(1608,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>COSMONAUTICS</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>COSMONAUTICS\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">(I)\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nModern<b> </b>science, modern applied science, has brought about and is bringing about more and more a big change in the earth atmosphere. It is not merely the dust and smoke, gases and fumes thrown out by the modern machineries from the earth into the sky that have been increasing ominously in volume, but the less patent vibrations that have been released by advanced scientific projects and experiments and that have been encircling the earth more and more in a tight embrace. A quiet and clean air was such a treasure for human beings; men have always longed for it as a necessity and also as a diversion, and it was so readily available. The saints and sages went up to mountain-tops and into deep forests and far away into open meadows for a full-breath draught of that heavenly element.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBut now physically, materially, we know that the radio-waves and innumerable other cosmic waves have been constantly, ceaselessly hammering, churning the earth-atmosphere all around us. Human bodies are immersed in a real turmoil. They are bathed in a whirlwind constantly. The nerves and tissues are being shaken from within to their very roots throughout one\'s life, day and night. There is no peace, no tranquillity upon earth; physical and material repose has altogether disappeared. The high hill-tops or mountain-sides do not help any\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-11</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">more nor the ocean depths nor any Afriaan jungle nor even the Sahara desert.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe incidence of illness, of disequilibrium among human beings is a pronounced phenomenon in modern age. Stability, steadiness, measure, all the qualities that made for a balanced sober life in the past are on the decline, have almost disappeared. Ill-health, malaise, imbalance, physical and mental, are reigning supreme. And the million doctors upon earth are finding it difficult to heal their patients or even themselves.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIs that the reason why man has now become so eager to quit earthly atmosphere and soar up into starry spaces? In any case, the human body is now, at least by way of experiment, being shifted to other atmospheres, other modes of living. The important, the most significant thing however is not so much the discovery of new regions of the universe but new dimensions of the human body itself. No doubt this is just the beginning, but there are indications, pointers towards unthinkable possibilities in the future. Men are now training themselves to be inhabitants not of earth only but of distant places. It is a demonstration of developments on unusual lines for the body. At present to dwell or even to stay in unearthly regions, the earthly body has to be protected, buttressed, propped up, with much care and skill by a mechanical outfit — a crude scaffolding after all. In the future, other simpler and natural ways will surely be found.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAs we know, Nature has pushed up its secret consciousness to the human level and is still pushing it up, upward to levels of the higher man, towards the Superman. She\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-12</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">has moulded the body for the jelly-fish and moved up through all the intermediaries to the human body. Man\'s body like his consciousness has to be remoulded in such a way as to be able to enclose and express the superman-consciousness. The rigid natural laws that bind down the body—the so-called natural laws of temperature and pressure, of respiration and circulation, of assimilation and rejection—have to be turned, obviated, neutralised so that man may be actually, physically a citizen of the world.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNow the discipline that the physical body is made to undergo at present in order to accustom itself to high flying may one day point to the way for a new adaptation and disposition for the body. As it is, the disruption that has been made in the earth atmosphere because of Science\'s new adventure is also a way to acclimatising the human body to new conditions. The new conditions are becoming even more and more new and the body is being forced to follow suit. At the beginning the result is a rupture but that is the way towards a new disposition, a new dispensation.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">(2)\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nShowers, torrential streams of tiny infinitesimal particles—waves of invisible light, charges of electricity, all kinds of ultimate units of matter, are pouring down upon earth shrouding it, overwhelming it, drowning it, stifling\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-13</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">it as it were. It is not merely a discovery of what has already been there, a static reality since time immemorial, but that they have been corning, arriving, adding ceaselessly to the volume already there and continuing to do so more and more as time advances. For it is said that these particles, cosmic rays, radio-waves, have been on their journey for such a long time from the very beginning of time that they are arriving only now into the earth atmosphere. And always there are others that are arriving, are continuing to arrive at every instant from farther and farther distances. The density and volume and the force of impact of this additional quantity of matter are ever on the increase and one does not know when and what will be the end. Not only so, not only the old existing particles but new particles, none can gainsay the probability, are also being created continuously, in the process. And suppose even some are destroyed, the loss is more than compensated by the creation of new ones, may be, of a different variety, with prospects of a new and novel development.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThus the burden upon earth has been increasing— and the nature also of the burden is changing. The change is not perhaps very obvious today but the body has already been feeling it and expressing its reactions in the instabihty of the balance so long enjoyed by man. That is to say, the modern man physically lives or soon will have to live under a new set of circumstances and his physical body has to undergo a change commensurate with its habitat or it will have to disappear.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-14</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe cosmonauts are teaching us at least the possibility of a new, almost a revolutionary acclimatisation of the body, the capability of the human organs to follow a different rhythm of life in place of the old normal way. We know from the past history of the evolutionary stages of life that the advent of a new species is signalled by a change in the conditions of living, and the change in the habitat involves a change in the form, the organs and functions of the body: that is what is meant by the appearance of a new type of creature adapted to the new conditions. Even so today cosmic travels are forcing the human body to adapt itself to new conditions and it is a very conscious discipline. The change in the body of living beings in the previous stages is due to an unconscious pressure brought, to bear upon it by an unconscious Nature. But now the situation is different: man is attempting consciously to surpass himself, he has begun to do it in the physical field with remarkable results and a great promise. True, there is another factor, indeed the major factor behind, within the inner consciousness of man and within the inner regions of the world. As I have said, it is a revolutionary change there that is forcing itself upon the outside and the surface of existence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThus there is a two-fold process for the new man to establish himself here. First, of course, there is the psychological or inner change and reorganisation: man\'s attempt to reach a new status of being and consciousness not in the category of the mere mental but a supramental status. Its nature and character and formation is being probed into by the new spiritual seekers and aspirants.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-15</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">That work is being done from within outward, and from above downward. This however is supplemented, supported, effectuated or materialised by the other attempt from below going upward and from outside going inward. That is the way of science, of the pragmatic man. The one we may say somewhat philosophically, is the Purusha, the conscious being corning down; the other, Prakriti, pushing up, Nature driving upward or inward.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt is true the process of acclimatisation that Nature follows is a slow one and gradual though somewhat crude, in spite of scientific refinements and subtieties; yet it is a help and has an accumulated effect. We may just record the progress achieved in the mere outward mechanisation from Lindberg\'s transatlantic crossing to Borman-company\'s journey to the moon.