind the Buddhistic evangelism or even Hindu colonization.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that gives a permanent\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-74</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this \'sphere of sorrow\' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary, extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding that was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA modern people is a composite entity, especially with regard to its religious affiliation. Not religion, but culture is the basis of modern collective life, national or social. Culture includes in its grain that fineness of temperament which appreciates all truths behind all forms, even when there is a personal allegiance to one particular form.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn India, it is well known, the diversity of affiliations is colossal, <i>sui generis. </i>Two major affiliations have today almost cut the country into two; and desperate remedies are suggested which are worse than the malady itself, as they may kill the patient outright. If it is so,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-75</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">it is, I <i>repeat, </i>the mediaeval spirit that is at the bottom of the trouble.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe rise of this spirit in modern times and conditions is a phenomenon that has to be explained and faced: it is a ghost that, has come out of the past and has got to be laid and laid for good. First of all, it is a reaction from modernism: it is a reaction from the modernist denial of certain fundamental and eternal truths, of God, soul, and immortality: it is a reaction from the modernist affirmation of the mere economic man. And it is also a defensive gesture of a particular complex of consciousness that has grown and lives powerfully and now apprehends expurgation and elimination.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the religious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St. Bartholomews, died away: it died, and ( or, because) it was replaced by a spirit that was felt as being equally, if not more, authentic and, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a large and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man\'s aspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It was a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on that level it brought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interest—a\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-76</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">humanistic culture, as it is called—which constituted a living and unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great French Revolution which was the final <i>coup de grace </i>to all that still remained of mediaevalism, even in its Outer structure, political and economical.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn India the spirit of renascence came very late, late almost by three centuries; and even then it could not flood the whole of the continent in all its nooks and corners, psychological and physical. There were any number of pockets (to use a current military phrase) left behind which guarded the spirit of the past and offered persistent and obdurate resistance. Perhaps, such a dispensation was needed in India and inevitable also; inevitable, because the religious spirit is closest to India\'s soul and is its most direct expression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, because India\'s and the world\'s future demands it and depends upon it.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnly, the religious spirit has to be bathed and purified and enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: that is to say, one must learn and understand and realize that Spirit is the thing-—the one thing needful—<i>Tamevaikam j</i>&#257;<i>natha</i>; \'religions\' are its names and forms,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-77</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">appliances and decorations. Let us have by all means the religious spirit, the fundamental: experience that is the inmost truth of all religions, that is the matter of our soul; but in our mind and life and body let there be a luminous catholicity, let these organs and instruments be trained to see and compare and appreciate the variety, the numberless facets which the one Spirit naturally presents to the human consciousness. <i>Ekam sat vipr</i>&#257;<i>h bahudh</i>&#257;<i> vadanti. </i>It is an ancient truth that man discovered even in his earliest seekings; but it still awaits an adequate expression and application in life.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para_center\">II\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndia\'s historical development is marked by a special characteristic which is at once the expression of her inmost nature and the setting of a problem which she has to solve for herself and for the whole human race. I have spoken of the diversity and divergence of affiliations in a modern social unit. But what distinguishes India from all other peoples is that the diversity and divergence have culminated here in contra-dictoriness and mutual exclusion.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe first extremes that met in India and fought and gradually coalesced to form a single\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-78</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">cultural and social whole were, as is well known, the Aryan and the non-Aryan. Indeed, the geologists tell us, the land itself is divided into two parts structurally quite different and distinct, the Deccan plateau and the Himalayan ranges with the Indo-Gangetic plain: the former, is formed out of the most ancient and stable and, on the whole, horizontally bedded rocks of the earth, while the latter is of comparatively recent origin, formed out of a more flexible and weaker belt (the Himalayan region consisting of a colossal flexing and crumpling of strata). The disparity is so much that a certain group of geologists hold that the Deccan plateau did not at all form part of the Asiatic continent, but had drifted and dashed into it: in fact the Himalayas are the result of this mighty impact. The usual division of an Aryan and a Dravidian race may be due to a memory of the clash of the two continents and their races.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHowever, coming to historical times, we see wave after wave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elements—Sakas and Huns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic material—enter into the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign identity and become part and parcel of the common whole.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-79</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Even so,—a single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting materials-not in the political, but in a socio-religious sense. For a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and personal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost an infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms of apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast synthesis of mutiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic genius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked upon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic religion and culture, for its invariable basis—the bed-rock on which it stood firm and erect—was the Vedas, the Knowledge seen by the sages. But there had already risen a voice of dissidence and discord—that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of Buddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth and reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a vital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not be serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper divergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-80</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">life. It was quite a new t<u>h</u>i<u>n</u>g in the Indian consciousness and spiritual discipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands as the dominant character of the Indian outlook. However, India\'s synthetic genius rose to the occasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and present again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the Avataras : the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the last duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a full-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay through Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon Brahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by Kalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThey devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in youth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to spiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the higher consciousness.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnly this process of integration was not done in a day, it took some centuries and had to pass through some unpleasant intermediary stages.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd still this was not the last—it could not be the last—antithesis that had to be\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-81</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">synthetized. The dialectical movement led to a more serious and fiercer contradiction. The Buddhistic schism was after all a division brought about from within: it could be said that the two terms of the antinomy belonged to the same genus and were commensurable. The idea or experience of Asat and Maya was not unknown to the Upanishads, only it had not there the exclusive stress which the later developments gave it. Hence quite a different, an altogether foreign body was imported into what was or had come to be a homogeneous entity, and in a considerable mass. Unlike the previous irruptions that merged and were lost m the general life and consciousness, Islam entered as a leaven that maintained its integrity and revolutionized Indian life and culture by infusing into its tone a Semitic accent. After the Islamic impact India could not be what she was before—a change became inevitable even in the major note. It was a psychological cataclysm almost on a par with the geological one that formed her body; but the spirit behind which created the body was working automatically, inexorably towards the greater and more difficult synthesis demanded by the situation. Only the thing is to be done now consciously,  not   through   an unconscious\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-82</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">process of <i>laissez-faire </i>as on the inferior stages of evolution in the past. And that is the true genesis of the present conflict.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHistory abounds in instances of racial and cultural immixture. Indeed, all major human groupings of today are invariably composite formations. Excepting, perhaps, some primitive aboriginal tribes there are no pure races existent. The Briton, the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman have combined to form the British; a Frenchman has a Gaul, a Roman, a Frank in him; and a Spaniard\'s blood would show an Iberian, a Latin, a Gothic, a Moorish element in it. And much more than a people, a culture in modern times has been a veritable cockpit of multifarious and even incongruous elements. There are instances also in which a perfect fusion could not be accomplished, and one element had to be rejected or crushed out. The complete disappearance of the Aztecs and Mayas in South America, the decadence of the Red Indians in North America, of the Negroes in Africa as a result of a fierce clash with European peoples and European culture illustrate the point.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood fusion and mental fusion of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-83</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">different peoples, although on a smaller scale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a higher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and unity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of unity—since, at bottom, it means identity—it is on this plane that mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce. India\'s genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect solution of this supreme problem.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIslam comes with a full-fledged spiritual soul and a mental and vital formation commensurable with that inner being and consciousness. It comes with a dynamic spirit, a warrior mood, that aims at conquering the physical world for the Lord, a temperament which Indian spirituality had not, or had lost long before, if she had anything of it. This was, perhaps, what Vivekananda meant when he spoke graphically of a Hindu soul with a Muslim body. The Islamic dispensation, however, brings with it not only something complementary, but also something contradictory, if not for anything else, at least for the strong individuality which does not easily yield to assimilation. Still, in spite of great odds the process of assimilation was going on slowly and surely.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-84</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">But of late it appears to have come to a dead halt; difficulties have been presented which seem insuperable.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf religious toleration were enough, if that made up man\'s highest and largest achievement, then Nature need not have attempted to go beyond cultural fusion; a liberal culture is the surest basis for a catholic religious spirit. But such a spirit of toleration and catholicity, although it bespeaks a widened consciousness, does not always enshrine a profundity of being. Nobody is more tolerant and catholic than a dilettante, but an ardent spiritual soul is different.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo be loyal to one\'s line of self-fulfilment, to follow one\'s self-law, <i>swadharma, </i>wholly and absolutely—without this no spiritual life is possible—and yet not to come into clash with other lines and loyalties, nay more, to be in positive harmony with them, is a problem which has not been really solved. It was solved, perhaps, in the consciousness of a Ramakrishna, a few individuals here and there, but it has always remained a source of conflict and disharmony in the general mind even in the field of spirituality. The clash of spiritual or religious loyalties has taken such an acute form in India today, they have been carried\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-85</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">to the bitter extreme, in order, we venture to say, that the final synthesis might be absolute and irrevocable. This is India\'s mission to work out, and this is the lesson which she brings to the world.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe solution can come, first, by going to the true religion of the Spirit, by being truly spiritual and not merely religious, for, as we have said, real unity lies only in and through the Spirit, since Spirit is one and indivisible; secondly, by bringing down something—a great part, indeed, if not the whole—of this puissant and marvellous Spirit into our life of emotions and sensations and activities.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf it is said that this is an ideal for the few only, not for the mass, our answer to that is the answer of the Gita—<i>Yad yad acharati sreshthah. </i>Let the few then practise and achieve the ideal: the mass will have to follow as far as it is possible an necessary. It is the very character of the evolutionary system of Nature, as expressed in the principle of symbiosis, that any considerable change in one place (in one species) is accompanied by a corresponding change in the same direction in other contiguous places (in other associated species) in order that the poise and balance of the system may be maintained.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-86</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is precisely strong nuclei that are needed ( even, perhaps, one strong nucleus is sufficient ) where the single and integrated spiritual consciousness is an accomplished and established fact: that acts inevitably as a solvent drawing in and assimilating or transforming and re-creating as much of the surroundings as its own degree and nature of achievement inevitably demand.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndia did not and could not stop at mere cultural fusion—which was a supreme gift of the Moguls. She did not and could not stop at another momentous cultural fusion brought about by the European impact. She aimed at something more. Nature demanded of her that she should discover a greater secret of human unity and through progressive experiments apply and establish it in fact. Christianity did not raise this problem of the greater synthesis, for the Christian peoples were more culture-minded than religious-minded. It was left for an Asiatic people to set the problem and for India to work out the solution.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-87</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-013_The Basis of Unity','','publish','closed','open','','013_the-basis-of-unity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/013_the-basis-of-unity/',0,'post','',0),(1587,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-002_The World War.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>PART I </H3>\n<br>\n<H3>THE WORLD WAR </H3>\n<br>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para_center\">THE WORLD WAR\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">ITS INNER BEARINGS\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis 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,<sub> </sub>continues to be the empire of unspirituality and obscurity, of suffering and grief, it is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">unable to become a dynamic and living expression and embodiment of the Spirit.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNot 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 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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">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.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHumanists 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 functions. The ideal, as we have said, has seldom been accepted; generally it has been considered as a chimera and an impossibility. That is why, we repeat, even to this day the world has its cup of misery full to the brim— <i>anityam asukham.</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll 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 West, which finds a graphic\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">description in the well-known lines of Matthew Arnold:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n		<p class=\"para\">The East bow\'d low before the blast</p>\n		<p class=\"para\">In patient deep disdain. </p>\n		<p class=\"para\">She let the legions thunder past, </p>\n		<p class=\"para\">And plunged in thought again. </p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn fact, however, there is no insurmountable disparity between spirituality and &quot;worldliness&quot;, between meditation and the most &quot;terrible work&quot; —<i>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 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 of her essential aspects, the slayer of the Demon, of the Asura.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, 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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">country with another, of one group of Imperialists with another, nor is it merely the fierce endeavour of a particular race or nation for 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 of the inner world is revealed, have realised the true nature of the present struggle and have expressed it in no uncertain terms. Here is what Jules Romains, one of the foremost thinkers and litterateurs of contemporary France, says:\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;Since the end of 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 for 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 modem times the accidents of military history in Europe have never meant for her the end of her most precious spiritual and moral values and a sudden annulment of all the work done by the past generations in the direction of mutual respect,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">equity, goodwill—or, to put all into a single word, in the direction of humanity.&quot;\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nModem thinkers do not speak of 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 or less imaginative symbols for certain undesirable qualities of nature and character. Yet some have perceived and expressed the external manifestation 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;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">it has come with a more categorical imperative, a more supernal authority than the Veda, the Bible or the Koran.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhen 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 Germany in Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asia—is to be the sovereign nation or master race ( <i>Her-renvolk </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</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">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 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\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThose that have stood against this Dark Force and its overshadowing menace—even though perhaps not wholly by choice or freewill, 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 activities—<i>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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the domain of action. Man is the domain of action <i>par excellence; </i>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 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.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\"><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">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 difference, 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 not 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 \nis 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.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe 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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">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. 