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<b>I</b></p>
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&nbsp;</p>
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<b>THE WORLD WAR (1939-1945)<font face="Times New Roman">*</font></b></p>
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&nbsp;</p>
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<b>ITS INNER BEARINGS</b></p>
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&nbsp;</p>
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This is a war to which even spiritual seekers can hardly remain indifferent with 
impunity. There are spiritual paths, however, that ask to render unto God what 
is God&#39;s and unto Satan what belongs to Satan; in other words, spirituality is 
kept apart from what is called worldliness, clean and untouched by the dust and 
murk of Ignorance—Maya. The injunction accordingly is that they who are worldly 
must remain worldly, they have no business, no right to meddle with 
spirituality, and they who are spiritual should, on the other hand, remain 
strictly spiritual, should have nothing to do with worldliness. Because of this 
complete divorce between the spiritual and the worldly, the world remains 
worldly even today, continues to be the empire of un spirituality and obscurity, 
of suffering and grief, it is unable to become a dynamic and living expression 
and embodiment of the Spirit.</p>
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Not that spiritual men have not served and worked for the welfare of the world; 
but their work could not be wholly effective, it was mixed, maimed, temporary in 
effect. This could not be otherwise, for their activity proceeded from inferior 
and feebler sources of inspiration and consciousness other than those that are 
purely spiritual. Firstly, little more was possible for them than to exercise an 
indirect influence; their spiritual realisation could bring into the life of the 
world only a reminiscence, an echo, just a touch and a ray from another world. 
Or, secondly, when they did take part in worldly affairs, their activity could 
not rise much beyond the worldly standard; it remained enclosed within the 
sphere of the moral and the conventional, took such forms as, for </p>
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&nbsp;</p>
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<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">*</font><font size="2"> An abridgement of this essay was broadcast 
from the All India Radio<br>
Delhi Station on 4th December, 1942.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
Page-116</font></p>
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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—a 
supramental or transcendental consciousness was a rare phenomenon and even where 
the ideal was found, it is doubtful whether the right means and methods were 
discovered. Yet the sole secret of changing man&#39;s destiny and transmuting the 
world lies in the discovery and application of a supreme spiritual 
Conscious-Power.</p>
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<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">Humanists</font> 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 heeds 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>.</p>
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All<font size="2" face="Times New Roman"> </font>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 
description in the well-known lines of Matthew Arnold:</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
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The East bow&#39;d low before the blast,</p>
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&nbsp;In patient deep disdain.</p>
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&nbsp;She let the 
legions thunder past,</p>
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&nbsp;And plunged in thought again.</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">In 
fact, however, there is no insurmountable disparity between spirituality and 
&quot;worldliness&quot;, between meditation </p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="center">
<font size="2">Page-117</font></p><hr>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="justify">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>
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Now, it is precisely with the Asura that we have to deal in the present war. 
This is not like other wars—it is not a war of one country with another, 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:</p>
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&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 modern 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, equity, 
goodwill—or, to put all into a single word, in the direction of humanity.&quot;</p>
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Modern thinkers do not speak of the Asura—the Demon or the Titan—although the 
religiously minded sometimes refer</p>
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<font size="2">Page-118</font></p><hr>
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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&#39;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&#39;s Mein Kampf has become the Scripture of the New Order; it has come with 
a more categorical imperative, a more supernal authority than the Veda, the 
Bible or the Koran.</p>
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When man was a dweller of the forest,—a jungle man —akin to his forbear the ape, 
his character was wild and savage, his motives and impulsions crude, violent, 
egoistic, almost wholly imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the 
light of the higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today 
there is an up rush 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>herrenvolk);</i> the rest of mankind—other countries and peoples—should 
be pushed back to the status of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and 
drawers of water. What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the mediaeval ages, and what the </p>
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<font size="2">Page-119</font></p><hr>
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&nbsp;subject peoples were 
under the worst forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind 
under the new over-lordship, or something still worse. For whatever might have 
been the external conditions in those ages and system^ 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&#39;s own virility. Man perhaps would be the worshipper 
of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical mastery over material 
Nature, which serves to pile up tools and instruments, arms and armaments, in 
order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.</p>
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Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its overshadowing menace—even 
though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by 
circumstances —yet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of 
the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. 