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nJust at present the appearances are slender but the cumulative effect of these slender forerunners in the long run, or, who knows may be in the short run, is sure to be tremendously obvious. It is expected that the human body itself will acquire new dispositions forced by outer circumstances, the newly developing environment and impelled by the inner stress of the descending consciousness with its formative power. The power and action of the descending consciousness is outside our ken, is it easily overlooked—unknown and invisible to the normal mind. But in fact it is a great deal due to this element and thanks to it, that man\'s phenomenal discoveries of today and miraculous successes have been and are being achieved in the physical field\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-16</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">in such a quick and revolutionary manner. The Mother has plainly declared that the new world is already there built and ready and is pressing down upon the material cover and sooner rather than later will force it open and manifest itself.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-17</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-003_Cosmonautics','','publish','closed','open','','003_cosmonautics','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_cosmonautics/',0,'post','',0),(1609,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE MOUNTING FIRE</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE MOUNTING FIRE\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe<b> </b>seat of human consciousness, in fact of all consciousness, is the brain—the grey substance filling up the cranium. The brain constitutes man in his essential and characteristic substance and functioning.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nI am speaking specially of the physical and material basis of mind and consciousness, for unless this basis is changed there can be no change in the structure of the being, and in the movement of outward life; even the consciousness would not change radically or permanently: a stable transformation can come only when the material stuff has undergone a reversal.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe human brain consists, as physiologists tell us, of three parts: (1) the frontal lobe, (2) the hub behind and (3) further down, a hidden part—they are as we know, the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the Bridge and the Medula. Such is man\'s head, the cranium, the lodgings where human mind dwells and from where it moves and controls all man\'s dynamic behaviour.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe frontal lobe is the seat of intellect and intelligence: the topmost portion, the crown of the head is usually associated with the still higher functions of mind, tending towards intuition, direct knowledge, luminous vision, etc. The front proper, the forehead that is to say, is the seat of intellect proper, the discursive deductive rational mind. The section of the brain in the hind portion of the cranium is usually associated not with reason or understanding but with vital urges, impulsions, sentiments, passions, desires,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-26</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">etc. : the nervous knots there are the controlling agent of these lower functions of the mind; that is the control room, as it were, for all dynamism, for man\'s character and nature. And the part hidden or embedded below houses the infra-impulses: the demands and needs that are inherent mostly in the bodily functions, all the movements that are called forth in the wake of physical existence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe question, the problem now is, how to change, purify these ranges of the mind or brain: to suffuse the cranium with a new functioning and organisation replacing the old order of the ordinary, more or less animal man.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe usual course followed is to call in the higher reality: the light and its power of organisation, that lie above, above the brain outside the cranium, to invoke the light, the transcendent light and power to descend and penetrate the brain-consciousness and work out there a process of purification and new organisation. This has been done with considerable success. This is the Vedantic way.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBut, there is a but, that is to say, a limitation in this line. The higher consciousness is brought down, it descends, but normally it does not penetrate far enough; it penetrates only very partially, slowly, intermittently and in a gradually diminishing strength. The top region receives the light comparatively easily; the middle receives or is touched and influenced with great difficulty and after long travail, but the bottom portion is rarely connected or contacted, only nominally perhaps. In other words, if the higher mind, the intellect and intelligence is somewhat illumined with a new light from above and even if the higher vital comes under its influence in a general way, the lower\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-27</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">vital comes hardly in its grasp. And the lowest region, the region of physical or nervous movements for all practical purposes lies outside the influence of the Higher or Transcendent Consciousness; that remains almost undisturbed, unregenerated. To bring down the Higher Light there, behind and below the brain stuff is a task very few have done or even attempted to do.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe Tantriks devised a different way, an about-turn way. Instead of trying to bring down the superior or the supreme consciousness into these lower darknesses, they sought to attack these from below, set a blazing fire below that would shoot up its tongues into those nether regions of the brain or mind. Instead of a force of light from above coming down, a force of fire is rocketed upward and made to strike as it were at the back of the lower masses of the mind. Now where to find this fire, this mounting tongue of a living flame? That is what the Tantras have imaged in the concept of the Kundalini Shakti. There is a force, a mighty energy coiled and concentrated at the base of the spine holding it and supporting at its top, first, the subliminal region of the brain at the bottom, and over it the other two. There is a secret fire at the base of the human system. It is a fire as invoked by the Vedic Rishis: the tantriks view it as a coiled python—the universal nature-power, her massive ingathered creative energy. This energy is forceful and fierce because it is as much creative as it is destructive. That is the poison which the python carries, it is a poison in the ignorant state and unconsciousness, to the ignorant and the unconscious, but to the aspirant and the awakened and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-28</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">the luminous consciousness it begins to work as the immortalising drought—nectar.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe energy at the root of the spine is stored, as it is said, in the muladhara, the root, that is to say, in the root of the very material constitution of the human being. It is the concentrated energy in matter, indeed it is the energy of the mother earth. The Vedic Rishis speak of fire as being a deity of earth, as the Sun or the God of Light is the deity of the heaven. The earth-energy has to be awakened or kindled and it has to move upward and forward, piercing and burning and illumining all the inferior and denser regions of consciousness till it pierces through and enters into the head, and then goes beyond, into the supreme solar light. That is the image given in the Tantras calling it &#7779;<i>a</i>&#7789;<i>-chakrabheda.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe inferior parts of the brain are denser and darker than the superior. The lower it is, the denser and darker it becomes. I do not know if physically it is so, but the sensitivity, the vibrations there seem to point to such a direction. So it appears, it is not easy for the Light from above to penetrate, to penetrate to a great depth, to the bottom of the brain. It is not the Light from above but the fire from below, the flaming force of material consciousness that has to do the main or final work. For the light from above is mostly mental or mentalised, the very supreme Light does not descend easily, is not readily available: indeed it is ready and available only at the call of the fire below. Agni is therefore named \'hota\', one who calls the Divine down here below. It is the God here below that can call down the God above.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-29</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBut how to awaken this God buried in matter, how is one to kindle this fire that apparently lies extinguished, the Vedic Rishis have a whole ritual of the process. They speak, first of all, of preparing the seat for Agni—<i>barhi: </i>it is the material casing of the body, and then one takes two pieces of the <i>ara</i>&#7751;<i>i </i>species of wood or fuel, and rubs them one against the other till the fire leaps out. It refers to an aspiration, a concrete and concentrated aspiration that is breathed into the living cells, this breathing, &#257;<i>dhm</i>&#257;<i>tam, </i>is the concretising or embodying of the aspiration: it is the invocation that calls forth sleeping divinity.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe fire in fact is the aspiration in the body, the divine demand in the body and it kindles itself by its own self-pressure. The spreading of the <i>barhi </i>in the Vedic image means also the surrender and submission, the prostration of the bodily being. By <i>namas, </i>by constant obeisance the fire is to be tended; and a ceaseless refuelling has to be done by a ceaseless self-offering of all movements, especially all the automatic reactions of the physical that form the roots of the material existence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe whole physical being if it is to embody a new life in a new organisation must concentrate at one point within itself and find or found there the Fire, the dynamic Divine Will in its most concrete reality — the body\'s self and soul: the <i>yajam</i>&#257;<i>na, </i>the human figure of the Divine here invoking, calling forth the godhead who leads the sacrificial journey through all the worlds and domains to the Supreme Heights.