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.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe 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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAsura. 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.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNo 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;\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs 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—however slow his steps, however\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">burdened with doubt and faintness his mind and heart in the. ascent But now the crucial\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nparting 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 than that? Or will he remain free to follow that path, rise gradually and infallibly towards perfection, towards a purer, fuller, higher and vaster luminous life ? Will man come down to live the life of a blind helpless slave under the clutches of the Asura or even altogether lose his soul and become the legendary demon who carries no head but only a decapitated trunk?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe 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 platae 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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">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.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe 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 and lapses, it will surmount all dangers and obstacles and become unconquerable. This is what the spiritual\nseeker\nmeans by saying that the Divine Grace can make the lame leap across the mountain.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">India\'s destiny today bangs in the balance; it lies in the choice of her path.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA 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 bo 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\'</i>ê<i>tre</i>—the earth 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</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">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 wholeheartedly in an all-round comradeship if we want to be saved from a great perdition.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis 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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">precipitated themselves 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 must 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 as the birth-pangs of such a spiritual consciousness. Whether the labour would be sublimely fruitful here and now or end in barrenness is the question the Fates and the gods are asking of man—the mortal being—today.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<br>\n</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n			\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_The World War','','publish','closed','open','','002_the-world-war','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_the-world-war/',0,'post','',0),(1588,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-000_Pre_Content.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<p align=\"center\">\n<img border=\"0\" src=\"/Nolini/Towards A New Society/_images/P%20-%20002.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"421\"></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\'para_center\'>\n<i>Published by</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\'para_center\'> Sri Aurobindo Circle\n</p>\n<p class=\'para_center\'> Bombay\n</p>\n			<br>\n			<br>\n			<br>\n<p class=\'para_center\'> First Edition, 1946\n</p>\n			<br>\n			<br>\n			<br>\n<p class=\'para_center\'>\n<i>All Rights Reserved</i>\n</p>\n			<br>\n			<br>\n			<br>\n<p class=\'para_center\'> Imprimerie de Sri Aurobindo Ashra\n</p>\n<p class=\'para_center\'> Pondichéry\n</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','towards-a-new-society-000_precontent','','publish','closed','open','','towards-a-new-society-000_precontent','','','2021-11-23 17:21:47','2021-11-23 17:21:47','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/towards-a-new-society-000_precontent/',0,'post','',0),(1589,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-001_Author^s Note.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>AUTHORS NOTE </H3>\n			<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> All the essays included in this \nvolume were written during the war years (1940-1945). Some of them dealt with \nsituations directly arising out of the war and so they carry certain points of \nemphasis which are no longer valid, at least to the same extent, under changed \ncircumstances of today. Still they are of interest and may help in some way to \nformulate one\'s ideas regarding the future and are therefore reprinted. These \nare mostly editorial notes and comments contributed to the <i>Advent </i>\n</p>\n			<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Acknowledgement is due to \nAll-India Radio, Delhi, from where the first essay, in an abridged form was \nbroadcast on December 4, 1942. \'New World-Conditions\' was published in the <i>\nHindusthan Quarterly </i>Calcutta.\n(1945 \n), .\'The \nBasis of Unity\' in the Prabuddha \nBharata (1943, May), the papers \'On Social Reconstruction\' in the \nSri Aurobindo \nCircle Annual, Bombay, (1945), and \'The Three\nDegrees of SociaI Organisation; in the Aryan Path (1943, August)</p>	\n</div>\n</html>','-001_Author\'s Note','','publish','closed','open','','001_authors-note','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/001_authors-note/',0,'post','',0),(1590,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-017_Three Degrees of Social Organization.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n \n			\n<p class=\"para_center\">THREE DEGREES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION \n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Declaration of Rights is a characteristic\nmodem phenomenon. It is a message of liberty\nand freedom, no doubt,—of secular liberty and freedom—things not very common in the old world; and yet, at the same time, it is a clarion that calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has sanctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also, <i>pari passu, </i>developed a fissiparous tendency in human organization. Society based on or living by the principle of Rights becomes naturally and inevitably a competitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing more— and, of course, nothing less—than a bundle of rights, the human aggregation is bound to be an exact image of Darwinian Nature—red in tooth and claw.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut \'Rights\' is not the only term on which an ideal or even a decent society can be based. There is another term which can serve equally well, if not better. I am obviously referring to the conception of duty.   It is\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-133</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">an old-world conception; it is a conception particularly familiar to the East. The Indian term for Right is also the term for Duty— <i>adhik</i>&#257;<i>ra </i>means both. In Europe too, in more recent times, when after the frustration of the dream of the new world envisaged by the French Revolution, man was called upon again to rise and hope, it was Mazzini who brought forward the new or discarded principle as a <i>mantra </i>replacing the other more dangerous one. A hierarchy of duties was given by him as the pattern of a fulfilled ideal life. In India in out day the distinction between the two attitudes was very strongly insisted upon by the great Vivekananda.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nVivekananda said that if human society was to be remodelled, one must first of all learn to think and act not in terms of claims and rights but in terms of duties and obligations. Fulfil your duties conscientiously; the rights will take care of themselves; it is such an attitude that can give man the right poise, the right impetus, the right outlook in regard to collective living. If, instead of each one\'s demanding what he considers as his dues and and consequently scrambling and battling for them, and most often not getting them or getting at a ruinous price—such as made Arjuna\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-134</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">cry, &quot;What shall I do with all this kingdom if in regaining it I lose my kith and kin and all that are dear to me?&quot;—if, indeed, instead of claiming one\'s rights, one were content to know one\'s duty and to do it as it should be done, then not only would there be peace and amity upon earth, but also each one, far from losing anything, would find miraculously all that he most needed—the necessary, the right rights and all that they involve.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt might be objected here, however, that actually in the history of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less pugnacious than that of Right. In certain ages and among certain peoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the faithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible belonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to burn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of high and solemn duty that perpetrated the brutalities that have been termed &quot;purges,&quot; undertaken, it appears, to purify and preserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial aggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not <i>duty </i>but <i>fanaticism. </i>And there is a considerable difference between the two. Fanaticism may be\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-135</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">defined as duty running away with itself; but what we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but duty proper, self-poised.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOne might claim also on behalf of the doctrine of Rights that the right kind of a Right brings no harm: it is, as already stated, another name for liberty, for the privilege of living, and it includes the obligation to let live. One can do what one likes provided one does not infringe the equal right of others to do the same. The measure of one\'s liberty is equal to the measure of others\' liberty.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere is the crux of the question. The dictum of utilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate but not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one\'s own rights and the equal rights of others is so indefinable and variable that a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and establishing or even maintaining one\'s lights, there is always the possibility almost certainty—of encroaching upon other\'s rights.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is required therefore is not an external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an inner outlook and poise of character. And this can be cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense of duty.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-136</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberration, we must have something else to check and control, some other higher and more potent principle. Indeed, the conceptions of both Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideas, although one is usually more aggressive and militant, <i>r</i>&#257;<i>jasic, </i>and the other tends to be more tolerant and considerate, <i>s</i>&#257;<i>ttwic: </i>neither can give an absolute certainty of poise, a clear guarantee of perfect harmony.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndian wisdom has found this other, a fairer term—a <i>tertium quid, </i>the mystic factor sought for by so many philosophers on so many counts. That is the very well-known, the very familiar term — Dharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which to others seems to have proved an impossibility ? Dharma is self-law, that is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our truth-conscious nature.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Consciousness at its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the principle of inertia, <i>tamas;</i>\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-137</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">in that state things have mostly an undifferen-tiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside themselves. Growth and evolution bring about differentiation, specialisation, organization. And this means consciousness of oneself, of the distinct and separate existence of each and every one, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself first and foremost. It is a necessary development, for it signifies the growth of self-condousness in the units out of a mass unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is the expression of <i>rajas, </i>the mode of dynamism, of strife and struggle; it is the corrective of <i>tamas.</i>\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the earliest and most primitive society men lived totally in a mass conciousness. Their life was a blind obedience—obedience to the chief, the patriarch or <i>pater familias</i>—obedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty, it was called even <i>dharma, </i>but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation; in reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-138</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe conception of Right had to appear in order to bring out the principle of individuality, of personal freedom and fulfilment. For, a true, healthy collectivity is the association and organization of free and self-determinate units. The growth of independent individuality naturally means, at first, clash and rivalry and a violently competitive society is the result. It is only at this stage that the conception of duty can fruitfully come in to develop in man and his society the mode of <i>sattwa, </i>which is that of light and wisdom, of toleration and harmony. Then only do men seek to mould society on the principle of co-ordination and co-operation.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nStill, the conception of duty cannot finally and definitively solve the problem. It cannot arrive at a perfect harmonisation of the conflicting claims of individual units; for duty, as I have already said, is a child of mental idealism and, although the mind can exercise some kind of control over the life-forces, it cannot altogether eliminate the seeds of conflict that lie embedded in the very nature of life. It is for this reason that there is an element of constraint in duty: it is, as the poet says, the \'stem daughter of the Voice of God.\' One has to compel oneself, one has to force oneself on to carry out one\'s duty—there is a feeling somehow\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-139</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of its being a bitter pill. The cult of duty means <i>rajas </i>controlled and coerced by <i>sattwa, </i>not the transcendence <i>of rajas. </i>This leads us to the high and supreme conception of Dharma, which is a transcendence of the <i>gunas. </i>Dharma is not an ideal, a standard or a rule that one has to obey; it is the law of self-nature that one inevitably follows; it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is heroic, the path of Dharma is of the gods, godly. (Cf. Virabhava and Divyabhava of the Tantras.)\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe principle of Dharma then inculcates that each individual must, in order to act, find out the truth of his own being, his true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely and integrally merge oneself into that, be identified with it in such a manner that all acts and feelings and thoughts, in fact all movements—inner and outer—spontaneously and irrepressibly well out of that fount and origin. The individual souls being made of one truth-nature in its multiple modalities, when they live, move and have their being in its essential law and dynamism, there cannot but be absolute harmony and perfect synthesis between all the units, even as the sun and moon and stars which, as the Veda says, each following its specific orbit according to its specific nature\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-140</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nnever collide or halt, <i>ne methate ne tasthatuh, </i>but weave out a faultless pattern of symphony.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe future society of man is envisaged as something of like nature. When the mortal being will have found his immortal soul and divine self, then each will be able to give full and free expression to his self-nature, <i>swabh</i>&#257;<i>va; </i>then indeed even the utmost sweep of dynamism in each and all, <i>swadharma, </i>will not cause dash or conflict: on the contrary, each will increase the other and there will be a global increment and fulfilment, <i>parasparam bh</i>&#257;<i>va-yantah. </i>The division and conflict, the stress and strain that belong to the very nature of the inferior level of being and consciousness will then have been transcended. It is only then that a diviner humanity can be born to replace all the other moulds and types that never lead to anything final and absolutely satisfactory.\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-141</p>\n			\n	</div>\n\n\n\n</html>','-017_Three Degrees of Social Organization','','publish','closed','open','','017_three-degrees-of-social-organization','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/017_three-degrees-of-social-organization/',0,'post','',0),(1591,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-018_Appendix.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n \n			\n<p class=\"para_center\">APPENDIX\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para_center\">\nSRI AUROBINDO\'S VIEWS ON THE\nSECOND WORLD WAR*\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>You have said that you have begun to doubt whether it was the Mother\'s War and ask me to make you feel again that it is. I affirm again to you most strongly that this is the Mother\'s War. You should not think of it as a fight for certain nations against others or even for India. It is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully and against a darkness and false-hood that are trying to overwhelm the earth and mankind in the immediate future. It is the forces behind the battle that have to be seen and not this or that superficial circumstance. It is no use concentrating on the defects or mistakes of nations; all have defects and commit serious mistakes; but what matters is on what side they have ranged themselves in the struggle. It is a struggle for the liberty of mankind to develop, for conditions in which men have freedom and room to think and act</i>\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n*From a letter written to a disciple on 29th July,\n1942</p><br>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-142</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>according to the Light in them and grow in the Truth, grow in the Spirit. There cannot be the slightest doubt that if one side wins there will be an end. of all such freedom and hope of light and truth and the work that has to be done will be subjected to conditions which would make it humanly impossible; there will be a reign of falsehood and darkness, a cruel oppression and degradation for most of the human race such as people in this country do not dream of and cannot yet at all realise. If the other side that has declared itself for the free future of humanity triumphs, this terrible danger will have been averted and conditions will have been created in which there will be a chance for the ideal to grow, for the Divine Work to be done, for the spiritual truth for which we stand to establish itself on the earth. Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine and against the threatened reign of the Asura.</i>\n</p><br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>SRI AUROBINDO</i>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-143</p>\n			\n	</div>\n\n\n\n</html>','-018_Appendix','','publish','closed','open','','018_appendix','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/018_appendix/',0,'post','',0),(1592,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-009_The Basic Unity.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>THE BASIC UNITY </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere is one unity which cannot be denied to India, because Nature has given it and man cannot withdraw or annul it. It is the geographical, the physical unity. It is so clearly and indelibly marked that it has always been looked upon as a definite unit by all outside its boundaries; one may call in question the cultural unity, if one chooses, one may be sceptic about the spiritual unity, but the unity of the body leaps to the eyes, even as the clear contour of a living organism. As we know, however, an individual human frame may contain many personalities, many Jekyls and Hydes may lodge in the same physical tenement, even so, the physical unity that is India may harbour many and diverse independent elements. Admitting even that, the problem does not end there, it is only the beginning. The problem that is set in such a case is, as has been pointed out by the psychologists, the problem of the integration of personality.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA firm physical unity presupposes, at least posits the possibility of an integral unity. Otherwise the body itself would tend to break\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-47</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">up and disintegrate. Such physical cataclysms are not unknown in Nature. However, a geographical unity cannot remain exclusively limited to itself; it brings about other unities by the very pressure, by the capillary action, as it were, of the boundary. The first unity that is called into being is the economic. A <i>Zollverein </i>(Customs Union) has almost always been the starting-point of a national union. Next or along with it comes the political unity. India\'s political and economic unity has been the great work of the British rule, however that rule might be distasteful to us. It is an illustration of Nature\'s method of compulsion and violence, when man\'s voluntary effort fails. India possesses a resounding roll of great names who endeavoured to give her this solid political and economic unity; Bharata, Yudhish-thira, Asoka, Chandragupta, Akbar, Shivaji have all contributed to the evergrowing unification of Indian polity. But still what they realised was not a stable and permanent thing, it was yet fluent and uncertain; it was only the hammerblow, the plastering, as one would say today, from an outside agency that welded, soldered and fixed that unity.