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<p align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><B>
<font size="4">Goethe</font></B></p>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A perfect face amid -barbarian faces,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A perfect voice of sweet and serious rhyme,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Traveller with calm, inimitable paces,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Critic with judgment absolute to all time,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A complete strength when men were maimed and weak,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>German obscured the spirit of a Greek.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>SRI AUROBINDO</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>THE
year 1949 has just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of
the great force of light that was Goethe. We too remember him on the
occasion, and will try to present in a few words, as we see it, the
fundamental experience, the major Intuition that stirred this human
soul, the lesson he brought to mankind. Goethe was a great poet. He
showed how a language, perhaps least poetical by nature, can be
moulded to embody the great beauty of great poetry. He made the
German language sing, even as the sun's ray made the stone of Memnon
sing when falling upon it. Goethe was a man of consummate culture.
Truly and almost literally it could be said of him that nothing human
he considered foreign to his inquiring mind. And Goethe was a man of
great wisdom. His observation and judgment on things-no matter to
whatever realm they belong-have an arresting appropriateness, a happy
and revealing insight. But above all, he was an aspiring
soul-aspiring to know and be in touch with the hidden Divinity in man
and the world.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>GOETHE AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL</FONT></P>
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problem is so vital to the human consciousness as the problem </FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 135</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>of Evil – its why and wherefore  It is verily the Sphinx Riddle. In
all ages and in all climes man has tried to answer; the answers are
of an immense variety, but none seems to be sure and certain.
Goethe's was an ardent soul seeking to embrace the living truth whole
and entire; the problem was not merely of philosophical interest to
him, but a burning question of life and death – life and death of
the body and even of the soul.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>One view considers Evil as coeval with Good: the Prince
of Evil is God's peer, equal to him in all ways, absolutely separate,
independent and self-existent. Light and Darkness are eternal
principles living side by side, possessing equal reality. For,
although it is permissible to the individual to pass out of the
Darkness and enter into Light, the Darkness itself does not
disappear: it remains and maintains its domain, and even it is said
that some human beings are meant eternally for this domain. That is
the Manichean principle and that also is fundamentally the dualistic
conception of <I>chit-achit </I>in some Indian systems (although the
principle of <I>chit </I>or light is usually given a higher position
and priority of excellence).</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does
not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality:
it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the
great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain
always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now
the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this
Antagonist in God's scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this
struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a
world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that
case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of
God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that
the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the
end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always
Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there
eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be
certain eternally damned souls).</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Goethe carries the process of convergence and even
harmony of the two powers a little further and shows that although
they are contrary apparently, they are not contradictory</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 136</FONT><BR>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>principles
in essence. For, Satan is, after all, God's servant, even a very
obedient servant; he is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty to
work out His purpose. The purpose is to help and lead man, although
in a devious way, towards a greater understanding, a nearer approach
to Himself.</FONT></P>
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</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>THE
CHALLENGE AND THE PACT</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>There
is on the earthly stage the play of a challenge, a twofold challenge,
one between God and Satan and another, as a consequence, between Man
and Satan.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Satan is jealous of man who is God's favourite. He tells
God that his partiality to man is misplaced. God has put into man a
little of his light (reason and intelligence and something more
perhaps), but to what purpose? Man tries to soar, he thinks he flies
high and wide, but in fact he is and will be an insect that &quot;lies
always in the grass and sings its old song in the grass.&quot; God
answers that whatever the perplexity in which man now is, in the end
he will come out and reach the Light with a greater and richer
experience of it. Satan smiles in return and says he will prove
otherwise. Given a free hand, he can do whatever he likes with man:
&quot;Dust shall he eat and with a relish.&quot; God willingly agrees
to the challenge: there is no harm in Satan's trying his hand.
Indeed, Satan will prove to be a good companion to man; for man is
normally prone to inertia and sinks into repose and rest and
stagnation. Satan will be the goad, the force that drives towards
ceaseless activity. For activity is life, and without activity no
progress.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Thus, as sanctioned by God, there is a competition, a
wager between man and Satan. The pact between the parties is this
that, on the one hand, Satan will serve man <I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow">here
</FONT></I>in life upon earth, and on the other hand, in return, man
will have to serve Satan <I>there, </I>on the other side of life.