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWe have said that fire is a denser and intenser force than light: while the light is likely to stop short or to\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-30</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">dispense, the fire is apt to act fiercely and decisively with the denser or more refractory objects of existence, strands that are moved, as I have said, from the central control of the brain. Earth enshrines volcanoes; likewise the cells in the material body may be turned into little volcanoes if the Divine Flame is roused there in the intensive process of aspiration.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nEarthly beings as we are, Agni, the earthly Godhead is the Deity we adore, he is the Lord of the Home, <i>g</i>&#7771;<i>hapati. </i>He is the foremost of the gods and he goes in front of us <i>(purohita), </i>Agni\'s flame rises towards Surya, the supreme Light, but first he must prepare the passage, burn down and clear the woodlands and marshes that intervene — the growths and formations in the past of the very substance of the being.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThus, the head, the brain, must be built wholly of fire particles. The cranium will hold, as it were, a golden ball, rounded and fully formed, the golden egg, <i>hira</i>&#7751;<i>yagarbha, </i>out of which the new physical creation will emerge — something in the manner of the legendary Greek goddess Minerva, whole and entire, complete in arms and panoply out of the head of Father Jupiter.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-31</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-006_The Mounting Fire','','publish','closed','open','','006_the-mounting-fire','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/006_the-mounting-fire/',0,'post','',0),(1610,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE TEST OF TRUTH</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE TEST OF TRUTH\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe test of Truth is its impossibility. I believe because it is impossible; <i>Credo quia impossibile. </i>That is Saint Augustine.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThere is a grain, why a grain, quite a lump of truth in this well-known saying of a great seeker of Truth. &quot;Truth shall prevail? Is this true? Can it be true? It is impossible.&quot; Therefore it must be true. &quot;God exists: is it an impossibility?&quot; Therefore God does exist. &quot;Shall we ever come out of the present darkness? Impossible!&quot; We shall, therefore, come out, surely.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe possible, to our senses, is what is happening now: the present fact is the truth and what is in absolute agreement with the present is the possible or the probable truth. Anything going against or not consonant with the actual is a doubtful or even a negative quantity, but in fact at every moment everywhere there are upsettings of the apparently sure present: unnatural things do happen more often than not. But we do not pay or do not want to pay as much attention to these.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWho believed that India would be free and Britain go out lock, stock and barrel? Who believed that the Czardom would disappear for ever? And the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, where are they now? And the great Hitler? Even a few years ago who would have believed that man would walk on the moon? And  can you believe now that matter can\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-44</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">exist and does exist as anti-matter? Not in vain has the mad, bad and sad poet sung: <i>Mais o</i>ù<i> sont done les neiges d\'antan?<sup>1</sup></i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe physical mind has to be taught, it must learn its lesson, that at every step something new, something unforeseen unpredicted and unpredictable is waiting in front to confound it. And it must gain the perception, the discrimination to recognise it, never to say, &quot;Oh, it is natural, inevitable what is happening, there is nothing to wonder and dismiss the novelty of the thing as an illusion.&quot;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe spiritual realities are at your door: they are neither non-existent nor too distant. Freedom, Peace, Calm, Happiness, Delight, Joy, Health are all there as self-existent realities. You have only to turn—or tilt as the Mother says—your consciousness a little and you are in the very midst of the thing. Doubt, hesitation, merely casts a veil and blurs or blocks the view. God, Soul, Immortality, even these are equally available to the human consciousness in the same way. These are existences of daily use, so to say, of &quot;common neighbourhood,&quot; in the words of the poet—home truth.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nA faith, necessarily a blind faith in these impossibles is its own authenticity, for it brings you immediately in direct contact with those apparently unseen intangible realities. It gives you automatically a sense of certainty, a radiant clarity in the consciousness, that no other approach to Truth or Reality can give you. You feel, you know it is the truth, there is no shadow of any questioning anywhere,\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<sup>1</sup> French poet Villon: Where, O where the snows of yesteryear? </font>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-45</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">it is self-luminous. &quot;Is it not self-hypnotism?&quot; a scoffer might allege. Self-hypnotism is a name: it is the power of consciousness to concentrate itself to such a degree that it can be changed into anything even into its opposite. Self-absorbed consciousness in one form at one extreme is the inconscient, at the other extreme it is the supra-conscient, Brahman. Consciousness is the power of being and it can give any form or name to the being—<i>yo yat</i>&#347;<i>raddha sa eva sa</i>&#7717;<i>. </i>One becomes whatever one\'s consciousness wants to become.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe ultimate verities are there indeed existing in themselves and the mind\'s attempt to question them, discuss them, judge them, doubt them, deny them is ludicrous. Even the mind\'s attempt to affirm them, assert them or seize them is equally vain and ludicrous. The Upanishadic seer declares clearly and unequivocally: <i>tato v</i>&#257;<i>cha nivartante apr</i>&#257;<i>pya manas</i>&#257;<i> saha</i>—the word with all its effort cannot seize it, the mind cannot reach there, it turns back hopelessly. Therefore the seeker of the Truth is always advised from the very beginning and throughout to keep his mind quiet, vacate it, install there the simple faith, to wait and let the thing come of itself. These realities are not acquisitions or possessions or even achievements, they are living entities, personalities. At the right time they come to you, they enter into you and possess you. You do not reach out and possess them. Even so, it was said of Nachiketas that faith entered into him, and therefore he could meet Death and become his friend and confidant. The Upanishad finally says: it is when the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-46</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Truth discloses its own body to the seeker, then only can the seeker see the Truth in its truth.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nMind\'s conceptions of the ultimate realities are very far from the actual truth. The mind has a conception of freedom or delight or even of consciousness; it has a conception of God and immortality, of infinity and eternity. But they are all its own creations more or less. The highest summits of the mind may get a glimpse or a reflection of those supernals but even as such they come only as an echo, an image, a faint replica of the actual thing. Freedom as it is in the Divine or with the Divine, Delight or Consciousness as they are of the Divine have an altogether different quality, a different mode of vibration from that which is available to mind on its lower levels. What the mind receives is a re-formation, more often a deformation of the original as you go farther down the scale. Only if the mind itself is changed in its substance, regains a translucent passivity then only can it see and see something of the secret glory of the higher realities.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-47</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-010_The Test of Truth','','publish','closed','open','','010_the-test-of-truth','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/010_the-test-of-truth/',0,'post','',0),(1611,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE OPENING SCENE OF</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE OPENING SCENE OF &quot;SAVITRI&quot;\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-1</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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 &#346;<i>ilnya, </i><span class=font2>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 and 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.