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFissures of late have opened again and they seem to be increasing in depth and width\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-48</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and in number. What appeared to be a unified structure, of one piece, whole and entire, now threatens to crash and fall to pieces. We are asked to deny the unity. The political unity, it is said, is an impossibility, the geographical unity an illusion.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn such a predicament the vision of a prophet counts more than the arguments of a political huckster. That an Indian consciousness is there and has grown and taken more and more concrete shape through the ages is a fact to which history bears testimony and honest commonsense pays homage.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-49</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-009_The Basic Unity','','publish','closed','open','','009_the-basic-unity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_the-basic-unity/',0,'post','',0),(1593,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>Part One</title>\n<style>\n<!--\n\nP.para {text-align:justify; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:0px; margin-left:20px; margin-right:0px;\ntext-indent:0px; font-family:\"Times New Roman\"; font-size:12pt; line-height:150%}\nP.footer {text-align:center; margin-bottom:0px; margin-top:0px; margin-right:0px;\ntext-indent:0px; font-family:\"Times New Roman\"; font-size:10pt; line-height:150%}\n-->\n</style>\n</head>\n\n<body>\n\n	<div align=\"center\">\n		<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n			<tr>\n				<td>\n					<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b><font size=\"5\">Towards A New Society</font></b></p>\n					<div align=\"center\">\n						<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"75%\">\n							<tr>\n								<td colspan=\"2\">\n									<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">\n									<a href=\"towards-a-new-society-000_Pre_Content\">Precontent</a></p>\n									<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">\n									<a href=\"-001_Authors-Note\">Author\'s \n									Note</a></p>\n									<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">\n									<i>Part One </i>\n									</p>\n									<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">THE WORLD WAR\n									</p>\n								</td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><a href=\"-002_The-World-War\">The World War</a></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-003_The-Message-Of-the-Atomic-Bomb\">the message of the atomic bomb</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-004_National-And-International\">national and international</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-005_The-Right-Of-Absolute-Freedom\">the right of absolute freedom</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-006_Federated-Humanity\">federated humanity</a> </span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-007_Vansittartism\">vansittartism</a></span></td>\n							</tr>		\n							<tr>\n								<td colspan=\"2\">\n								<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><i>Part Two </i>\n								</p>\n								<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">THE ROLE OF INDIA\n								</p></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-008_India-One-And-Indivisible\">India one and indivisible</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-009_The-Basic-Unity\">the basic unity</a> </span>\n								</td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-010_The-Way-To-Unity\">the way to unity</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-011_Independence-And-Its-Sanction\">independence and its sanction</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-012_New-World-Conditions\">new world-conditions</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-013_The-Basis-of-Unity\">the basis of unity</a></span></td>\n							</tr>		\n							<tr>\n								<td colspan=\"2\">\n								<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><i>Part Three</i></p>\n								<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">TOWARDS A NEW SOCIETY </td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-014_The-Ideals-Of-Human-Unity\">the ideals of human unity</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-015_On-Social-Reconstruction\">on social reconstruction</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-016_Panacea-Of-ISMS\">panacea of &quot; isms &quot;</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-017_Three-Degrees-of-Social-Organization\">three degrees of social organization</a></span></td>\n							</tr>\n							<tr>\n								<td width=\"40%\">&nbsp;</td>\n								<td width=\"58%\"><span style=\"text-transform: capitalize\">\n								<a href=\"-018_Appendix\">appendix : sri aurobindo\'s views on the second world war</a></span></td>\n							</tr>	\n						</table>\n					</div>\n				</td>\n			</tr>\n		</table>\n	</div>\n</body>\n</html>','towards-a-new-society-00_Content','','publish','closed','open','','towards-a-new-society-00_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/towards-a-new-society-00_content/',0,'post','',0),(1594,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-011_Independence And Its Sanction.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>INDEPENDENCE AND ITS SANCTION </H3>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndependence is not a gift which one can receive from another, it is a prize that has to be won. In the words of the poet Bhasa, used in respect of empire, we can say also of liberty;\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Talloke na tu y</i>&#257;<i>cyate na tu punard</i>&#299;<i>n</i>&#257;<i>ya</i>\n<i>d</i>&#299;<i>yate</i>\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nit is not a thing to be got for the mere asking, nor is it a thing to be made over to a weakling.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe lead Sri Aurobindo gave in this connection has not, sad to say, sufficiently attracted the attention of our people. Indeed what he suggested was exactly, under the circumstances, the best way to acquire the necessary fitness, organised strength, capacity, the might and consequently the right—just the sanction, in other words, that can uphold a demand. We are always ignoring the broad fact that we have not the wherewithal to fight the British, even if it is found necessary to do so for our purpose. A revolution, meaning a chaos and confusion, is not the best means to drive\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-53</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">out the &quot;die-hard Imperialism&quot; as we choose to call it. Nor can cunning or expediency or legal jugglery be of any avail, nor work that is perfunctory, desultory, scampy. The force that can compel a change in the British has got to be of a different character: neither emotional excitement nor anger nor spite nor a philosophical or moral vindication of our cause can be an adequate lever. We declare it is a war: well then, we will have to arm ourselves as in war. That is to say, we must command a strength that is calm, collected, poised, organised—objectively acquired and marshalled, not simply subjectively thought out or taken for granted. That alone can be the imperative sanction to all our claims and demands, our wishes and aspirations.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPrecisely, the present war brings to our door the opportunity most suited to the acquisition and development of this power and strength. The very things the Indian temperament once had in abundance but now lacks most and has to recover—discipline, organization, impersonality and objectivity in work, hard and patient labour, skill of execution in minute details—qualities by virtue of which power is not only acquired, but maintained and fostered—are now made more easily available.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-54</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">These qualities cannot be mastered and developed with such facility and swiftness as under the pressure of the demands of a war. This does not mean that we have got to be militarists. But the world is such that if we wish to live and prosper we must know how to make use of the materials and conditions that are given to us. Many good things are imbedded among bad ones, and wisdom and commonsense do not advise us to throw out the baby with the bath-water. That is another matter, however.</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf we had joined hands with the British in the war-work on their own terms—to try to compel them to our terms is to put the cart before the horse—we would have seen that as we proceeded with the work, more and more of it came automatically under our charge, however small or slight it might have looked in the beginning. In the end or very soon we would have found that our possession of the field was an accomplished fact, there could be no question of denying or refusing, the fact had to be accepted—admitted and ratified. It is the well-known policy of the camel which Aesop described in one of his Fables. We have to establish the inexorable logic of events which definitively solves the riddle, cuts the Gordian\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-55</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">knot as it were. A theoretical, that is to say, a moral and legal pact or understanding is but a dam of sands.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPower is best gained and increased in this way, viz., through work, through practical application of it, in its painstaking execution-no matter with what, insignificant fund we start with. Let all power come into my hands, let me be legally and verbally recognised as free and invested with plenary power, then alone I can exercise my power, otherwise not— this is the cry of romantic idealism, of sentimental hunger: it has all the impatience and incompetence of visionaries—<i>illumin</i>é<i>s— </i>it - is not the clear and solid wisdom of experience.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWe naturally consider the British as our enemy and in order to combat and compel them we have been trying to bring together all the differing elements in our midst. Close up the ranks to fight a common enemy—that is our grand strategy.. It is an effort that has not succeeded till now and is not likely to succeed soon. We should have looked a little farther ahead: with a longer view we would have spotted the greater enemy, a vastly greater immediate danger. Against that common enemy a larger and effective unification would have\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-56</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">been quite feasible and even easy. Indeed, if we had taken the other way round, had first united with the British against the greater common enemy, our union with ourselves— our own peoples and parties—would have been automatically accomplished.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat is how we read the situation. When it looked as though there was no way left at our disposal to compose the acute and bitter differences among the multifarious Indian collectivities and also between the Indians and the British or foreigners, precisely at that critical hour appeared the war bringing a unique opportunity, a call and a message, as it were. There is certainly clash in Nature, but always there is an effort also in her to turn that clash into concord. India had too long been the field <i>par excellence </i>of discord and it was time that a movement for real harmony should come. Yes, we say, the war was providential to us, a God-send, offering the chance of centuries. But blinded and perverted our human intelligence refused to take it at its worth.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-57</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-011_Independence And Its Sanction','','publish','closed','open','','011_independence-and-its-sanction','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/011_independence-and-its-sanction/',0,'post','',0),(1595,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<link rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\" href=\"Book.css\">\n<title>-014_The Ideals Of Human Unity.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div Class=\"Bigdiv\">\n\n<H3>PART II </H3>\n<br>\n<H3>TOWARDS A NEW SOCIETY </H3>\n<br>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para_center\">THE IDEALS OF HUMAN UNITY </p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe unification of humanity is also a thing decreed. For it is the goal towards which Nature is proceeding slowly but inevitably, bringing into play factors and forces that work out that consummation.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan is a gregarious animal, a social being. He forms groups and collectivities and lives as a member among others with whom he is related and connected in various ways. These groupings are the units round which man\'s life crystallises and develops, the nuclei of a growing, an increasingly complex and unified organism.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe earliest and the most persistent unit is the family: it may be called the atomic unit of the social body, ultimate and unbreakable, considered as such at least till now. Larger units were formed in course of time or simultaneously out of this original unit. Clan, tribe are extensions of the family. For the movement of extension, of continual enlargement is natural to a living organism, and the urge of the social life in man, his gregarious instinct, his sense of solidarity with his kind is so strong and irrepressible that he cannot rest content\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-91</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">with the family alone, but extend its boundaries or make new adhesions to it for the formation of a still larger and more composite unit. The village was such a unit in the early days. It was a collective organization on a territorial basis : originally, however, the village too seems to have been if not wholly, at least in its major portion, an extended family. It gradually grew into a heterogeneous body, yet strongly unified, not consisting merely of blood-relations but others needed for the social economy.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nVarious other regional and parochial units also developed : baronies, kingdoms and princedoms, city states, all seeking to further extend and enrich the denotation of the social unit. A critical stage was reached when, out of the welter of all these various types of social unities, yet another type, of momentous consequences, emerged, called the nation. The nation absorbed all other lesser unities and soon grew into an extremely composite and yet living unity:\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nits strong cohesiyeness, in spite of a diversity of the component elements, no less than its ardent aggressiveness, is a remarkable characteristic attending the phenomenon. It looks as though—at least it looked so till the other day--?all the other previous attempts at a larger unity, since the formation of the original\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-92</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">family unit, had one purpose in view, viz., the bringing forth of the national unit. Next to the family, the nation seems to be the stable unit, the other intervening ones were unstable comparatively and had only a temporary and contributory function.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNationhood, however, developed into such a firm, solid, self-conscious and selfishly aggressive entity that it has now become almost a barrier to a further enlargement of the unit towards a still greater and wider unification of mankind. But nature cannot be baulked, its straight urge hampered; it takes to by-ways and indirect routes and roundabout channels for its fulfilment. On three different lines a greater and larger unification of mankind has been attempted that goes beyond the unification brought about by the ideal of the country or people or nation. First, the political, that leads to the formation of Empires. But the faults and errors in this type of larger unit have been made very evident. It acts as a steam-roller, no doubt, crushing out and; levelling parochial differences and local narrownesses; but it also means the overgrowth of a central organism— called the metropolis—at the expense of other member organisms forming part of the larger collectivity, viz., colonies and dependencies\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-93</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and subject races, which must in the end bring about a collapse and disruption of the whole structure. The Roman Empire was the typical example of this experiment. Next, there was, what can be called, the racial line. Many attempts have been made in this direction, but nothing very successful has taken shape. Pan-Slavism, Pan-Arabism, Pan-Jewry are some of the expressions of this movement. It has the fatal fault of a basis that is uncertain and doubtful: for a pure race is a myth and in modern conditions the cry must necessarily be a cry in the wilderness. Many races and peoples have in the course of human history been thrown together, they have to live together, are compelled to lead a common social, political, economic and cultural life. That indeed was the genesis of nationhood. The hegemony of a so-called Nordic race over the world was one of the monsters produced by this attempt, a <i>reductio ad absurdum </i>of the principle. The third is the religious principle. Religion, that is to say, institutional religion has also sought to unify mankind on a larger basis, as large indeed as the world itself The aim of Christendom, of Islam was frankly a conquest of the whole human race for the one jealous Lord. Buddhism and Hinduism did not\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-94</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">overtly or with a set purpose attempt any such world-wide proselytism, but their influence and actual working had almost a similar effect : at least in the case of the former, it was like a flood throwing down many local boundaries, overflooding distant countries, and peoples, giving them all one unified religious life and culture. But here too we meet the same objectionable feature as there is in the attempt at unity through the racial principle. For religious imperialism cannot succeed in unifying humanity, as amply demonstrated by the Roman Catholic Church; and like political imperialism it was more or less an experiment in the line, effecting nothing beyond a moral atmosphere. Even a federation of religions, contemplated by some idealists, seems hardly a practicable proposition ; for it is only a mental conception and has no compelling vital force in it. At best it is only a sign-post, a pointer to the goal Nature and humanity have been endeavouring to evolve and realise.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA new type of imperialism—for imperialism it is in essence—has been developing in recent times ; and it seems it shall have its day and contribute its share of experimentation towards the goal we are speaking of. I am of course referring to what has been frankly\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-95</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">and aptly termed as the <i>Dictatorship of the Proletariate. </i>It is an attempt to cut across all other boundaries and unities of human groupings—racial, national, religious, even familial. It seeks to unify and consolidate one whole<sub> </sub>stratum of humanity in a single stream-lined steel-frame organisation. At least that was the ideal till yesterday; there seems to be growing here too a movement towards decentralisation. Naturally, even as an organisation that is top-heavy is bound to topple down in the end, likewise an organisation that is <i>bottom-heavy, </i>that is to say, restricts to that portion only of its body all sap and dynamism, is also bound to deteriorate and disintegrate. A tree does not live by its branches and leaves and flowers alone, no doubt, nor does it live by its roots alone.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nA different type of wider grouping is also being experimented upon nowadays, a federal grouping of national units. The nation is taken in this system as the stable indivisible fundamental unit, and what is attempted is a free association of independent nations that choose to be linked together because of identity of interests or mutual sympathy in respect of ideal and culture. The British Empire is a remarkable experiment on this line : it is extremely interesting to see how an old-world Empire is\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-96</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">really being liquidated (in spite of a Churchill) and transformed into a conmonwealth. of free and equal nations. America too has been attempting a Pan-American federation. And in continental Europe, a Western and an Eastern Block of nations seem to be developing, not on ideal lines perhaps at present because of their being based upon the old faulty principle of balance of power hiding behind it a dangerously egoistic and exclusive national consciousness; but that may change when it is seen and experienced that the procedure does not pay, and a more natural and healthier approach may be adopted.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow out of this complex of forces and ideals, what seems to stand out clearly is this (i) the family unit remains for practical purposes,—whatever breaking or modification affects its outward forms, the thing seems to be a permanent feature of life organization; (ii) the nation too has attained a firm stability and inviolability; it refuses to be broken or dissolved and in any larger aggregate that is formed this one has to be integrated intact as a living unit. The other types of aggregates seem to be more in the nature of experiments and temporary necessities; when they have served their purpose they fade and disappear or are thrown\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-97</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">into the background and persist as vestigial remains. It seems to us that the clan, the tribe, the race are such formations. Regionalism, Imperialism (political, economic or religious) are also not stable aggregates.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nStill it is difficult to say as yet what would be the exact form of the intermediate grouping between the nation and humanity at large, even if a grouping of nations appear to be a necessity as an intermediate stage, whether such groupings or commonwealths are going to be a permanent feature or whether the nation will finally remain the ultimate unit and humanity will consist of such free equal nations, independent units, all together forming a unified whole.