It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that 
one has become <i>sura,</i> divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human 
instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that 
ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies 
the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for 
man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not</p>
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<font size="2">Page-120</font></p><hr>
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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 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 
purus<font face="Times New Roman">&#61477;</font>a,</i> beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot 
strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can 
work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an 
immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly 
acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; 
externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a 
difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is 
something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble 
metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something 
More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric 
nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric 
qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic 
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,</p>
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<font size="2">Page-121</font></p><hr>
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if not wholly consciously—that such is not the ideal way, that 
these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to 
be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the 
right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and 
swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of 
his character.</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
The outrages committed by Spain in America, the oppression of the Christians by 
Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment of Christians by Christians themselves (the 
Inquisition, that is to say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were 
wrong and, in many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare 
with what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the world, 
we find that there is a difference between the two not only in degree, but in 
kind. 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 
un-divine; 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.</p>
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The Asura triumphs everywhere for a while because his power is well-built, 
perfectly organised. Human power is constituted differently and acts 
differentiy; 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&#39;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 Asura. 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</p>
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<font size="2">Page-122</font></p><hr>
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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.</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">No 
doubt, the violence&#39;s 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.</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">As 
we see it we believe that the whole future of mankind, the entire value of 
earthly life depends upon the issue of the present deadly combat. The path that 
man has followed so long tended steadily towards progress and evolution—however 
slow his steps, however burdened with doubt and faint-ness his mind and heart in 
the ascent. But now the crucial parting of the ways looms before him. The 
question is, will the path of progress be closed to him for ever, will he be 
compelled to revert to a former unregenerate state or even something worse 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?</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">We 
believe that the war of today is a war between the Asura and men, human 
instruments of the gods. Man certainly is a weaker vessel in comparison with the 
Asura—on this material plane of ours; but in man dwells the Divine— and against 
the divine force and might, no asuric power can ultimately prevail. The human 
being who has stood against the Asura has by that very act sided with the gods 
and</p>
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<font size="2">Page-123</font></p><hr>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="justify">received the support and benediction of the Divine. The more we become 
conscious about the nature of this war and consciously take the side of the 
progressive force, of the divine force supporting it, the more will the Asura be 
driven to retire, his power diminished, his hold relaxed. But if through 
ignorance and blind passion, through narrow vision and obscurant prejudice we 
fail to distinguish the right from the wrong side, the dexter from the sinister, 
surely we shall invite upon mankind utter misery and desolation. It will be 
nothing less than a betrayal of the Divine Cause.</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
The fate of India too is being decided in this world-crisis —on the plains of 
Flanders, on the steppes of Ukraine, on the farthest expanses of the Pacific. 
The freedom of India will become inevitable and even imminent in proportion as 
she becomes cognizant of the underlying character and significance of the 
present struggle, deliberately takes the side of the evolutionary force, works 
for the gods, in proportion as she grows to be an instrument of the Divine 
Power. The instrument that the Divine chooses is often, to all appearances, 
faulty and defective, but since it has this higher and mightier support, it will 
surely outgrow all its drawbacks and lapses, it will surmount all dangers and 
obstacles and become unconquerable. This is what the spiritual seeker means by 
saying that the Divine Grace can make the lame leap across the mountain. India&#39;s 
destiny today hangs in the balance; it lies in the choice of her path.</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">A 
great opportunity is offered to India&#39;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 age long endeavour, her life mission. India has 
preserved and fostered through the immemorial spiritual living of her saints and 
seers and sages the invaluable treasure, the vitalising, the immortalising power 
of spirituality, so that it can be placed at the service of terrestrial life for 
the deliverance of mankind, for the transfiguration of the human type. It is 
this for which India lives; by losing this India loses all her reason of 
existence—<i>raison d<font face="Times New Roman">`</font>etre</i>—the earth and humanity too lose all significance. Today 
we are in the midst of an incomparable</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="center">
<font size="2">Page-124</font></p><hr>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="justify">ordeal. If we know how to take the final 
and crucial step, we come out of it triumphant, a new soul and a new body and we 
make the path straight for the Lord. We have to recognise clearly and 
unequivocally that victory on one side will mean that the path of the Divine—of 
progress and evolution and fulfilment—will remain open, become wider and 
smoother and safer; but if the victory is on the other side, the path will be 
closed perhaps for ever, at least for many ages and even then the travail will 
have to be undergone again under the most difficult conditions and 
circumstances. Not with a political shortsightedness, not out of the 
considerations of convenience or diplomacy, of narrow parochial interests, but 
with the steady vision of the soul that encompasses the supreme welfare of 
humanity, we have to make our choice, we have to go over to the right side and 
oppose the wrong one with all the integrity of our life and being. The Allies, 
as they have been justly called, are really our allies, our friends and 
comrades, in spite of their thousand faults and defects; they have stood on the 
side of the Truth whose manifestation and triumph is our goal. Even though they 
did not know perhaps in the beginning what they stood for, even though perhaps 
as yet they do not comprehend the full sense and solemnity of the issues, still 
they have chosen a side which is ours, and we have to stand by them 
whole-heartedly in an all-round comradeship if we want to be saved from a great 
perdition.</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
This war is a great menace; it is also a great opportunity. It can land humanity 
into a catastrophe; it can also raise it to levels which would not have been 
within its reach but for the occasion. The Forces of Darkness have precipitated 
themselves with all their might upon the world, but by their very down rush 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—</p>
<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="center">
<font size="2">Page-125</font></p><hr>
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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.</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px; line-height:150%" align="left">
September, 1942</p>
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<font size="2">Page-126</font></p>

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