</span></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-2</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">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\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\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=\"footer\">Page-3</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-001_The Opening Scene of Savitri','','publish','closed','open','','001_the-opening-scene-of-savitri','','','2021-11-23 17:21:50','2021-11-23 17:21:50','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/001_the-opening-scene-of-savitri/',0,'post','',0),(1612,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE IDEAL CENTRE</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE IDEAL CENTRE </b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nOnce<b> </b>when the Mother was asked by a group of disciples to give permission and blessings for opening a centre, She said in answer: &quot;To open a centre is not sufficient in itself. It must be the pure hearth of perfect sincerity, in a total consecration to the Divine.&quot; This is the first motto or <i>mantra </i>that should be inscribed on the tablet of the inner constitution of every group organisation. It states the basic spirit, the true inspiration that should initiate the work and guide it through. The second <i>mantra </i>is embodied in these words of Sri Aurobindo: &quot;Love the Mother: Always behave as if She was looking at you, for indeed She is always present.&quot; These are words that should be kept always bright and blazing in the heart of each and every one. It gives the source and origin of the inspiration, the single fount of all movements collective and individual. And a third <i>mantra </i>not less living or less urgent has been given by the Mother: &quot;Let us work as we pray, for indeed work is the body\'s best prayer to the Divine.&quot; Here we learn of the way, the process that is to be followed, the skill as it were, for realising the goal.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAnd for a final comprehension and direction we are to remember these words of Sri Aurobindo: &quot;All problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.&quot;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIn life, which is necessarily corporate life (a centre essentially means a training and a realisation in corporate life) the first and last necessity is harmony, that is to say, understanding and union among the members of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-48</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">corporate life. That is a self-evident truth understood and accepted by one and all. But the crux of the matter is how to achieve the harmony. It can be achieved only on a higher level of being and consciousness, on the lower ordinary level there can be only a compromise, an unstable balance, an uncertain counter-poising of diverse and divergent elements. Also, it must be noted, that the higher and deeper the consciousness, the wider and the more comprehensive, the more the harmony becomes natural, spontaneous, faultless, perfect: and on the highest level the harmony becomes not merely union but indivisible unity.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThat is the goal towards which a dedicated centre, that is to say, a spiritually aspiring group should move and labour. And that also is the primary work, the first and foremost for which the centre stands as the field. And this work can be done and has to be achieved through the discipline enunciated in just the previous, our third <i>mantra</i>—the fundamental attitude with which the work has to be done. It is said there that the work, consecrated work or service is the prayer of the body. Mind\'s prayer is expressed in words, body\'s prayer in works. Work is the prayer in its dynamic and concrete form, it is the utterance of the physical, the language it knows in order to ask for and seek the union with the Divine. It is the holy ritual expressing and embodying in the physical, material life, one\'s adoration, one\'s adhesion to the ideal, to the deity one worships.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWork or service expressing harmonisation needs to be based, as I have said, upon a higher and higher\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-49</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">consciousness. Work done as prayer is the best means of effecting an ascent in consciousness. This is the lesson that each individual of a centre must learn from the very outset and ever afterwards. He must always try to rise in consciousness, reach an ever higher status of being and from there let the work flow, as it were, from a spontaneous spring. As one rises in consciousness and being, naturally and inevitably this consciousness widens and one feels naturally and spontaneously kinship and union with all others. Work or service is then only a dynamic means of achieving and realising the sense of perfect unity of oneself with all other selves</p>\n<p class=\"para\">.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWork is not meant to show or express one\'s capacity or skilfulness or cleverness, nor is it a mere mechanical execution of outward acts performing certain duties however conscientiously or meticulously. It is indeed a ritual of prayer and self-dedication, adhesion and surrender of the most dynamic and material parts of our being—the most unresponsive and insensible elements—to the One Divine Will.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAnd this brings us to the major, the cardinal <i>mantra </i>of a centre, the <i>mantra </i>which Sri Aurobindo gives about the constant and living presence of the Mother. The very core of a centre is this Presence. A centre grows and can grow perfectly only around the Mother\'s Presence and Consciousness. As the ideal for the individual is to be conscious of its central inner being and relate all its parts and all its movements to that, central reality, organise itself in perfect harmony around this core of its being, even so a group-centre has to organise itself in perfect harmony\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-50</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">around the central reality of the Mother: only so can it grow and grow harmoniously. Indeed a group, that is to say, a centre, like the individual can successfully grow into a living and harmonious dynamic Truth only when it has in its consciousness at every moment and in every movement of its life the never-failing Presence of the Divine Mother, for thus only a centre can become a divine embodiment and incarnation of the Supreme Mother for the expression and realisation of her truth upon this earth.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-51</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-011_The Ideal Centre','','publish','closed','open','','011_the-ideal-centre','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/011_the-ideal-centre/',0,'post','',0),(1613,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE LABOURS OF THE GODS</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE LABOURS OF THE GODS (THE FIVE PURIFICATIONS)\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNowadays<b> </b>we hear much of brain wash. The other day, instead of brain-washing, I spoke of brain-ignition. That is to say, for a total reconstitution of the brain, for a new building of the physique of the new man, one has to transform the cells of grey matter into particles of fire, packets of burning energy. I said, the cranium being the control-room of physical existence and the brain being the controlling agent — the brain extending its range down the spinal column to its end at the last vertebra — this is the element that has to be treated and reorganised first and foremost if a physical reorganisation of human nature and behaviour is to be achieved. I explained — tried to explain — that this being the physical or material field, the first of the elements — <i>k</i>&#7779;<i>iti </i>or earth or matter — the God presiding over it, Fire, has to be invoked and its especial working carried out here.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe brain thus is the controller-general of the whole physical system of the human body. In particular, however, it is the controller and regulator of the physical mind and the senses (the six <i>indriyas </i>of Indian psychology). This is the province of the basic earth principle, this range of material matter over which the Fire is the presiding deity. There are, however, other provinces and units, co-lateral to the brain system and having special functions of their own. First of all, at the bottom of the scale, or rather the first step upward in the scale, — that\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-32</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">is, after the vertebral pedestal — is the abdominal system which consists, as we know, of the three main operations: (i) digestion, (ii) evacuation, and (iii) generation, comprising, in other words, the stomach, the intestines, the liver and the spleen, the kidneys, the bladder, and finally, the sex glands. The glands indeed, here in this domain, are the operative agent: and they have a special way of operation, namely, washing. If fire controls the most material, the earth-principle, it is water, <i>apas, </i>that is the god in this region of the vital functions. The Vedas speak of the purifying streams of the Sindhus and the Srotas; they speak of the underground stream of <i>rasa </i>which Sarama, the Hound of Heaven, crossed to come over to our earth. Water, in fact, does the work appropriate to this region. It is the vital region in man and consists of functions attached to the vital activities. The vital in its ordinary and normal functions means desires and attachments, hunger and thirst, ties and bondages, urges and demands—these have to be cleared and washed out if there is to be healthy strength in the system, washed by spraying the pure vital fluid. Physiologically the enzymes and endocrine secretions are the physical formations or outer formulations of the hidden vital fluid. This indeed is the function of the deity, Soma, Pawamana Soma, the flowing stream of Delight, who in effect is the true presiding godhead here. For it is this section of the body that is the stage for our whole world of enjoyment—for the play of all our physical delights as well as of all our ailments and diseases. Purified, it is the giver of health and happiness\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-33</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">leading ultimately to that Supreme Delight which is immortality, Life transfigured.