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnarchism—a certain school of philosophical or spiritual anarchism—presages, however, an agglutinative type of humanity. That is to say, there will be no hierarchy of groupings, in fact there will be no aggregates at all, the individual will be the sole, the first and the last unit. The individual, it is said, will have so developed and perfected its self-nature that by following the law of that nature, it will automatically and spontaneously five and move harmoniously with all the rest; each will be a self-contained unit and there will be\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-98</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">a kind of pre-established harmony among all. Even if it be so, however, a hierarchical form of groupings in human organisation need not necessarily be barred out.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-99</p>\n			\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-014_The Ideals Of Human Unity','','publish','closed','open','','014_the-ideals-of-human-unity','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/014_the-ideals-of-human-unity/',0,'post','',0),(1596,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-010_References of Articles.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nReferences of Articles \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n1.Savitri: Collected Works, Vol. 4; The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Ten.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n2.God\'s Debt: Collected Works, Vol. 4; The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part\nTen.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n3.Readings in &quot;Savitri&quot;: Collected Works, Vol. 3; The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Four.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n4.Notes on &quot;Savitri&quot;: Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 44.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n5.The Opening Scene of &quot;Savitri&quot;: Collected Works, Vol. 4; The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Part Eleven.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n6.The Human Divine: Collected Works, Vol. 5; Light of Lights.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-40</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"on - 54-54 - 0054-1.jpg\" src=\"/Nolini/On Savitri/_images/on - 54-54 - 0054-1.jpg\" style=\" width:170.40pt; height:236.88pt;\"\n<br></p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">\n	Dreamer and revolutionary, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, \n	philosopher and man of deep spiritual realisation, Nolini Kanta \n	Gupta stands foremost among the men of this century who are destined \n	to leave their mark on generations to come. Born on 13 January 1889 \n	of a cultured and well-to-do family in Bengal, he came early in his \n	teens under the influence of Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary par \n	excellence, and &quot;a mighty prophet of Indian Nationalism&quot; of the age. \n	After having spent a year in jail as an under-trial prisoner in the \n	historic Alipore Bomb Case, he was taken in hand by Sri Aurobindo \n	and with him he remained ever since. He passed away at the Sri \n	Aurobindo Ashram on 7 February 1984. </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-010_References of Articles','','publish','closed','open','','010_references-of-articles','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/010_references-of-articles/',0,'post','',0),(1597,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-008_The Human Divine.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<b>\n<i>The Human Divine</i>\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(l)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nThe Passing of Satyavan\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<i>This was the day when Satyavan must die.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe day is come, the fateful day, the last day of the twelve happy months that they have passed together. She knew it, it was foretold, it was foreseen. And she was preparing herself for it all the while, harbouring a pain deep-seated within the heart, revealed to none, not even to her mother, not even to Satyavan. Satyavan was innocent like a child, oblivious of the fate that was coming upon him. The two went out of the hermitage into the forest; for she wished to move about in the company of Satyavan in the midst of the happy greeneries where Satyavan had passed his boyhood, his youth. She was watching Satyavan at every step, she did not want to be caught unawares:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">Love in her bosom hurt with jagged edges </p>\n<p class=\"para\">Of anguish moaned at every step with pain </p>\n<p class=\"para\">Crying, &quot;Now, now perhaps his voice will cease For ever.&quot;...<sup>1</sup>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nShe was on tip-toe as it were, almost breathless, the end must be coming on fast.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">Her life was now in seconds, not in hours, </p>\n<p class=\"para\">And every moment she economised...<sup>2</sup>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSatyavan in playfulness was cutting the branch of a tree with a joyous axe and on his lips:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">...high snatches of a sage\'s chant\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">That pealed of conquered death and demons slain,<sup>3</sup>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n1.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 563.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n2.<i>Ibid.        </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n3. <i>Ibid.</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAll of a sudden the doom came upon him, he felt a biting pain through his body and an invading suffocation besieged him. He threw away the axe and cried out to Savitri:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">&quot;Savitri, a pang Cleaves through my head and breast... \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Such agony rends me... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Awhile let me lay my head upon thy lap...&quot;<sup>4</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSavitri saw the end coming and she was ready:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">All grief and fear were dead within her now </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And a great calm had fallen.<sup>5</sup> </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHis life was ebbing away and\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">He cried out in a clinging last despair, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">&quot;Savitri, Savitri, O Savitri, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Lean down, my soul, and kiss me while I die.&quot;... \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">His cheek pressed down her golden arm. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">She sought His mouth still with her living mouth, as if \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">She could persuade his soul back with her kiss; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Then grew aware they were no more alone. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Something had come there conscious, vast and dire. \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Near her she felt a silent shade immense...<sup>6</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nDeath is come claiming his prey, Satyavan must go and leave Savitri.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(2)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nThe Inter-Zone \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nDeath is carrying away Satyavan, the luminous soul of\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n4.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 564.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n5.<i>Ibid.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n6.<i>Ibid, </i>p. 565.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSatyavan. The Great Shadow is leading the way, Satyavan following and Savitri clinging to his steps. Death saw Savitri pursuing, he turned and tried to dissuade her from the pursuit. Savitri refused to turn back. Death warned her, it was already a wrong and anomalous act that she has done to have crossed over to his sphere in her earthly personal being. It is time now to go back. Savitri answered that she would go back only with Satyavan in his earthly body. Death became impatient and answered: &quot;You ask for the impossible. You want to go back to earth for earthly happiness. You can have that in plenty without Satyavan. Satyavan has passed beyond and there is no return for him.&quot; But Savitri was firm in her resolution:\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;I claim back Satyavan as he was, my happiness is with him alone.&quot;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs they proceeded, they mounted higher and higher regions of being. And a change was coming on visibly on Savitri. Death was explaining to her that happiness on earth or in earthly life is not the supremely desirable thing. The supreme desirable thing is to discard the <i>maya </i>of earthly life, that vale of tears and rise into the very source, the origin of creation, the infinite peace and silence. As Death was receding towards that ultimate Nothingness, the Divinity that Savitri was, the mighty Godhead that took a human shape, manifested itself more and more shedding all around her a great effulgence, a mighty power. She had entered into Death\'s own lair and identified herself with Death\'s self which is the Divine Himself. In that great burning Light Death was consumed and dissolved.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">The dire universal Shadow disappeared </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Vanishing into the Void from which it came.... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And Satyavan and Savitri were alone.<sup>7</sup> </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThey stand face to face with the supreme Divine alone. There is yet a last choice to make. Death has been annihilated and immortality attained. One can rest there and enjoy immortality\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n7. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 668. \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\neternally beyond the mortal creation. But there is a greater destiny for the human soul. Ignorance is darkness indeed but to enter into Light alone is to enter into a greater darkness. And Savitri has attained the immortality as a human being, as human personality. She is to bring down that immortality into the human creature upon earth. She refuses the everlasting day and turns to come down again into the twilight mortality with all her immortal stature so that human beings may be rebuilt in that mould.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo they come down, Satyavan and Savitri, from the Supreme heavens, rushing down as heaven\'s blessing as it were, through ethereal atmospheres, gradually re-assuming the texture of earthly form till they found their material body again upon this concrete earth.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">A power leaned down, a happiness found its home. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Over wide earth brooded the infinite bliss.<sup>8</sup>.\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(3)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nThe Return\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSatyavan lay on the green sward, over him and around green branches spread their peaceful felicity. His head reposed upon the lap of Savitri - exactly as he lay at the last fateful hour confronting the mighty shadow - as if there were no gap or hiatus in between, the great intervening experience was just a momentary vision and not the ageless Calvary that it seemed to be in the other sphere. But now\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">The waking gladness of her members felt </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The weight of heaven in his limbs... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And all her life was conscious of his life... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Human she was once more, earth\'s Savitri, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Yet felt in her illimitable change.<sup>9</sup> </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n8.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 712.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n9.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 715.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSatyavan\'s being was there:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Pure, passionate with the passion of the gods. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Desire stirred not its wings; for all was made </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">An overarching of celestial rays </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Like the absorbed control of sky on plain,</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Heaven\'s leaning down to embrace from all sides\nearth...<sup>10</sup>\n</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSatyavan now turned to Savitri, vague recollections rose in him and he cried out in wonder:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">&quot;Whence hast thou brought me captive back,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">love-chained, To thee and sunlight\'s walls, O golden beam \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And casket of all sweetness, Savitri, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Godhead and woman, moonlight of my soul?&quot;<sup>11</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs he gazed upon her, his wonder grew more and more with a new flame of worship in his eyes and he exclaimed once more:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">&quot;What high change is in thee, O Savitri? </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Bright Ever thou wast, a goddess still and pure, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Earth gave thee making thee yet more divine.&quot;<sup>12</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe embodied Divine does not discard or even minimise the human; on the contrary greatens and heightens this earthly being. It is a sea-change that is wrought in the content and in a certain modality of the form, but the essential form and content remain -somewhat like the process of fossilisation - mortality is squeezed out and all is moulded in immortality; the Divinity is there in all its fullness but there is added to it the exquisiteness that earth brings to the human.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n10.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29. p. 716.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n11.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 717.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n12.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 718.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd so Savitri says:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">&quot;We have borne identity with the Supreme </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And known his meaning in our mortal lives... Yet nothing is lost of mortal love\'s delight. Heaven\'s touch fulfils but cancels not our earth... Still am I she who came to thee mid the murmur Of sunlit leaves upon this forest verge; I am the Madran, I am Savitri.&quot;<sup>13</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is human as human can be, the quintessence of humanity; for it is human divinely.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n13. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 719. \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-008_The Human Divine','','publish','closed','open','','008_the-human-divine','','','2021-11-23 17:21:48','2021-11-23 17:21:48','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_the-human-divine/',0,'post','',0),(1598,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-002_Preface.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>Preface\n</b>\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNolini Kanta Gupta\'s <i>Collected Works </i>in English (1970) is a veritable treasure of seminal ideas, insights, and flashes of intuitive perception that illumine like flares in the nightly sky many a recondite terrain of intellectual discourse. In his writings we come across a sweep and a depth of thinking which has a freshness and wholesomeness unusual to the mental stratosphere. At the same time they have a texture of thought more finely woven than is possible on the loom of the human intellect. The word &quot;global&quot; most aptly characterises his thought. It is global in the sense of not being the view from a single angle or from a few closely related angles. The mental standpoint aspects only one side of the object in view, and to our anti-spiritual age this one-track mentality itself seems to be its greatest virtue. The global view which is the hallmark of a mind illumined by spiritual consciousness transcends this one-trackedness of the intellect. It gets behind all opposing views and standpoints and tries to see what is the underlying truth that seeks to manifest in each. Thus in Nolini Kanta Gupta\'s writings we very often stumble upon that dynamic truth which at the mental level manifests itself in multiple standpoints and modes and angles of vision.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNolinida, as Nolini Kanta Gupta was universally known in his life-time, had that rare gift of getting at the heart of a problem and of seizing immediately the truth of things. As Deshpande puts it (in his &quot;Nolini Kanta Gupta\'s Perceptions of Poetry&quot; in <i>Tributes to Nolini Kanta Gupta, </i>Sri Mira Trust, Pondicherry, 1988): &quot;There is a catholicity of outlook, a way of seeing God\'s world in its many moods of joy, an intimacy, even an identity, with the hidden divinity in the grain and in the star, an appreciation leaping over all conventionality, of the bright as well as the obscure, but it is always with the lamp of the spirit that he moves around.&quot;\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNevertheless, he respected the demands and norms of the age in which he was writing. He expresses the truth that he has perceived in cogent intellectual terms and not dogmatically. As a\n</p>\n	<hr></p>\n	<p class=\"para\">result, no matter what the topic is, whether it be the still-vexing problem of Hindu-Muslim unity in India, or the meaning of Indian culture, or Modernist poetry, or Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot, or Sartrean Freedom, or the bypaths of the spiritual journey or the interpretation of the Veda or the Upanishads, I have never taken a dip into his writings without being able to come up with a dazzling diamond of an idea or a viewpoint.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is unfortunate, however, that the work of Nolinida, 10 volumes in Bengali and 8 volumes in English, has remained comparatively inaccessible and unknown to the intelligentsia of this country. This can be attributed to two reasons. First, most of what he wrote was published in the journals of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram or of related institutions; this effectively put him out of bounds for academia since we live in an age in which the so-called custodians of our intellectual realm have little understanding of or sympathy for things spiritual. They have yet to realise that genuine spirituality is not anti-intellectual but is marked, in Sri Aurobindo\'s words, by a fearless will that dares to erase &quot;The lines of safety reason draws that bar / Mind\'s soar, soul\'s dive into the Infinite.&quot; <i>(Savitri: </i>page 26) And in this respect, things have not changed much, at least in India, although elsewhere in the world there is a greater opening for and receptivity to matters spiritual. We in India still seem to be living in a period marked by a hangover from the antiquated anti-spiritual intellectual phase.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe second reason why Nolinida\'s writings are not as widely known as they deserve to be is that he lived too close to Sri Aurobindo, the blazing sun who made it difficult for the other stars in the firmament to be noticed. But that does not make these writings either redundant or entirely derivative. His writings are not a mere exegesis or elucidation of his Master\'s works, and even when he takes a seed-idea from Sri Aurobindo, he develops it in his own way. For in a truly spiritual relationship, the Guru never takes away from any disciple his real individuality. Spiritual discipleship only enhances it. Like an ill-hewn block of marble that comes under the chisel of an inspired sculptor, the disciple\'s individuality becomes more well-defined, for, after all,\n</p>\n	<hr></p>\n	<p class=\"para\">spirituality is the sculpture of one\'s inner being. Nolinida was a creative thinker in his own right and the corpus of his writings (in English and Bengali) is one of the finest produced by any writer in our age. His writings on Sri Aurobindo\'s Yoga and on <i>Savitri </i>are some of the most lucid on these subjects.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOn Sri Aurobindo\'s Yoga, Nolinida was undoubtedly one of the most perceptive writers as can be seen from his extensive writings on the subject. <i>(Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, </i>which is in 12 parts. See <i>Collected Works, </i>Vols. 3 and 4.) Even as a practitioner of this Yoga, his pre-eminence was universally acknowledged. As regards <i>Savitri, </i>his association with the book was very intimate. He came to be associated with it even as it was being composed and getting ready for publication. &quot;Until the mid-1940s, Sri Aurobindo continued to write out version after version of <i>Savitri </i>in his own hand, tirelessly expanding and perfecting it. But when he began to prepare the poem for publication, he could no longer do all the work unaided. He took the assistance of two disciples, one of whom, Nirodbaran, made the final hand-written copies and the other, Nolini Kanta Gupta, the typescripts.