That is to say, Satan will give the whole world to man to enjoy, man
will have to give Satan only his soul. Man in his ignorance says he
does not care for his soul, does not know of a <I>there </I>or
elsewhere: he will be satisfied if he gets what he wants upon earth.
That, evidently, is the demand of what is familiarly known as
life-force <I>(<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">&eacute;</FONT>lan vital): </I>the
utmost fulfilment of the life-force is what man stands for, although
the full significance of the movement</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 137</FONT><BR>
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may not be clear to him or even to Satan at the moment. For life-force does not 
necessarily drag man down, as its grand finale as it were, into hell – however 
much Satan might wish it to be so. In what way, we shall see presently. Now 
Satan promises man all that he would desire and even more: he would give him his 
fill so&#39; that he will ask for no more. Man takes up the challenge and declares 
that his hunger is insatiable, whatever Satan can bring to it, it will take in 
and press on: satisfaction and satiety will never come in his way. Satan thinks 
he knows better, for he is armed with a master weapon to lay man low and make him cry halt!</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>LOVE
HUMAN AND LOVE DIVINE</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>Satan
proposes to lead man down into hell through a sure means, nothing
more sure, according to him, viz., love for a woman and a woman's
love in return. Nothing like that to make man earth-bound or
hell-bound and force out of him the nostalgic cry, &quot;Time must
have a stop.&quot; A most simple, primal and primeval ]yric love wil1
most suit Satan's purpose. Hence the Margaret episode.
Love=Passion=Lust=Hell; that is the inevitable equation sequence, and
through which runs the magic thread of infatuation. And that charm is
invincible. Satan did succeed and was within an ace, as they say, of
the final and definitive triumph: but that was not to be, for he left
out of account an incalculable element. Love, even human love has, at
least can have, a wonderful power, the potency of reversing the
natural decree and bring about a supernatural intervention. Human
love can at a crucial <I>moment – in extremis – call </I>down the
Divine Grace, which means God's love for man. And the soul meant for
perdition</FONT></P>
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about to be seized and carried away by Satan finds itself suddenly
free and lifted up and borne by Heaven's messengers. Human Jove is
divine love itself in earthly form and figure and whatever its
apparent aberrations it is in soul and substance that thing. Satan is
hoisted with his own petard. That is God's irony.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>But Goethe's Satan seems to know or feel something of
his fate. He knows his function and the limit too of his function. He
speaks of the doomsday for people, but it is his doomsday also, he
says in mystic terms. Yes, it is his doomsday, for it is</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 138</FONT><BR>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>the
day of man's 1iberation. Satan has to release man from the pact that
stands cancelled. The soul of man cannot be sold, even if he wanted
it.</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>THE
COSMIC RHYTHM</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>The
angels weave the symphony that is creation. They represent the
various notes and rhythms – in their higher and purer degrees –
that make up the grand harmony of the spheres. It is magnificent,
this music that moves the cosmos, and wonderful the glory of God
manifest therein. But is it absolutely perfect? Is there nowhere any
flaw in it? There is a doubting voice that enters a dissenting note.
That is Satan, the Antagonist, the Evil One. Man is the weakest link
in the chain of the apparently all-perfect harmony. And Satan boldly
proposes to snap it if God only let him do so. He can prove to God
that the true nature of his creation is not cosmos but chaos not a
harmony in peace and light, but a confusion, a Walpurgis Night. God
acquiesces in the play of this apparent breach and proves in the end
that it is part of a wider scheme, a vaster harmony. Evil is rounded
off by Grace.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The total eradication of Evil from the world and human
nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and
pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a
conception which it was not for Goethe to envisage. In the order of
reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division,
of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and
evil with not-good. This is the outlook of</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>individualised
consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the
whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to
form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic
consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of
something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a
higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not
simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme
reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a
lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to
which Goethe aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to
enter into.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 139</FONT></P>
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