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAbove and next to this region of the viscera, on the other side of the diaphragm, is the region of the thorax, the chest cavity. It contains the most important of all human organs, the heart and the lungs, which means the respiratory and the circulatory systems, extending into the solar plexus; and the power that controls it is that of the third element Tejas, the pulsating, radiant energy. It is the energising heat, the warmth of will and aspiration, concentration in the heart; it is also Tapas. It is indeed a form of fire, fire in its essential substance, a quiet white flame against the robust red and crimson and purple fires of earth. It is the mounting urge of consciousness in its rhythmic poise of harmonious strength. And that is the god Aryama of the Vedas, the godhead presiding over the upward surge of evolution. From here comes not merely the drive to go forward, the secret dynamo that moves the being to its goal but also the vision that shows the way and the conditions under which the end is achieved or fulfilled. From here too comes rhythm and the balance and the happy harmony of all movements in life. The calm heave of the lungs and the glad beat of the heart are the sign and symbol of a radiant animation.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWe now come to the fourth domain, the domain of Marut; in the physical body it is the mouth, the throat, the tongue, the facial front in general. It is the field of expression, of articulation—Vak, the word is the symbol. Here is the alert, the mobile field, also a stage for the play, the outward display of all the significances that life\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-34</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">movements carry in them, physical or psychological. Speech or utterance is the epitomised or concretised expression of the sense of life movement.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThis region of the Marut can be linked to that where the Vedic Maruts rule and govern. The Maruts are called thought-gods—thought-gods riding on the movements of life. They represent the aerial spirits or energies that lift the human spirit from its purely vital and material coils into the rarer regions of pure thinking and light and consciousness, who spread and move further upward in the still farther and rarer regions of consciousness and energy.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBeyond is the fifth element, Vyom, the sphere overhead, the Vast and the Infinite. That of course is the original source and status of the human being, where he gathers up all the elements in one indivisible perfect consciousness. That is the root of the Divine Tree of Existence which, as the Vedas say, dwells up there, spreading downward all its branches, namely the other elements of the being.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nSuch then are the five operations of the divine alchemy with regard to the purification of the human vessel, somewhat in the manner of the ancients while treating the base metal; they are (1) burning, (2) washing, (3) brightening up or warming up or enlivening, (4) articulating i.e. giving an expression or a form of beauty and truth, and (5) setting the whole within or in reference to the frame of the Infinite and the Impersonal.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWe have said that each element has its special function in relation to the human &#257;<i>dh</i>&#257;<i>r</i>&#257;<i>, </i>the fire burns in the earthly or material sheath, the water flushes and cleans the vitals, the radiant energy activises and regulates the cardiac\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-35</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">domain—which in fact is the central knot of life—the air or wind, the breath of consciousness inspires the right expression in thought and speech and act, and finally, the vast limitless beyond is the ultimate reality embracing the rest of the being in its truth and love and delight. In reality, however, the elements in their essence are not exclusive of each other. Indeed they with their respective fields and functions are interchangeable, each one can do the work of any other or of all together. They function severally and collectively, and they intermingle and reciprocate in their functioning even like and following the example of the Vedic gods. Fire can ignite the brain or the vitals or the cardiac and the throat region or even the crown. The water as well can flush likewise the brain, the vitals, the thorax and the throat. The radiant energy of the heart, in its turn, can luminously animate and regulate the same fields and functions. The air or the Marut can sweep through and purify and dynamise each and every one of the rest, give an inspired expression through man\'s face,—the frontal field and instrument. And it goes without saying that the Infinite, the Vast lies behind and at the heart of all, without it nothing can exist or move. That is the supreme agent for creation and new creation—the Grace Divine.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAll the different elements are but varied formulations of one and the same divine Creative Energy. Therefore the Vedic Rishi declares: It is all one single reality, the sages give it different names.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-36</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-007_The Labour of the Gods','','publish','closed','open','','007_the-labour-of-the-gods','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/007_the-labour-of-the-gods/',0,'post','',0),(1614,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE TRIPLE CORD*</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE TRIPLE CORD*\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nSunahshepa, the human creature, says the Vedic Rishi, is bound to the stake with three cords: one on the top, the second in the middle and the third below. Sunahshepa cries out to God Varuna to be freed from the triple bondage. The God is pleased and cuts the topmost cord and throws it upward, he cuts the middle cord and throws it on either side, he cuts the downmost cord and throws it downward. Thus Sunahshepa is freed through the Grace of King Varuna.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe three cords are the three limitations of being and consciousness in the normal human creature. There is a wall or barrier up in the mind which shuts out the higher levels of consciousness that are beyond the mind—the worlds of vision and revelation, of the Truth and the Vast. The middle knot shuts out the world around and abroad and limits the being to the ego, prevents the individual person from communicating with the Universal Being and Consciousness. It is the well-known knot of the heart— <i>h</i>&#7771;<i>dayagranthi—</i>-the crux and kernel of the egoistic consciousness. It centres the whole being on itself, limits it to itself, does not let it go out of itself to belong to the world-being. It is also the pull that prevents the being from diving down into its true personality, the psychic, and finding its union with the inner Divine. This ego-centred</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n* A greater force than the earthly held his limbs... \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unwound the triple cord of mind and freed—\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&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; <i>Savitri 1, 5</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-18</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">knot has to be cut through and the thread to be scattered into the infinity of the deepest and of the widest being. The last barrier at the base of the human consciousness is the hard crust of the physical and the material being. It is closed to the regions behind, the occult sources of all external movements. This too has to be pulled down and thrown into the gulfs of nonexistence—primal Prakriti, out of which they are born— so that the subliminal ranges of consciousness emerge and manifest themselves.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nGod Varuna is invoked because he is the Lord of the Vast Consciousness, he it is that opens out the passage and leads the human being into worlds of the Vast, the Truth,—Ritam, Brihat—from mortality to immortality.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIn other words, as we know, the mind, the life and the body form the triple cord of the human being and hedge it within the frame of its normal, narrow, uncertain, fumbling existence; and each of these three constituent parts of human nature has to be delivered from its own particular limitations and released into the broader reality.