&quot; (Editor\'s Note: Supplement to the Revised edition of <i>Savitri.) </i>It is these typescripts which Nolinida had prepared that used to go to the press and the proofs of which were again read out to Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo took this opportunity to look once more at the text and add lines or change lines or punctuation marks. Again, when Nolinida started editing the <i>Advent, </i>he brought out many cantos of <i>Savitri </i>for the first time in this journal. During the period 1946-51, parts of <i>Savitri </i>came out in the Pathmandir Annuals under the advice or guidance of Nolinida. He also translated <i>Savitri </i>into Bengali. As Nirodbaran puts it, &quot;As <i>Savitri </i>was Sri Aurobindo\'s last composition, its translation was Nolinida\'s last composition. And I can affirm that the masterly translation has added a large dimension to the Bengali language.&quot; <i>(Tributes to Nolini Kanta Gupta, </i>p. 14)\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI am happy that the Sri Aurobindo Aurobindo Ashram is bringing out, in this slender volume, six of his essays on <i>Savitri. </i>These are by no means the only writings of his which have a bearing on <i>Savitri; </i>there are many more which are a great aid to\n</p>\n	<hr></p>\n	<p class=\"para\">the student of the poem, although the reference to the epic is not central to these other essays. I would have loved to see at least his essay entitled &quot;Mystic Poetry&quot; <i>(Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta: </i>Vol. II, pp. 64-81) included in this volume, for it clarifies the distinction between different kinds of mystic poetry and also the distinction between mystic poetry, spiritual poetry, philosophic poetry and religious poetry. This is a distinction very much needed today, since a failure to perceive it has led to a lot of confusion among the critics of Indian writing in English. For one thing, some of them tend to lump together as spiritual poetry all outpourings in verse on any &quot;spiritual&quot; theme or topic. Thus, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Ramatirtha, Swami Shivanand, J. Krishnamurthy, Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo, are all categorised as &quot;spiritual&quot; poets by virtue of the themes of their poetic compositions. The epithet &quot;spiritual&quot; in the term &quot;spiritual poetry&quot;, as Nolinida uses it, does not refer to the theme of the composition but to the plane of inspiration from which the poem has been derived, and to the quality of poetry in it. And secondly, such a distinction enables us to see a number of puzzling sections of a poem like <i>Savitri </i>in a new light; we begin to see that in many of these sections we have spiritual poetry where the Spirit speaks its own language, describes a direct vision or a revelation.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo\'s <i>Savitri </i>is too unique a literary work both in scope and value to find a readership ready to receive it. It was not written to satisfy the established taste and standard of the critics of our time and that explains why even now most literary critics are baffled by it. As K.D. Sethna has emphasised, <i>Savitri </i>was not intended to be merely good poetry. &quot;The poetry has to be good by an ascension in poetic quality to the highest spiritual plane possible: this plane has to be creative in terms of poetic values. <i>Savitri </i>should express poetically the ever-higher peak reached by Sri Aurobindo\'s progressive spiritual ascension. Therefore we cannot consider it either as sheer poetry or as sheer spirituality. It must help us at the same time to ascend to Sri Aurobindo\'s own peak and do so with the full awareness of the poetic way in which that peak has become communicative of its truth, its power, its\n</p>\n	<hr></p>\n	<p class=\"para\">delight. <i>Savitri </i>has to be taken as Sri Aurobindo\'s spiritual autobiography which is meant to make us re-live his inner life of both poetic creativity and creative spirituality.&quot; (Amal Kiran [K.D. Sethna] &quot;Questions and Answers on <i>Savitri&quot; </i>in <i>Aspects of Sri Aurobindo, </i>The Integral Life Foundation, USA 1995.) In fact, to enter the portals of any of Sri Aurobindo\'s major works such as <i>The Life Divine, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Synthesis of Yoga, Savitri, The Essays on the Gita, The Foundations of Indian Culture, On the Veda </i>or <i>The Future Poetry, </i>one needs to be equipped with much more than a well-trained, logical and philosophic intellect. One needs a certain spiritual sensitivity and opening. Many an erudite and intellectually trained reader has returned baffled by Sri Aurobindo and has complained that he found little in his writings but vagueness and a fatiguing plethora of words. It is indeed true that, as Jesse Roarke once put it, Sri Aurobindo except for a few is too vast to see and too much to believe.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is particularly true of <i>Savitri. </i>Most people need some help in their study of it. Some people maintain that it is not a book meant for what is normally regarded as &quot;study&quot; and one does not need any outside help in reading it since a &quot;mantramandala&quot; like <i>Savitri </i>opens its heart to all those who approach it with an attitude which is best characterised by the following words of Arjuna in the Gita: <i>&quot;</i>&#347;<i>i</i>&#7779;<i>yaste\'ha</i>&#7745;<i>, </i>&#347;&#257;<i>dhi m</i>&#257;&#7745;<i> tv</i>&#257;&#7745;<i> prapan-nam&quot; - </i>&quot;I take refuge as a disciple with thee, enlighten me.&quot; I have no quarrel with this view except that there are several sincere readers who would be grateful for some help in preparing themselves to take this approach. And for such people Nolinida, in my view, is the best help I can recommend.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe story of Satyavan and Savitri is at least as old as the Mahabharata; in fact, it first appeared many thousand years earlier as a Vedic myth. Sri Aurobindo\'s main intention in taking up the story of Satyavan and Savitri was to use it as a framework for projecting his view of man\'s evolutionary journey on earth and of his future. As an introduction to the thematic richness and complexity of <i>Savitri, </i>there is, in my view, no finer piece of writing than Nolinida\'s article entitled &quot;Savitri&quot; included in this\n</p>\n	<hr></p>\n	<p class=\"para\">volume <i>(Collected Works, </i>Vol. 4). It is also a very good example of Nolinida\'s expository prose at its best, compact, economical and yet so lucid.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMost readers of <i>Savitri are </i>often bewildered by Part I (Books 1, 2, and 3, pages 1 to 348) of <i>Savitri </i>which extends almost over half the length of the epic and deals with Aswapathi\'s yoga. What corresponds to this in Vyasa\'s narration in the Mahabharata is the description of Aswapathi\'s sacrifice, described in 10 verses! Particularly Book II, which describes Aswapathi\'s exploration of the various worlds of consciousness, is probably the hardest part of the whole epic. Nolinida\'s article goes to the heart of this part of <i>Savitri </i>and in about less than 5 pages, he gives us an insight into what Aswapathi\'s yoga is about and why Sri Aurobindo gives so much prominence to it. What is more important is that he makes us realise that this is not the yoga of some king of a bygone age that is being described here but a yoga that is crucial to you and me and to the world\'s future. The link between the first 3 Books is made clear and we see the unique place Book III has in Sri Aurobindo\'s vision of the future of man.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNolinida does not pay in this article much attention to Books IV, V and VI of the epic, which are probably the most accessible part of the epic to even an uninitiated reader. But the reader needs help with the rest of the book. Nolinida begins the second section of this essay by telling us who Savitri really is: the Divine Mother come down upon earth as a human creature &quot;to change the mortal earth into an immortal paradise&quot;. Then he goes on to describe Savitri\'s mission in its two phases. The first phase, that of preparation, is described in Book VII; The Book of Yoga. In the second phase, which is described in Books IX, X and XI, Savitri follows the God of Death and discovers his true personality and mission on earth. When finally she finds herself and Satyavan in the deathless, luminous world of faultless beauty and stainless delight, she rejects this everlasting day and chooses the light of this earth. This is what she wants to transform so that deathless perfection can dwell here. Once again, Nolinida has very briefly delineated here the inner theme of the latter half of <i>Savitri </i>in a few pages.\n<br>\n</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is not all that Nolinida has to offer us in this wonderful piece; in the last 3 sections he also gives a most illuminating explication of an episode in Savitri\'s Yoga, entitled &quot;The Triple Soul-Forces&quot;. (Book VII, Canto 4) Here Savitri meets the three Madonnas and their asuric perversions that spoil their work. What they signify and how the whole episode reenacts the drama of one of the central themes of <i>Savitri, </i>namely, man\'s refusal of the Divine Grace, is most brilliantly brought out here. One wonders how much we all lovers of <i>Savitri </i>would have benefited if Nolinida had been persuaded to write on each canto of the poem in this inimitable fashion. Furthermore, he relates this episode in Savitri\'s Yoga to an experience which the Mother has described in her <i>Prayers and Meditations. </i>The Mother once seems to have remarked that Sri Aurobindo had lain bare in <i>Savitri </i>quite a few secrets of her inner spiritual life. Nolinida helps us to understand what the Mother must have meant by this revelation of hers.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThere are in this selection of Nolinida\'s writings two pieces on the opening canto of the epic, namely, &quot;The Opening Scene of <i>Savitri\'</i>&quot; and &quot;Readings in <i>Savitri&quot;. </i>In the former, he explains the inner significance of this dawn of which there are a succession according to the Vedic Rishis.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;Readings in <i>Savitri&quot; </i>is a commentary on three excerpts from the same opening scene. The first of these refers to the Inconscient Godhead that is the transformation of the Divine Being into Matter who is always driven by the secret urge to be itself once again. The second set of passages brings up the theme of the Avatar, of the Divine Grace taking human form so that the lower animal nature in man can be persuaded to change into the divine nature. But it is hard to persuade human nature to change; mortality does not take kindly to the eternal\'s touch and fights against it, until finally it is vanquished and transformed by the Grace.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;Notes on Savitri&quot; is a miscellany of different things. It begins with a brief comment on the first few lines of Book VI, Canto I which describe Narad\'s journey through the sky as he descends on earth to visit Aswapathi. This piece is followed by an\n</p>\n	<hr></p>\n	<p class=\"para\">explication of the symbolic meaning of the griffin which is mentioned as the guardian God of the borderland between the lower and upper hemispheres. Then we have a brief note on the nature of the overmind vision as it is described in a few lines in Book X, Canto 4, pp. 660-61 of <i>Savitri. </i>Finally, there is a brief comment on a passage in Book III, Canto 4 which describes the New Creation coming down from above.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;God\'s Debt&quot; is a most lucid exposition of a concept repeatedly made use of in the poem by Sri Aurobindo, as for example in the line: &quot;A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme&quot;. <i>(Savitri, </i>p. 67)\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;The Human Divine&quot; elucidates another important concept. People tend to regard the Divine as something which lacks the warmth, the colour and the zest of the human, and tend to look upon it as something cold, sanitised and impersonal. But Nolinida corrects this misconception: the embodied Divine does not discard or even minimise the human, but on the contrary, only greatens this earthly being and lifts the merely earthly to a great height of exquisiteness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI am grateful to Sri Satadal and all the others who are responsible for this publication for the opportunity they have given me to pay my respects to the memory of Nolinida through this brief Preface.\n</p>\n	<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n	<tr>\n<td>Secunderabad\n</td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"pararight\">Mangesh Nadkarni </td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n	</div>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_Preface','','publish','closed','open','','002_preface','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_preface/',0,'post','',0),(1599,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-005_Readings in ^^Savitri^^.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>\n<i>Readings in &quot;Savitri&quot;</i>\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(1)\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">A guardian of the unconsoled abyss </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Inheriting the long agony of the globe,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">A stone-still figure of high and godlike Pain\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Stared into space with fixed regardless eyes\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">That saw grief\'s timeless depths but not life\'s goal.\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Afflicted by his harsh divinity,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Bound to his throne, he waited unappeased\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The daily oblation of her unwept tears.<sup>1</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe deepest and the most fundamental mystery of the human consciousness (and in fact of the earth consciousness) is not that there is an unregenerate aboriginal being there as its bed-rock, a being made of the very stuff of ignorance and inconscience and inertia that is Matter: it is this that the submerged being is not merely dead matter, but a concentrated, a solidified flame, as it were, a suppressed aspiration that burns inwardly, all the more violent because it is not articulate and in the open. The aboriginal is that which harbours in its womb the original being. That is the Inconscient Godhead, the Divinity in pain - <i>Mater Dolorosa -</i>the Divine Being who lost himself totally when transmuted into Matter and yet is harassed always by the oestrus of a secret flame driving it to know itself, to find itself, to be itself again. It is Rudra, the Energy coiled up in Matter and forging ahead towards a progressive evolution in light and consciousness. That is what Savitri, the universal Divine Grace become material and human, finds at the core of her being, the field and centre of concentrated struggle, a millennial aspiration petrified, a grief of ages congealed, a divinity lone and benumbed in a trance. This divinity has to awake and labour. The god has to be cruel to himself, for his divinity demands that he must surpass himself, he cannot\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n1. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28. p. 10. \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-22</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nabdicate, let Nature go her own way, the inferior path of ease and escape. The godhead must exercise its full authority, exert all its pressure upon itself - <i>tapas taptv</i>&#257;<i> </i>- and by this heat of incubation release the energy that leads towards the light and the high fulfilment. In the meanwhile, the task is not easy. The divine sweetness and solicitude lights upon this hardened divinity: but the inertia of the Inconscient, the \'Pani\', hides still the light within its rocky cave and would not deliver it. The Divine Grace, mellow with all the tears of love and sympathy and tenderness she has gathered for the labouring godhead, has pity for the hard lot of a humanity stone-bound to the material life, yet yearning and surging towards freedom. The godhead is not consoled or appeased until that freedom is achieved and light and immortality released. The Grace is working slowly, laboriously perhaps but surely to that end: the stone will wear down and melt one day. Is that fateful day come?\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThat is the meaning of human life, the significance of even the very ordinary human life. It is the field of a &quot;dire debate&quot;, &quot;a fierce question&quot;, a constant struggle between the two opposing or rather polar forces, the will or aspiration &quot;to be&quot; and the will of inertia &quot;not to be&quot; - the friction, to use a Vedic image, of the two batons of the holy sacrificial wood, <i>ara</i>&#7751;<i>i </i>out of which the flame is to leap forth. The pain and suffering men are subject to in this unhappy vale of tears - physical illness and incapacity, vital frustration or mental confusion - are symbols and expressions of a deeper fundamental Pain. That pain is the pain of labour, the travail for the birth and incarnation of a godhead asleep or dead. Indeed, the sufferings and ills of life are themselves powerful instruments. They inevitably lead to the Bliss, they are the fuel that kindles, quickens and increases the Fire of Ecstasy that is to blaze up on the day of victory in the full and integral spiritual consciousness. The round of ordinary life is not vain or meaningless: its petty innocent-looking moments and events are the steps of the marching Divinity. Even the commonest life is the holy sacrificial rite progressing through the oblations of our experiences, bitter or sweet, towards the revelation and establishment of the immortal godhead in man.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(2)\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSavitri, the Divine Grace in human form, is upon earth. The Divine Consciousness has abandoned its own supreme transcendental status to enter into the human consciousness and partake of the earthly life: it has taken up a mortal frame, to live and dwell here below. Only thus she can transform the lower animal nature into the divine nature, raise man to godhead, make of earth heaven itself:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">A prodigal of her rich divinity,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Her self and all she was she had lent to men,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Hoping her greater being to implant\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">That heaven might native grow on mortal soil.<sup>2</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the task is not easy. The flesh is weak: it is incapable of holding or receiving the breath of immortality. Not only so, it has a positive aversion, a bad will: it is refractory, antipathetic to the touch of the spirit. Matter is dull and dumb, dark and obdurate: mortality loves and clings jealously and exclusively to its mortal home. The earthly being does not know, cannot appreciate the gift, the boon that is brought to him, to his very door: he has only to receive and accept in order to be saved out of all ignorance and grief, impotence and death. The Divine Mother has forgotten herself, has made herself as small and as close and native to earth as any earthly creature, like any one of us, taken upon herself all limitations and indignities, the entire burden of an earthly life, graced with her presence this mortal atmosphere. But\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Hard is it to persuade earth-nature\'s change; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Mortality bears ill the eternal\'s touch: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">It fears the pure divine intolerance </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Of that assault of ether and of fire; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Almost with hate repels the light it brings;...<sup>3</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n2.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28, p. 7.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n3.<i>Ibid.</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-24</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs, however, &quot;mortality bears ill the eternal\'s touch&quot;, the eternal too is intolerant of the mortal nature - only it is intolerant not in the ignorant blind squeamish weak human way, but in a divine way, for it is armed with weapons of light and knowledge, it assaults with its luminous force, the energy of ether and fire, the higher and nobler elements as against the dense dark dumb earth, the lowest element that clothes the human consciousness. Indeed, mortality is enamoured of the tangled beam of joy and sorrow, of laughter and tears, of light and shadow and cannot contemplate the unalloyed sheer delight in Eternity. It is out of breath in the serene rarefied air of immortality; it pines for the <i>terra firma, </i>the mud and slime. The human consciousness has been fleeing the Hound of Heaven down the corridors of Time, and yet it will be caught in the end and wholly transmuted in the divine embrace into the substance of the Divine Himself. All the unwillingness and protestation and revolt are meant to forge and hammer the final union into something perfect, faultless, absolute.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-25</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_Readings in Savitri','','publish','closed','open','','005_readings-in-savitri','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_readings-in-savitri/',0,'post','',0),(1600,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-006_Notes on ^^Savitri^^.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>\n<i>Notes on &quot;Savitri&quot;</i>\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nNarad\'s Visit to King Aswapathy<sup>1</sup>\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nDevarshi Narad, as usual, was sailing through the spaces, with his Vina, singing songs of innocence and joy. He was in the higher luminous heavens, the world of happiness, of light and delight, his heart full of divine felicity and his music echoing the music of his heart. Now he thought of coming down, into the lower spaces, regions nearer to the earth. And as he entered the earth atmosphere a change came over the tone and temper of his music. With the thickening of earthly shade, a darkness stole into the clear range of his music and consciousness. Instead of peace and love and joy his music turned to themes of sadness and struggle and battle and doom - of great heroism and conquest and of the supreme fulfilment of human destiny. In and through this dark passage, there emerged slowly a new radiance, the advent of a new conquest for the human consciousness - the possibility of man rising from the animal to divinity.