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThese threefold limitations are repeated in each of the statuses of being or consciousness. Thus the mind has a mental being, a vital being and a physical being. So the mind has mental limitations and vital limitations and also physical limitations. The mind\'s mental limitations are its notions and concepts, constructed ideas and fabricated comprehensions. The mind bound by its reasoning faculties, its deductive system, its syllogistic scheme, all that scaffolding has to go if the new light is to penetrate and illumine it with the new consciousness. The mind has\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-19</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">also a vital element, when it moves according to its inspiration, as it is called sometimes, but it is only an ignorant inspiration, it is only another name for &quot;mood,&quot; for fancy. True inspiration is not a blind mental rush but something clear and steady and yet forceful and self-poised. Again, the mind has its physical element too: the physical mind is the mind controlled by the senses, the impressions of the senses; its structure is patterned according to the impact of the physical and material objects. A clear, free physical mind embodies the pattern of the movements of the higher consciousness, not of the sense-dominated consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nEven like the mind, the vital too has its threefold knots according to the three elements that constitute it. First, there is a mind in the vital, it is called mental-vital, there is a vital in the vital, it is the vital proper, and there is a physical vital. The mental-vital means the field of sentiment and feeling and emotion, the vital proper is the field of passion, the intensity and even ferocity of its urge, and finally, the physical vital, which is the field of outward impulsion and drive, the push towards physical act and execution. Last, the physical too has the same threefold knots, first in the mental physical, second in the vital physical and thirdly in the physical physical, that is, the physical proper. The mind in the physical is the purely brain operation, the primitive original percepts that brain-cells emanate. The vital in the physical means the record of the nerves, more or less that are sensations. Lastly, the physical physical means the most mechanical, the inertial reactions of matter.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-20</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAll these triplicities have a familiar norm in the ordinary nature. And human consciousness is made up of them, in various formations and modulations.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThese gradations are the various statuses of consciousness which the human being assumes in its relation with the world-reality. In other words, they are the instruments through which human consciousness comes in contact with the universe. They are as it were windows upon the world through which contact is made and relation established with the objects of experience. But usually in the normal consciousness these windows are made a casement with bars and nets or even blinds over it which narrow and blur and even block the view. They are made into cords, as the Upanishad says, that blind and bind and stifle the consciousness. The cords have to be cut away, thrown out. As windows they have to be thrown wide open, open not merely outward towards the external object or reality but also inwardly to the realities, the worlds that lie within and above and beyond.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-21</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-004_The Triple Cord','','publish','closed','open','','004_the-triple-cord','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_the-triple-cord/',0,'post','',0),(1615,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>TOWARDS THE IMMORTAL BODY</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>TOWARDS THE IMMORTAL BODY\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nTo be immortal one must live in that which is immortal. One may be immortal outside and beyond the world and one may be immortal in the world upon the earth. The first is the immortality of Transcendence, of the Self, of Sachchidananda. The other is that of Immanence, of the Soul, the delegated Emanation in Matter upon earth. To be immortal here upon earth one must find that which is immortal here below. To be immortal in the body one must find that which is immortal in the body, and the body must become it integrally and absolutely.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt is the soul that is immortal upon earth and in the mortal being. For the life to be immortal here this soul has to be found not only in its own domain, in its own home, the central psychic behind and within the heart; but it must be found also in each and every part of the being—the soul in the mind, the soul in the vital, the soul in the body—the immortal in the mortalities, as the rishis used to say.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThis then is the first necessity, one should awake in the central psychic being and then awaken the same psychic being in all the parts of the being that are now apparently soulless. With that consciousness in front one must face the question set by death and dissolution. Now, to start on the way one must get rid of all fear of death—one must not be afraid of it in the least or shrink from it even a jot or tittle. The attitude of perfect indifference must be there not only in the mind but also in the vital and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-41</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">in the body itself. All has to be in a block, solidly calm and still—<i>ud</i>&#257;<i>s</i>&#299;<i>na</i>—seated above the contingencies.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe consciousness, the consciousness of every element must be of absolute passivity and integral neutrality: one must in every limb leave it to the Divine to make the decision whether to continue or not to continue, must be equally happy in either case. No thought or movement of such a kind should be there that because immortality is the ideal to be achieved, therefore one must or can seek for it, try for it, that it is not wrong to make an effort towards it: instead one must learn to be absolutely indifferent, the supreme indifference taught by the Gita. And it must be a true indifference, with no arriere-pensee, no notion in the background that as I am indifferent, as I do not care for gain and loss, therefore I shall automatically attain the desired immortality. In fact, this \'I\' does not attain immortality. This \'I\' in whatever form is the very negation of immortality, it is mortality. As we have said, it is the immortal in the mortal that becomes the immortal, that is to say, manifests and embodies its immortality.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nEven this is just the beginning, the very first step, the indispensable primary condition. Every part and element of the whole being, down to the material cells of the body itself must be filled with the soul\'s consciousness, a field suffused with the consciousness of the soul. Next there will come the question of changing the very substance of the constituents. That is the final and crucial discipline. For a pervading soul-consciousness may, by its pressure and influence, bring about the prolongation of life,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-42</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">even indefinitely, but immortality is assured only when the very substance of the material body is changed into its immortal essence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNaturally however, the Supreme Grace is always there and if it chooses it can suspend or even cancel all laws and do things as it chooses, but that is a different matter.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-43</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-009_Towards the Immortal Body','','publish','closed','open','','009_towards-the-immortal-body','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/009_towards-the-immortal-body/',0,'post','',0),(1616,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\">\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE LADDER OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE LADDER OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nConsciousness, the normal consciousness we know, has various degrees of potency: its familiar form is the rational consciousness or intellect; then at a higher level, there is the intuitive consciousness and at a still higher level the visionary consciousness, that is, the consciousness that sees the Truth, and at the highest, the objectless consciousness, consciousness in itself or the sachchidananda consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nLikewise unconsciousness too has its own various degrees. As consciousness rises up to higher and higher grades of consciousness, so unconsciousness too descends into lower and lower grades of unconsciousness. The first degree of unconsciousness is simple forgetfulness. It is the absence of consciousness, not the loss of consciousness. The consciousness is there but it is not apparent or expressed, it is held back for the time. One can recall it; it can be remembered and brought forward. The abeyance of consciousness, when it persists, when it amounts to a turn of nature, is called ignorance. Yet ignorance is not the negation of consciousness, it is clouded or veiled consciousness; it is not that the sun is set and gone but simply that it is behind the clouds, it is up in the sky but shrouded. This behind-the-veil consciousness is the subliminal consciousness or simply sub-consciousness. Subconsciousness is a consciousness that is not dormant or asleep, stilled into silence, it is at work but behind the normal waking state—it is the <i>swapna-state </i>\nas the Indian sages termedit.</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-22</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">Lower down is the state of unconsciousness proper. It is a still more diminished degree of consciousness, apparently a total absence of consciousness, not merely an abeyance or subsidence of consciousness, it is a lack of consciousness. The animal consciousness might be taken as an instance or expression of the ignorant consciousness, likewise the plant-consciousness parallels the subliminal consciousness —the Indian description of it is <i>anta</i>&#7717;<i>praj</i>ñ<i>a. </i>Next to it is the consciousness in the mineral, it is unconsciousness. By unconsciousness it is meant here naturally the absence of the mental consciousness: the presence or absence of consciousness means the presence or absence of the mental consciousness. There is a generic consciousness, consciousness in itself, or pure consciousness, which is imbedded in all created things, for creation itself is at bottom a vibration or pulsation of consciousness <i>(vij</i>ñ&#257;<i>na-vij</i>&#7771;<i>mbha</i>&#7751;<i>am). </i>There is a range or rung still further below with a still lesser degree of consciousness: it is called the inconscient, which is a totally total, in depth and in extent, absence of consciousness. In the other degree that is above it, there is the probability of consciousness in the midst of apparent absence, here it is reduced almost to nothingness or to just a possibility: for, as I have said, some consciousness, the presence of Sachchidananda is always there everywhere in the core of things. Yet there is also an absolute negation and this has been termed Nescience, it is the zero of things, where there is no question of possibility or impossibility: it is the final and definite end, &#347;<i>unyam </i>of the Buddhists, termed <i>asat </i>by the Vedantists.</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-23</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNow, the curious and most interesting thing is that the end is not the end of things; for beyond the zero there is the minus sign and what does minus mean? It does not mean mere negation, it means a reality—a negative real. It is a moot problem in philosophy—philosophers have questioned, argued, discussed at length about it—whether negation means only denial, just the contrary of affirmation. If affirmation means a real, negation means simply the unreal. It has been declared by competent authorities that negation, like affirmation, is also a reality but of the opposite sign. We know in mathematics the minus sign is as real as the plus.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe minus consciousness is something like the minus numerical figure. And indeed in its pure and essential reality, its ultimate, it has or is a figure—a very ominous figure—it is Death. And as such it becomes an altogether real, living entity, of the opposite sign as I said. This minus reality stretches downward and goes round and touches as it were, the back of the Supreme plus reality, \'the Supreme Consciousnes\'. That is the negative infinite, the great shadow of the Infinite Light.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe absolute Nescience is the mere reversal of the Supreme Consciousness, the ever-lasting Nay is the everlasting Yes turned inside out. Death making a right aboutturn is Immortality.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nModern science speaks of anti-matter and the possibility of a world of anti-matter. A world of anti-matter seems to be self-contradictory if it does not amount to be an absolute impossiblity. The only possibility or plausibility is a world in which matter and anti-matter co-exist\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-24</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n(as actually in the present world), but the miracle is that they do not cancel or annihilate each other producing an absolute zero; indeed the two opposing elements in their interaction through a process of continuous creation and destruction carry on the world <i>ad infinitum.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBut we are more concerned with the mystery of antimatter which is the ultimate form of what we have called minus consciousness whose image, as I have said, is Death. Sri Aurobindo has described in Savitri how Death the unreal or the negative Being in its ultimate recession turns round and stands face to face with the Divine in His plenary light and power, merges into it and becomes one with it, for Death was nothing else than the Divine. Only when ignorance and unconsciousness (the negation) is thus transformed into its original essence and reality, it adds to it something, a quality which was not there, so to say, which is the fruition or summation of its long journey of material evolution. It is the delight of union, or fusion of two in place of mere unity—the delight of unity in multiplicity.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-25</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-005_The Ladder of Unconsciousness','','publish','closed','open','','005_the-ladder-of-unconsciousness','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_the-ladder-of-unconsciousness/',0,'post','',0),(1617,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\">\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO</title>\n<style>\n<!--\n .font2 { font:9.00pt \"Georgia\", serif; }\n-->\n</style>\n</head>\n\n\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\n<font size=\"5\">THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO</font></b></p>\n	<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">PART ELEVEN</p>\n	<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n	<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n	<font size=\"4\">Content</font></p>\n	<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n	<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n	<a href=\"the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-000_Pre_Content\">Pre-content</a></p>\n	<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n			<a href=\"-001_The-Opening-Scene-of-Savitri\">The Opening Scene of &quot;Savitri&quot;</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-002_The-Golden-Life-Line\">The Golden Life-Line</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-003_Cosmonautics\">Cosmonautics</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-004_The-Triple-Cord\">The Triple Cord</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n			<a href=\"-005_The-Ladder-of-Unconsciousness\">The Ladder of \n			Unconsciousness</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-006_The-Mounting-Fire\">The \n			Mounting Fire</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-007_The-Labour-of-the-Gods\">The Labour of the Gods (The Five Purifications)</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p align=\"left\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-008_Body-Energy\">Body-Energy</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-009_Towards-the-Immortal-Body\">Towards the Immortal Body</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-010_The-Test-of-Truth\">The Test of Truth</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-011_The-Ideal-Centre\">The Ideal Centre</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-012_Two-Equations\">Two Equations</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-013_In-These-Fateful-Days\">In \n			These Fateful Days</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p align=\"left\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-014_Our-Finest-Hour\">Our Finest \n			Hour</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; text-indent: 10px; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n			<b>APPENDIX</b></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-015_Sri-Aurobindo---1\">Sri Aurobindo \n			(I)&nbsp;</a></td>\n		</tr>\n		<tr>\n			<td>&nbsp;</td>\n			<td width=\"845\">\n			<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><a href=\"-016_Sri-Aurobindo---2\">Sri Aurobindo \n			(II)</a></td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-00_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-00_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-00_content/',0,'post','',0),(1618,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\">\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO</title>\n<style>\n<!--\n .font4 { font:11.00pt \"Georgia\", serif; }\n .font1 { font:7.00pt \"Georgia\", serif; }\n .font6 { font:18.00pt \"Georgia\", serif; }\n .font5 { font:13.00pt \"Georgia\", serif; }\n-->\n</style>\n</head>\n\n\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n<img border=\"0\" src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 11/_images/P%20-%20002.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"762\"></p><hr>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n			<b><font size=\"5\">THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO</font></b></p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>PART ELEVEN</b></p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\n<font size=\"5\">THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO</font></b></p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>PART ELEVEN</b></p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\n<img src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 11/_images/yogar-1.png\" alt=\"\" style=\" width:208.56pt; height:42.00pt;\"></p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;PONDICHERRY</p>\n			<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<hr>\n\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">First Edition : 1971</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">January 13, 1971</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&copy;   Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1971 </p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry </p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry </p>\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">Printed in India</p>\n\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-000_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-000_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-11-000_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1619,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>BODY-ENERGY</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>BODY-ENERGY</b></p>\n			<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<p class=\"para\">The<b> </b>Mother spoke once of the body being like a fortress, a strong shelter protecting you against enemy-attacks, the forces that are around roaming in the open spaces, the forces of physical and even moral disruption. The ancients used to refer to the body as a walled city the gates of which are to be carefully guarded. It is also compared to a temple, a firm structure wherein God is to dwell, which is to be kept always clean, trim and tidy. The body itself was worshipped as a holy thing almost as a Divinity by certain schools of spiritual discipline.