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNarad himself represents a divine consummation of the human being. He is a devarshi, that is to say, he has by his tapasya and spiritual growth surpassed his humanity and developed into a divine immortal being. Now his special work is to be a wandering angel - surveying the world, help it in its onward march, bring to mankind the aid for its forward march, so that it may battle successfully with the hostiles, overpower the hostiles and win the glory of divine immortality.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nLines From <i>Savitri: </i>(1)\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">A Seer was born, a shining Guest of Time.\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">For him mind\'s limiting firmament ceased above,\n</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n1. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>sabcl, \nVol. 29. p. 415.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-26</p>\n	<hr></p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">In the griffin forefront of the Night and Day </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">A gap was rent in the ail-concealing vault; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The conscious ends of being went rolling back: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The landmarks of the little person fell, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The island ego joined its continent: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Overpassed was this world of rigid limiting forms: \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Life\'s barriers opened into the Unknown.<sup>2</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Notes:</i>\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Griffin = Golden Hawk </p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> +\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">\nWinged Lion\n</p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">The piercing eye of soaring aspiration</p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> +\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Upsurging energy of the pure vital </p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\">Remember Vishnu\'s Garuda </p>\n	<p class=\"para\"> +\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">\nDurga\'s lion </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWith these twin powers you cross safely the borderland between the lower and the upper hemisphere - the twilight world (Night and Day) - Griffin is the guardian God of this passage -<i>Dv</i>&#257;<i>rap</i>&#257;<i>laka.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(2)\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Then stretches the boundless finite\'s last expanse, T</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">he cosmic empire of the Overmind, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Time\'s buffer state bordering Eternity, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Too vast for the experience of man\'s soul: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">All here gathers beneath one golden sky: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The Powers that build the cosmos station take </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">In its house of infinite possibility; </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n2. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28, p. 25. \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-27</p>\n<hr>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Each god from there builds his own nature\'s world; \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Ideas are phalanxed like a group of sums; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thought crowds in masses seized by one regard; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">All Time is one body, Space a single book: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">There is the Godhead\'s universal gaze </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And there the boundaries of immortal Mind: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The line that parts and joins the hemispheres </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Closes in on the labour of the Gods </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Fencing Eternity from the toil of Time.<sup>3</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Notes:</i>\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Ideas are phalanxed like a group of sums; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thought crowds in masses seized by one regard... </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe image is that of the composition of an army or that of a mathematical series (e.g., arithmetical or geometrical progression). It is composed of regularised units of different values <i>(group of sums), </i>but all measured and definite and precise - e.g., in the case of an army - company, brigade, battalion, army - an ascending scale, the whole also forming one big unit, taken in at a glance - that is the nature of overmind vision.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNote, a unit is a summation of sub-units - even the ultimate units are composites <i>(masses, </i>in case of bigger units) - e.g., molecule, atom, particle (nucleon), point.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(3)\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">I saw the Omnipotent\'s flaming pioneers </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Forerunners of a divine multitude\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Out of the paths of the morning star they came\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Into the little room of mortal life.<sup>4</sup> </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n3.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri. </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, pp. 660-61.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n4.<i>Ibid.. </i>Vol. 28, p. 343.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<i>Notes:</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe whole thing refers to the New Creation coming down from above - now down into the psycho-vital or physico-vital or even the subtle physical plane. This New Creation is the creation of the Divine Love - the Mother\'s Love.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMorning Star - Venus, Goddess of Love - embodying New Creation.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAmber colour representing a particular plane of consciousness. Yellow+red+a touch of brown - physico-vital or even subtle physical plane - the New Creation come down on that plane.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-006_Notes on Savitri','','publish','closed','open','','006_notes-on-savitri','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_notes-on-savitri/',0,'post','',0),(1601,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-001_Compiler^s Note.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>Compiler\'s Note\n</b>\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis volume was originally conceived to be a comprehensive volume including all the articles of Nolinikanta Gupta on &quot;Savitri&quot; in both English and Bengali. But Jayantilal Parekh wanted it to be a booklet in English only and containing the articles written by Nolinida exclusively on &quot;Savitri&quot;. Hence it had to be reduced to only these six articles contained in this volume. I also told Jayantilalda that I am going to request Dr. M. V. Nadkarni to write a preface for this book. But inspite of Dr. Nadkarni\'s willingness and best of efforts the preface could not be completed and shown to Jayantilalda since he passed away.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe blessings of the Avatar of the Supreme - Sri Aurobindo -has been invoked by adding as an appendix what he himself has said in his author\'s note on &quot;Savitri&quot; to make this volume complete in all respects.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis will hopefully be a very popular volume and will get a wide circulation and then I shall expect someone to come forward and take up the compilation in Bengali of Nolinida\'s articles on &quot;Savitri&quot; for publication.\n</p>\n	<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n	<tr>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\">Dated Pondicherry\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">the 24th November, 2000\n</p></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"pararight\">Satadal</p>\n</td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n	</div>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-001_Compiler\'s Note','','publish','closed','open','','001_compilers-note','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/001_compilers-note/',0,'post','',0),(1602,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-007_The Opening Scene of ^^Savitri^^.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>\n<i>The Opening Scene of &quot;Savitri&quot;</i>\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;It was the hour before the Gods awake&quot;. Only when the Gods awake, does the light begin to appear on earth. Otherwise it is all night here, black, impenetrable and unfathomable. Indeed the very creation begins with the awakening of the Gods. When the Gods are asleep, it is the non-existence - <i>tama </i>&#257;<i>s</i>&#299;<i>t tamas</i>&#257;<i> g</i>&#363;&#7693;<i>hamagre </i>- \'in the beginning darkness was engulfed in darkness\'. This is the <i>asat, </i>non-being, this is the <i>acit, </i>the inconscience, this is the blackest night. The Bible also speaks of a similar darkness - Job\'s terrible vision: &quot;A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order and where the light is as darkness.&quot;\' The lamp of consciousness is not yet lit. The dark vacancy stretches across the path of creation yet to be, the light that is to come. This shadow is the negation of the light behind, it is the original of the creation. It is presented as the mere material universe apparently dead and dry, the utter inconscience with no sign of consciousness anywhere. And earth seems to be there part of it, a shadow within the shadow, a dark spot wheeling in a dark mass.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is the pre-creation, one might say, the creation before the creation - the shadow creation. We know coming events cast their shadow before, as a kind of forewarning, foreboding: that is the dark messenger, the bright messenger will follow. For after all, it is His shadow - &quot;And into the midnight his shadow is thrown.&quot;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe original inconscience is a non-existence, a nihil in which all existence is rolled up and dissolved, an infinite non-entity or zero. This is the zero here below, on the reverse side of the reality. But there is another zero up above and beyond, beyond the superconsciousness, the <i>Sunya, </i>beyond Sachchidananda. In between is the world of night, the world of gestation where the Gods are asleep. When the Divine, the One indivisible existence felt the first stirring and was moved to create, he divided himself\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n1. Book of Job. I 0.2 1 .</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nand cast himself as it were out of himself. And the Light and Consciousness of his Being forthwith leaped into darkness and inconscience. That is the involution of the Supreme into material existence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis original darkness is the womb of creation, it is something akin to Hiranyagarbha of Indian tradition. The fiat has gone from the Supreme to resurrect this darkness - his alter-ego - and he sends down the messenger-light. So the Gods are about to wake, there is a stir in their slumber. The creation as manifestation begins when the first ray of light strikes the darkness. That is when the Gods open their eyes. But the spell of darkness returns and swallows up the light.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe earth too, one with the surrounding mass of darkness and inconscience is asleep and insentient. She has to wake up and start on her journey moving forward, unveiling her secret mysteries towards the supreme revelation, the Divine incarnation in matter. The Gods are awake, in order to awaken the earth. A first ray is sent down and it touches as it were the sleeping Mother. The Divine Ray is just like a finger of a child touching her mother trying, as it were, to persuade her to open her eyes and look at her child. The first ray, however, comes not as a caress to the inert being of darkness, it is a sharp prick, even a hard blow. Such is the first impact of light upon dead matter; and the light is thrown back, as an unwelcome intruder, into what it came from; and the darkness grovels in its old groove. The second stage comes when the impact is not felt as a pain or something totally foreign and strange; its touch is felt as something soothing, something that heals an eternal sore. But this too was not suffered long and the light has to go back again.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThese are the successive dawns of which the Vedic Rishis speak, through which the light and consciousness in the dark inconscience gradually grows, increases in volume and strength. The continued descent of the light into earth brings about the change upon earth, that is called evolution, that is to say, the transformation of the dark inconscience here below into the original Super-Light of which it was the shadow cast out because of the original separation from the Source.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSavitri represents one such divine dawn at a crucial moment of earth-life. She embodies creation\'s entire past and shows in her life how that past is transformed through the alchemy of Divine Grace to a glorious future - the inevitable destiny that awaits man and earth.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-007_The Opening Scene of Savitri','','publish','closed','open','','007_the-opening-scene-of-savitri','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_the-opening-scene-of-savitri/',0,'post','',0),(1603,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-009_Appendix.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nAppendix \n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life.*\n</p>\n<p class=\"pararight\">\nSri Aurobindo\n</p>\n<p class=\"pararight\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n* Written as <i>Author\'s Note </i>for &quot;Savitri* \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-009_Appendix','','publish','closed','open','','009_appendix','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_appendix/',0,'post','',0),(1604,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Contents.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b><i>On \n </i><i>&quot;Savitri&quot;</i></b></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>Contents</b></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	<a href=\"on-savitri-000_Pre_Content\">Pre-Content</a></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n	</p>\n	<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n	<tr>\n<td width=\"46%\"></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><i><a href=\"-001_Compilers-Note\">Compiler\'s Note</a></i></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-002_Preface\"><i>Preface</i>\n</a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-003_Savitri\">Savitri </a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-004_Gods-Debt\">God\'s Debt\n</a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-005_Readings-in-Savitri\">Readings in &quot;Savitri&quot;</a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-006_Notes-on-Savitri\">Notes on \n&quot;Savitri&quot; </a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<a href=\"-007_The-Opening-Scene-of-Savitri\">\nThe Opening Scene of &quot;Savitri&quot; </a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-008_The-Human-Divine\">The Human \nDivine </a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-009_Appendix\"><i>Appendix</i>\n</a></td>\n	</tr>\n	<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><i><a href=\"-010_References-of-Articles\">References of the Articles</a></i></td>\n	</tr>\n</table>\n	</div>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','on-savitri-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','on-savitri-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:49','2021-11-23 17:21:49','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/on-savitri-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1605,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-000_Pre_Content.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"on - 54-54 - 0001-1.jpg\" src=\"/Nolini/On Savitri/_images/on - 54-54 - 0001-1.jpg\" style=\" width:308.88pt; height:536.88pt;\"\n<br></p>\n	<hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b><i>On  </i>\n<i>&quot;Savitri&quot; </i></b>\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b><i>Nolini Kanta Gupta</i>\n</b>\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Sri Aurobindo Ashram \n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">Pondicherry</p>\n	<hr></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">First Edition : 13 January, 2001\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">(Typeset in Times Roman 11/13)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">&copy; Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 2001 \n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department \n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry - 605 002\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">PRINTED IN INDIA\n</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','on-savitri-000_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','on-savitri-000_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/on-savitri-000_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1606,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-003_Savitri.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>Savitri</b></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(1)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n&quot;Savitri&quot;, the poem, the word of Sri Aurobindo is the cosmic Answer to the cosmic Question. And Savitri, the person, the Godhead, the Divine Woman is the Divine\'s response to the human aspiration.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe world is a great question mark. It is a riddle, eternal and ever-recurring. Man has faced the riddle and sought to arrive at a solution since he has been given a mind to seek and interrogate.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is this universe? From where has it come? Whither is it going? What is the purpose of it all? Why is man here? What is the object of his existence?\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSuch is the mode of human aspiration. And Ashwapati in his quest begins to explore the world and see what it is, the way it is built up. He observes it rising tier upon tier, level upon level of consciousness. He mounts these stairs, takes cognisance of the modes and functions of each and passes on enriched by the experiences that each contributes to his developing consciousness. The ascent he finds is from ignorance to knowledge. The human being starts from the darkest bed of ignorance, the solid basis of rock as it were, the body, the material existence. Ignorance here is absolute inconscience. Out of the total absence of consciousness, the being begins to awake and rise to a gradually developing - widening, deepening and heightening -consciousness. That is how Ashwapati advances, ascends from a purely bodily life and consciousness, to the next rung of the ladder, the first appearance and expression of life-force, the vital consciousness - energies and forms of the small lower vital. He moves on, moves upward, there is a growing light in and mixed with the obscurity; ignorance begins to shed its hard and dark coatings one by one and gives place to directed and motivated energies. He meets beings and creatures appropriate to those levels crawling and stirring and climbing, moved by the laws governing the respective regions. In this way Ashwapati passes\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">on into the higher vital, into the border of the mental.\n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAshwapati now observes with a clear vividness that all these worlds and the beings and forces that inhabit them are stricken as it were with a bar sinister branded upon their bodies. In spite of an inherent urge of ascension the way is not a straight road but devious and crooked breaking into by-lanes and blind alleys. There is a great corruption and perversion of natural movements towards Truth: falsehoods and pretensions, arrogance of blindness reign here in various degrees. Ashwapati sought to know the wherefore of it all. So he goes behind, dives down and comes into a region that seems to be the source and basis of all ignorance and obscurity and falsehood. He comes into the very heart of the Night, the abyss of consciousness. He meets there the Mother of Evil and the sons of darkness. He stands before\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\"><br>\n...the gate of a false Infinite,\n<br>\nAn eternity of disastrous absolutes...<sup>1</sup>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere are the forces that pull down and lure away to perdition all that man\'s aspirations and the world\'s urge seek to express and build of Divine things. It is the world in which the forces of the original inconscience find their primitive play. They are dark and dangerous: they prey upon earth\'s creatures who are not content with being vassals of darkness but try to move to the Light. \n</p>\n<br>\n<p class=\"para\"> Dangerous is this passage for the celestial aspirant:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">Where the red Wolf waits by the fordless stream \n<br>\n And Death\'s black eagles scream to the precipice...<sup>2</sup>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\"> He must be absolutely vigilant, absolutely on his guard, absolutely sincere.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere must the traveller of the upward way - <br>\nFor daring Hell\'s kingdoms winds the heavenly route -\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n1.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28, p. 221. \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n2.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 230.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nPause or pass slowly through that perilous space, </p>\n<p class=\"para\"> A prayer upon his lips and the great Name.<sup>3</sup>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut there is no escape. The divine traveller has to pass through this region. For it lies athwart his path to the goal. Not only so, it is necessary to go through this Night. For Ashwapati\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Knew death for a cellar of the house of life, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">In destruction felt creation\'s hasty pace, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Knew loss as the price of a celestial gain </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And hell as a short cut to heaven\'s gates.<sup>4</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAshwapati now passes into the higher luminous regions. He enters regions of larger breath and wider movement - the higher vital and then into the yet more luminous region of the higher mind. He reaches the heavens where immortal sages and the divinities and the gods themselves dwell. Even these Ashwapati finds to be only partial truths, various aspects, true but limited, of the One Reality beyond. Thus he leaves all behind and reaches into the single sole Reality, the transcendental Truth of things, the status vast and infinite and eternal, immutable existence and consciousness and bliss.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">A Vastness brooded free from sense of Space, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">An Everlastingness cut off from Time...</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">A stillness absolute, incommunicable ...<sup>5</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere seems to be the end of the quest, and one would fain stay there ever and ever in that status\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">...occult, impenetrable, -\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Infinite, eternal, unthinkable, alone.<sup>6</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n3.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28. p. 210. \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n4.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 231.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n5.<i>Ibid., </i>pp. 308. 310.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n6.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 309.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAshwapati was perhaps about to be lured into that Bliss but suddenly a doubt enters into him - there is a hesitation, a questioning; he hears a voice:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">The ego is dead; we are free from being and care, \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">We have done with birth and death and work and fate.\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Osoul, it is too early to rejoice!\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self, \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">But where hast thou thrown self\'s mission and self\'s power?</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">On what dead bank on the Eternal\'s road?<sup>7</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAshwapati veers round. A new perception, a new consciousness begins to open within him. A new urge moves him. He has to start on a new journey, a new quest and achievement. The world exists neither as a Truth nor as an illusion in itself. It exists in and through the Mother of the worlds. There is a motive in its existence and it is her will that is being worked out in that existence. The world moves for the fulfilment of a purpose that is being evolved through earth-life and human-life. The ignorant incomplete human life upon earth is not the be-all and end-all of the life here. That life has to evolve into a life of light and love and joy perfect here below. Nature as it is now will be transmuted into a new pure and radiant substance. Ashwapati is filled with this new urge and inspired by this new vision. He sees and understands now the truth of his life, the goal that has to be achieved, the great dream that has to be realised here upon earth in and through matter. He sees how nature has been labouring ceaselessly and tirelessly through aeons through eternity onward. He is now almost impatient to see the consummation here and now. The divine Voice however shows him the wisdom of working patiently, hastening slowly. The Voice admonishes him:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Iask thee not to merge thy heart of flame </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">In the Immobile\'s wide uncaring bliss... </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n7. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28, p. 310 \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thy soul was born to share the laden Force;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Obey thy nature and fulfil thy fate: </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Accept the difficulty and godlike toil,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">For the slow-paced omniscient purpose live....\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">All things shall change in God\'s transfiguring hour.<sup>8</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the human flame once kindled is hard to put down. It seeks an immediate result. It does not understand the fullness of time. So Ashwapati cries out:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Heavy and long are the years our labour counts </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And still the seals are firm upon man\'s soul </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And weary is the ancient Mother\'s heart.... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Linger not long with thy transmuting hand </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Pressed vainly on one golden bar of Time... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Let a great word be spoken from the heights </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And one great act unlock the doors of Fate.<sup>9</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis great cry of the human soul moved the Divine Mother and she granted at last its prayer. She answered by bestowing of her motherly comfort on the yearning thirsty soul:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">O strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry.\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">One shall descend and break the iron Law...\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">A seed shall be sown in Death\'s tremendous hour,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Nature shall overleap her mortal step;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.<sup>10</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd She herself came down upon earth as Ashwapati\'s daughter to undertake the human labour and accomplish the Divine work.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(2)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine Mother is upon earth as a human creature. She is to\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n8.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 28, pp. 335-336, 341.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n9.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 345. \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n10. <i>Ibid, </i>p. 346.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nchange the mortal earth into an immortal paradise. Earth at present is a bundle of material inconscience. The Supreme Consciousness has manifested itself as supreme unconsciousness. The Divine has lost itself in pulverising itself, scattering itself abroad. Immortality is thus entombed here below in death. The task of the incarnate Supreme Consciousness is to revive the death-bound divinity, to free the human consciousness in its earthly life from the obscurity of the material unconsciousness, re-install it in its original radiant status of the Divine Consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSuch is Savitri\'s mission. This mission has two sessions or periods. The first, that of preparation; the second, that of fulfilment. Savitri, the human embodiment was given only twelve months out of her earthly life and in that short space of time she had to do all the preparation. She knew her work from her very birth, she was conscious of her nature and the mission she was entrusted with. Now she is facing the crisis. Death is there standing in front. What is to be done, how is she to proceed? She was told she is to conquer Death, she is to establish immortal life upon mortal earth. The Divine Voice rings out:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Arise, O soul, and vanquish Time and Death.<sup>11</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYes, she is ready to do it, but not for herself, but for her Love, the being who was the life of her life. Savitri is the Divine Consciousness but here in the mortal body she is clothed in the human consciousness; it is the human consciousness that she is to lead upward and beyond and it is in and through the human consciousness that the Divine Realisation has to be expressed and established. The human Savitri declares: If Death is conquered, it is for the sake of Satyavan living eternally with her. She seems to say: What I wish to see is the living Satyavan and I united with him for ever. I do not need an earthly life without him; with him I prefer to be in another world if necessary away from the obscurity and turmoil of this earth here.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n11. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 474. \n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">My strength is taken from me and given to Death,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Why should I lift my hands to the shut heavens...\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Why should I strive with earth\'s unyielding laws\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Or stave off death\'s inevitable hour?\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">This surely is best to pactise with my fate </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And follow close behind my lover\'s steps\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And pass through night from twilight to the sun...<sup>12</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut a thunderous voice descends from above shaking Savitri to the very basis of her existence.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">And what shall thy soul say when it wakes and knows \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The work was left undone for which it came?<sup>13</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus a crisis very similar to that which Ashwapati had to face now confronts Savitri also. Both of them were at the crossroads away from the earth in the pure delights of the heavens or in the world labouring on earth\'s soil. Savitri\'s soul was now revealed to her in its fullness. She viewed the mighty destiny for which she had come down and the great work she had to achieve here upon earth, not any personal or individual human satisfaction or achievement but a cosmic fulfilment, a global human realisation. The godhead in Savitri is now fully awake, established in its plenitude - the Divinity incarnate in the human frame. All the godheads, all the goddess-emanations now entered into her and moulded the totality of her mighty stature.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere begins then the second stage of her mission, - her work and achievement, the conquest of Death. Only the Divine human being can conquer Death. Savitri follows Death step by step revealing gradually the mystery of death, his personality and his true mission, although the dark God thinks that it is he who is taking away Satyavan and Savitri along with him, to his own home, his black annihilation. For Death is that in its first appearance, it is utter destruction, nothing-ness, non-existence. So the mighty Godhead declares in an imperious tone to the mortal woman Savitri:\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n12.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL. Vol. 29, pp. 474-475.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n13.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 475.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">This is my silent dark immensity, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">This is the home of everlasting Night, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">This is the secrecy of Nothingness </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Entombing the vanity of life\'s desires.... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Hopest thou still always to last and love?<sup>14</sup></p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIndeed Death is not merely a destruction of the body, it is in reality nothingness, non-being. The moment being, existence, reality manifested itself, established itself as a material fact, simultaneously there came out and stood against it, its opposite non-being, non-existence, non-reality; against an everlasting \'yes\' there was posited an everlasting \'no\'. And in fact, this everlasting No proves to be a greater effective reality, it has wound itself around every constituent atom of the universe. That is what has expressed itself in the material domain as the irreversible degradation of energy and in the mortal world it is denial and doubt and falsehood - it is that which brings about failure in life, and frustration, misery and grief. But then Savitri\'s vision penetrated beyond and she saw, Death is a way of achieving the end more swiftly and more completely. The negation is an apparent obstacle in order to increase, to purify and intensify the speed of the process by which the world and humanity is being remodelled and recreated. This terrible Godhead pursues the human endeavour till the end; until he finds that nothing more is to be done; then his mission too is fulfilled.* So a last cry, the cry of a desperate dying Death, pierces the universe and throws the final challenge to Savitri:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">O human claimant to immortality,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Reveal thy power, lay bare thy spirit\'s force,\n</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n14. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 586. \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n* We are reminded here of a parallelism in Goethe\'s conception of the role of Satan (the Negative Principle) in human affairs. Satan is not merely a destroying devil, he is a constructive angel. For it is he\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>Who must goad and lease </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>And toil to serve creation.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">whenever\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>Man\'s efforts sink below his proper level.</i>\n</p>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Then will I give back to thee Satyavan. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Or if the Mighty Mother is with thee,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Show me her face that I may worship her;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Let deathless eyes look into the eyes of Death...<sup>15</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nDeath\'s desire, his prayer too is fulfilled. He faces Savitri but this is not the Savitri against whom he fought. Whose is this voice?\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">I hail thee almighty and victorious Death, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thou grandiose Darkness of the Infinite.... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I have given thee thy awful shape of dread </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And thy sharp sword of terror and grief and pain </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">To force the soul of man to struggle for light...<sup>16</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat happens thereafter is something strange and tremendous and miraculous. Light flashed all around, a leaping tongue of fire spread out and the dark form of Death was burnt - not to ashes but to blazing sparks of light:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">His body was eaten by light, his spirit devoured.<sup>17</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus Death came to his death - not to death in reality but to a new incarnation. Death returned to his original divine Reality, an emanation of the Divine Mother.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">A secret splendour rose revealed to sight </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Where once the vast embodied Void had stood. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Night the dim mask had grown a wonderful face.<sup>18</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn that domain of pure transcendent light stood face to face the human Savitri and the transformed Satyavan.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n15.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 664.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n16.<i>Ibid. </i>p. 666.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n17.<i>Ibid, </i>p. 667.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n18.<i>Ibid, </i>p. 679.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(3)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSavitri has entered into the deathless luminous world where there is only faultless beauty, stainless delight and an unmeasured self-gathered strength. Saviri heard the melodious voice of the Divine:\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nYou have now left earth\'s miseries and its impossible conditions, you have reached the domain of unalloyed felicity and you need not go back to the old turbulent life: dwell here both of you and enjoy eternal bliss.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut Savitri answered firm and moveless:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">I climb not to thy everlasting Day, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Even as I have shunned thy eternal Night.... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Earth is the heroic spirit\'s battlefield... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Thy servitudes on earth are greater, King, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Than all the glorious liberties of heaven.<sup>19</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nOnce more Savitri, even like Ashwapati, has to make a choice between two destinies, two soul-movements - although the choice is already made even before it is offered to her. Ashwapati had to abandon, we know, the silent immutable transcendent status of pure light in order to bathe in this lower earthly light. Savitri too as the prototype of human consciousness chose and turned to this light of the earth.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Rishi of the Upanishad declared: they who worship only Ignorance enter into darkness, but they who worship knowledge alone enter into a still darker darkness. This world of absolute light which Savitri names \'everlasting day\' is what the Upa-nishadic Rishi sees and describes as the golden lid upon the face of the Sun. The Sun is the complete integral light of the Truth in its fullness. The golden covering has to be removed if one is to see the Sun itself - to live the integral life, one has to possess the integral truth.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo it is that Savitri comes down upon earth and standing upon\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n19. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 686.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nits welcoming soil speaks to Satyavan as though consoling him for having abandoned their own abode in heaven to dwell among mortal men:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Heaven\'s touch fulfils but cancels not our earth... \n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Still am I she who came to thee mid the murmur </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Of sunlit leaves upon this forest verge... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">All that I was before, I am to thee still...<sup>20</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nVoicing Satyavan\'s thought and feeling, all humanity, the whole world in joy and gratefulness, utters this <i>mantra </i>of thanksgiving:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">If this is she of whom the world has heard, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Wonder no more at any happy change.<sup>21</sup> </p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(4)</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn her <i>Prayers and Meditations </i>the Mother says:\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\"><i> Comme l\'homme n\'a pas voulu du repas que j\'avais préparé avec tant d\'amour et de soin, alors j\'ai invité le Dieu à le prendre.</i>\n	</p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\"><i> Et mon Dieu, Tu as accepté mon invitation et Tu es venu t\'asseoir à ma table; et en échange de ma pauvre et humble offrande Tu m\'as octroyé la finale libération!*</i>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is this banquet that she prepared for man and which man refused? It is nothing else than the Life Divine here below -the life of the Gods enjoying immortality, full of the supreme light and power, love and delight. Man refused because for him it\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n20.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 719.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n21.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 723.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n* &quot;Since the man refused the meal i had prepared with so much love and care, I invoked the God to take it.</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMy God, Thou hast accepted my invitation. Thou hast come to sit at my table, and in exchange for my poor and humble offering Thou hast granted to me the last liberation.&quot;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nis something too high, too great. Being a creature earth-bound and of small dimensions he can seize and appreciate only small things, little specks of a material world. He refused, first of all, because of his ignorance; he does not know, nor is he capable of conceiving that there are such things as immortal life, divinity, unobscured light, griefless love, or a radiant, tranquil, invisible energy. He does not know and yet he is arrogant, arrogant in his little knowledge, his petty power, in his blind self-sufficiency. Furthermore, besides ignorance and arrogance there is an element of revolt in him, for in his half-wakefulness with his rudimentary consciousness, if ever he came in contact with something that is above and beyond him, if a shadow of another world happens to cross his threshold, he is not at peace, does not want to recognise but denies and even curses it.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Divine Mother brings solace and salvation. For the Grace it is such a small and easy thing, it is a wonder how even such a simple, natural, inconspicuous thing could be refused by anybody.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIf man finds no use for the gift she has brought down for him, naturally she will take it back and return it to Him to whom it belongs, for all things belong to the Supreme Lord, even She belongs to Him, as She is one with Him. The Gita says: there is nothing else than the Brahman in the creation - the doer, the doing and the deed, all are essentially He. In the sacrifice that is this moving, acting universe, the offerer, the offering and the offered, each and every element is the Brahman - <i>brahm</i>&#257;<i>rpanam brahma havi</i>&#7717;<i>.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis gesture of the Divine Mother teaches us also what should be the approach and attitude of human beings in all their activities. In all our movements we should always remember Him, refer to Him, consider that in the last analysis each and every movement comes from Him and we must always offer them to Him, return them to the parent-source from where they come, therein lies freedom, the divine detachment which the individual must possess always in order to be one with Him, feel one\'s identity with Him.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(5)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nMan\'s refusal of the Divine Grace has been depicted very beautifully and graphically in a perfect dramatic form by Sri Aurobindo in <i>Savitri. </i>The refusal comes one by one from the three constituent parts of the human being. First of all man is a material being, a bodily creature, as such he is a being of ignorance and misery, of brutish blindness. He does not know that there is something other than his present state of misfortune and dark fate. He is not even aware that there may be anything higher or nobler than the ugliness he is steeped in. He lives on earth-life with an earth-consciousness, moves mechanically and helplessly through vicissitudes over which he has no control. Even so the material life is not a mere despicable thing; behind its darkness, behind its sadness, behind all its infirmities, the Divine Mother is there upholding it and infusing into it her grace and beauty. Indeed, she is one with this world of sorrows, she has in effect become it in her infinite pity and love so that this material body of hers may become conscious of its divine substance and manifest her true form. But the human being individualised and separated in egoistic consciousness has lost the sense of its inner reality and is vocal only in regard to its outward formulation. It is natural for physical man therefore to reject and deny the physical Godhead in him, he even curses it and wants to continue as he is. He yells therefore in ignorance and anguish:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Who is nailed on the wide cross of the Universe...\n	</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I toil like the animal, like the animal die.\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf...\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I know my fate will ever be the same.\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">It is my Nature\'s work that cannot change...\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I was made for evil, evil is my lot;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Evil I must be and by evil live;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Nought other can I do but be myself; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">What Nature made, that I must remain.<sup>22</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\n22. Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29. pp. 505-507.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n The Divine glory manifests itself for a moment to the earthly consciousness but man refuses to be pulled out of its pigsty. The Grace withdraws but in its Supreme Consciousness of unity and love consoles the fallen creature and gives it the assurance:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">One day I will return, a bringer of strength... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Misery shall pass abolished from the earth; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The world shall be freed from the anger of the\nBeast...<sup>23</sup></p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe basic status or foundation of Man, in fact of creation, is earth, the material organisation. After the body, next comes the life and Life-power. Here man attains a larger dynamic being of energy and creative activity. Here too, on this level, what man is or what he achieves is only a reflection, a shadow, but mostly a misshapen resemblance, an aberration of the divine reality that hides behind, and yet half-reveals itself. That Godhead is the Mother\'s form of Might, we name it variously, Kali and Durga and Lakshmi, for it is Her Grace that is ultimately expressed and fulfilled in this world of vital power. It is because of this realising power of the Mother that\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Slowly the Light grows greater in the East,\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Slowly the world progresses on God\'s road.\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">His seal is on my task, it cannot fail;\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I shall hear the silver swing of heaven\'s gates\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">When God comes out to meet the soul of the world.<sup>24</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut man in the strength of his ignorance and arrogance does not recognise this Goddess. Human power, we have said, is a reflection, a shadow of the Divine Power but most often it is a deformed, a perverted Divine Power. Man is full of his egoistic vital self-confidence: he believes it is his own will that is realising all, all which is achieved here; whatever he has created, it is through the might of his own merit and whatever new\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n23.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri. </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 507.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n24.<i>Ibid., p. </i>510.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\ncreations will be done in the future will be through the Grace of his own genius. A mighty vital selfhood obscures his consciousness and he sees nothing else, understands nothing else beyond the reach of that limited vision. This is the Rakshasa, this is the Asura in man. Here is his philosophy of life:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">I climb, a claimant to the throne of heaven. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">The last-born of the earth I stand the first... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I am God still unevolved in human form; </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Even if he is not, he becomes in me.... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">No magic can surpass my magic\'s skill. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">There is no miracle I shall not achieve.<sup>25</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSo this vital being in man in his Rakshasic hunger and Asuric self-conceit rejects the Divine Power that is in fact behind him too, supporting him. The Goddess, in the wake of her predecessor, goes back from where she came, leaving however a consoling word, assuring that one day she will return; she will bide her time. For one day,\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">The cry of the ego shall be hushed within, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Its lion-roar that claims the world as food, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">All shall be might and bliss and happy force.<sup>26</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn his body man is the beast, in the vital he is the Rakshasa and the Asura, he rises now into the mind. And in the mind he is the human being proper, he has attained his own humanity. Here he has received the light of knowledge, a wider and deeper consciousness, he has unveiled the secret mysteries of Nature, brought to play hidden forces that were unknown and untapped. All these achievements have been possible for man because it is the Mother of Light that is behind and has come forward to shed something of her luminous presence around. But man has no inkling of the presence of this luminous Deity, his own light has been a screen in front of the inner divine light. It is not possible\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n25.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL. Vol. 29, pp. 511-512.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n26.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 514.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nfor the human mind to seize the higher light: his consciousness, his knowledge is too narrow, too superficial, too dull to comprehend what is beyond. This Divine Light is also a thing of delight, the consciousness it possesses is also the very essence of Joy and Felicity. But all that is occult to the human knowledge. Man considers Truth is his property, whatever truth is there his understanding can grasp it and bring it to play: Truth and Reality are commensurate with his own consciousness, his mental comprehension. What others speak of as realities of the spirit, truths transcendental, are an illusion and delusion. This is what is usually known as the scientific mind, the rational consciousness. An orthodox scientific mentality is in the first instance a thing of overweening self-confidence, of arrogant self-assertion. It declares in its formidable pride:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">I have seized the cosmic energies for my use. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">I have pored on her infinitesimal elements </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And her invisible atoms have unmasked... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">If God is at work, his secrets I have found.<sup>27</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis imperiousness in man seems however to be a sheer imperviousness: it is a mask, a hollow appearance; for with all his knowledge, at the end he has attained no certainty, no absoluteness. There is something behind, all the outer bravado he flourishes has a sense of helplessness, at times almost as pitiable as that of a child; for he finds at last\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">All is a speculation or a dream.\n</p>\n	<p class=\"para\">In the end the world itself becomes a doubt...<sup>28</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is true his survey of the universe, his knowledge of boundless Nature and the inexhaustible multiplicities of creation have given him a sense of the endless and the infinite but he has not the necessary light or capacity to follow those lines of infinity, on the contrary, there is a shrinking in him at the touch of\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n27.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, pp. 518-519.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n28.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 519.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nsuch vastnesses; his small humanity makes him desperately earth-bound, his aspiration follows the lines of least resistance:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">Our smallness saves us from the Infinite. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">In a frozen grandeur lone and desolate </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Call me not to die the great eternal Death... </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Human I am, human let me remain </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Till in the Inconscient I fall dumb and sleep.<sup>29</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThus, this Goddess too, is rejected like her previous comrades, the Mother of Light, the Deity who is properly the guide and ruler of man\'s own destiny. Even she is refused but hers is not to complain, in tranquil quietness she brings comfort and hope to the troubled human mind and says she goes to come back in the fullness of her incarnation. She utters divinely:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">One day I shall return, His hands in mine, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">And thou shalt see the face of the Absolute. </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Then shall the holy marriage be achieved, </p>\n	<p class=\"para\">Then shall the divine family be born.<sup>30</sup>\n	</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n(6)\n</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTo the inconscient and ignorant human nature, Savitri, the Divine\'s delegate presents the powers and personalities that are behind man\'s present infirmities - these broken images of true realities lying scattered about in the front of existence. Man will be made conscious, he is being made conscious step by step precisely by such relations from time to time. The Vedic image is that of the eternal succession of dawns whose beginning no one knows, nor the end, that creation proceeds from light to light, from consciousness to higher reaches of consciousness. From the material life through the vital and the mental life he first reaches the spiritual life and finally the Life Divine. From the animal he rises to manhood, and in the end to Godhood.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n29.Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri, </i>SABCL, Vol. 29, p. 520.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n30.<i>Ibid., </i>p. 521.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut there are intermediaries. The fullness of the realisation depends on the fullness of the incarnation. The Evil in the body, the Evil in the vital, the Evil in the mind are, whatever their virulence and intransigence, subsidiary agents, for they serve only a mightier Lord. The first original Sin is Death, the God of Denial, of non-existence. That is the very source <i>-fans et origo -</i>the fount and origin of all the misfortune, the fate that terrestrial life involves. This demon, this anti-Divine has to be tracked and destroyed or dissolved into its original origin. This is the Nihil that negates the Divine - <i>Asat </i>that seeks to nullify <i>Sat </i>and that has created this world of ignorance and misery, that is to say, in its outward pragmatic form. So Saviri sees the one source and knows the remedy. Therefore she pursues Death, pursues him to the end, that is, to the end of death. The luminous energy of the Supreme faces now its own shadow and blazes it up. The flaming Light corrodes into the substance of the darkness and makes of it her own transfigured substance. This then is the gift that Savitri brings to man, the Divine\'s own immortality, transfusing the mortality that reigns now upon earth.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn view of the necessity of the age, for the crucial, critical and, in a way, final consummation of Nature\'s evolutionary urge, the Divine Himself has to come down in the fullness of His divinity; for only then can the earth be radically changed and wholly transformed. In the beginning the Divine once came down, but by sacrificing Himself, being pulverised, scattered and lost in the infinitesimals of a universal, material, unconsciousness. Once again He has to come down, but this time in the supreme glory of His victorious Luminosity.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis then is the occult, the symbolic sense of the Mother\'s gesture turning away from man with her gifts and returning to the Divine Himself, and inviting Him as the chief guest of honour upon this earth. Or, in the Vedic image, He is to come as the flaming front and leader of the journeying sacrifice that is this universal existence.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-003_Savitri','','publish','closed','open','','003_savitri','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_savitri/',0,'post','',0),(1607,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN\">\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252\">\n<title>-004_God^s Debt.htm</title>\n</head>\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<b>Here is a line from </b> <i><b>Savitri</b>:</i>\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n	<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n	<p class=\"para\">And paying here God\'s debt to earth and man...\n</p>\n</blockquote>\n	</blockquote>\n</blockquote>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat is this debt that God owes to earth and man? We understand the debt that man and earth owe to God, their creator. But how is God indebted to his creation? Besides we learn that God pays his debt through his representative, his protagonist upon earth, the aspiring human being.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFirst let us understand the mystery of God\'s debt to man. We know, in ordinary life a subordinate has a duty towards his superior, the lesser owes a debt to the greater. That is easily understood. Likewise the superior also has a duty to his subordinate, the greater has his duty to the smaller. The child owes a debt to his parents; no less is the debt that the parents owe to the child. The parents not only bring forth the child, but they have to bring him up, nourish, foster, educate and settle him in life. We know also, as the scriptures tell us, that there is a debt man owes to the gods. The paying of the debt is described in the institution of the sacrifice <i>(yaj</i>ñ<i>a). </i>It is through his sacrifice that man achieves what he has to acheive upon earth. It is the giving - of what one is and what one has - to the gods - the sacrifice mounts carrying the offering to the gods. But the sacrifice is not a mere one-sided movement, the sacrifice brings from the gods gifts for the man -material prosperity and spiritual fulfilment. Man increases himself in this way, but thereby increases the gods also. The offering that man brings in his sacrifice - all his possessions - his earthly possessions, but chiefly his possessions of the inner world, the wealth of his spirit, the virtues of his consciousness -all go to the gods and increase them, that is to say, they become more manifest and more powerful upon earth and in earthly existence and in the service of man.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe sacrifice going up to the gods as offered by man means the sadhana, the inner discipline that he follows by which he lifts\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-19</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nup his being with its mental and vital and physical formulations to their higher and higher potencies upon earth. The dedication of the normal powers and faculties to the gods means purification and release from the bondages of ignorance and egoism. This serves to make the gods living to us, bring them near to our terrestrial life, to our normal consciousness. This is what is meant by increasing the gods - man\'s duty or debt to the gods. In answer there is a corresponding gesture from the gods, with their immortalising reality they dwell in us and fill our being with their godlike qualities, their light, their energy, their delight, their very immortality. Man increases the gods and the gods increase man and by their mutual increasing they attain the supreme increment, the Divine status, so says the Gita.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, we go beyond the gods, to the very origin, God himself, the Supreme. What is the debt that God, the Supreme, the Divine, owes to us human beings? We owe to God everything, our life, our very existence, our soul and substance given to us by him, then how is he indebted to us? What kind of debt he has incurred which he has to pay to his creature, the human being? Primarily because he is the Divine Father, he has to take charge of his own creation, see to its growth and fruition and fulfilment. Indeed that is the role of the Divine in us (and above us and around us): that is his work, the Divine Work. Since he has put us out of his consciousness (for a special experience of growth and development), it is also his work (and duty) to bring us back to him: after a process of self-separation a process of self-integration. Man, so long as he is a separate consciousness has to dedicate, lift up and unify this separative conscious being to the whole being and consciousness. This is how he discharges his debt to the Divine, and the answering grace of the Divine is the clearing of the debt which He owes to His creatures.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWhat has been said of man is equally applicable to earth. The destiny of man is the destiny of earth as also the destiny of earth is the destiny of man. For man is an earthly creature, is born out of earth and he grows with the growth of the earth; equally the earth grows with the growth of man.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn reality it is God\'s growth in man and earth that is reflected\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-20</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nand embodied in the growth of man and earth. The debt spoken of is the debt of God himself to himself. In other words, it is a work, a mission that he has himself taken upon himself for his own mysterious delight of existence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEarth moves forward through man who is its flowering and man moves forward through his representative, the higher man, who reveals and embodies still greater potentialities of God\'s creation, having the privilege of being so conscious as to contact the gods and God Himself - he is master of life-force <i>(a</i>&#347;<i>wapati); </i>he climbs to the summits and brings down upon earth the heavenly riches and the Divine Grace, which fulfils, transmuting all debits into credits.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-21</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_God\'s Debt','','publish','closed','open','','004_gods-debt','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_gods-debt/',0,'post','',0),