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThese are, so to say, various dimensions of the body; one more, somewhat of a different category, may be added. The body is a battery, an accumulation of energy, of energy and consciousness, of energy-consciousness. We are all familiar with the modern concept of the material particle being concentrated energy: it is tremendously concentrated and that is why it looks as though dead solidity. In reality its stilled high potency harbours almost an immeasurable force of creation and destruction.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe release of energy, material energy, in matter, is the business of Science and the scientist; the release of consciousness, the energy of consciousness in matter is the business of yoga and the yogi. The tantrik discipline was in a large way occupied with this mystery. It found and developed its own method and process and its success in its own field is also well recognised.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-37</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe body-content thus is essentially consciousness consolidated, crystallised. The problem then is how to release it. The first thing is that you must be conscious, you, that is to say, your body must be conscious, must be aware always of what it is doing: living, moving, acting; the body must be doing all that consciously, almost voluntarily: there shall be no involuntary movements. Each physical gesture must know itself by feeling itself in the act. It is not that the mind should know, the mind can have only a memory, but that the limb itself has to pursue its function knowingly, in full awareness. At the beginning there is inevitably a mixture of mental knowing but that is to be cleaned out and overpassed.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nOne is conscious, can be conscious only through consciousness; consciousness is born through consciousness. It manifests, it grows through incubation, through self-centration. Energy energises itself, as the Upanishad says, <i>tapas taptv</i>&#257;<i>. </i>Energy is consciousness in movement and in moving it expresses itself, embodies itself. A muscle, for example, when moving, awakes to its own activity, the awakening is not confined to itself, but it extends gradually, extends to all its constituent cells and even to contiguous cells. The process in this way permeates the whole body and the entire material content of the body is filled with. consciousness and with its radiant energy.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThere is however a basic preliminary necessity, a preparatory condition: the first essential condition under which the body can be conscious of itself is its freedom, its absolute freedom. The body must be liberated wholly and entirely, it must feel its perfect freedom. As at present it\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-38</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">is a slave: it never knows its own will, it is always under the orders of either the vital or the mind or both. Under the control of this dual masters—a cruel diarchy—the body has lost all its independent movements. The activities, almost all, of the present body are not really its own, they are expressions of an imposed will. In order to have and to be aware of its own will the body must be freed from its alien imposition and as soon as it gains its freedom, it will know itself, learn itself, learn its own movements. It will gradually shred off all the wrong and distorted movements which form its present habits. We shall find that in itself the body is a sane entity and it is not in need of many things that have been suggested to it and instilled into it by forces that are outside it, almost foreign to it, the mental and the vital forces. The liberation will bring to it automatically the awareness of its own self, it will become, that is to say, conscious of itself and this consciousness will bring with it a &quot;pure and fresh energy which is that of its true self. As in the case of a subject nation the very fact of liberation brings to it the energy of self-consciousness and an exhilarating delight in the expression of the newfound selfhood, even as also in the case of the individual human being when he is freed from serfdom and slavery and bondages, he attains, realises the dignity of self-consciousness and self-power, even so the material body too becomes illumined with its freedom and rejoices in its power and energy to express its own truth. The first effect of freedom after a long subjugation is likely to be a spell of erraticism, but that is sure to die away if there is a corrective central will.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-39</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe body-movements in the animal are more authentic and truthful for they are not subsidised and suborned by the vital and mental injunctions, and they are more ordered and controlled, not subject to idiosyncrasies that sway the human character. They are more free and more natural: the same essential freedom and authenticity and purity shall belong to the body natural of the highest mode of being and consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nHowever, in this age, at the present time the human body is inevitably moving towards such a consummation— towards freedom and buoyancy and radiancy, a new valency, a new self-law. The individual efforts are more than supplemented by a Grace that is at work in a supreme effective manner: for this is the hour of God— &quot;when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny.&quot;\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-40</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-008_Body-Energy','','publish','closed','open','','008_body-energy','','','2021-11-23 17:21:51','2021-11-23 17:21:51','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/008_body-energy/',0,'post','',0),(1620,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>SRI AUROBINDO</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>SRI AUROBINDO </b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>II\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<b>&quot;</b>The<b> </b>poet of patriotism, the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity&quot; he was, in the famous words of his advocate and friend and follower who stood for him before the bar of History for his cause, and not merely before a British Court of Justice. Indeed he was all that, but today we have to add another epithet and complete the description. For he is now the builder of the Life Divine. This was indeed the secret Truth that worked in him from behind and gave to these earlier preoccupations the reality and the beauty they attained and the fullness of their significance. He worked for human evolution, that was his life mission. He thus formulates the stages of human evolution:\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n&quot;Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu\'s three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted&quot;. But the supreme secret lies in Vishnu\'s fourth stride, from humanity to divinity. That is the goal of the evolution and that furnishes also the key to the solution of the problem. Whether in the matter of the family or the nationality or humanity in general there has been a stalemate, a stagnation, even a frustration; an effort towards progress seemed to lead more towards conflict, disharmony, away from what is beautiful and good and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-75</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">happy. That is bound to be. Man must reach his very highest and deepest, his absolute itself before he can arrive at perfection in the lower and the relative. Man must exceed himself if he is to fulfil himself. A new connotation has to be found for family and nationality and even humanity. That connotation, Sri Aurobindo says, is divinity.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWe must understand however that there is divinity and divinity. There is a divinity that suffers, supports and transcends all that is existent. For it is the all-reality, all-consciousness, the ever-present and omnipresent Immutable behind the mutabilities of creation. That does not take part in the cosmic struggle, the universal urge of progress forward. Apart from the divinity that suffers, there is a divinity that shapes — and is shaped at the same time, shapes from behind and is shaped itself in front. This dynamic Divine Sri Aurobindo calls the supra-mental Divine or the incarnate Divine Mother.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIn the inevitable course of evolution man is something that will be surpassed, not in the sense that he will be rejected and thrown out as an unnecessary element, like some of the prehistoric animals, no, he will still be at the head of earthly creation, but undergo a sea-change, as it were, and be transmuted into a divine creature.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAs at present man is a mental being, that is to say, it is his mind — his reason and intellect — that governs him and it is through that faculty that he governs the world. But mind is not the highest or the most powerful faculty in him, nor the last term of his consciousness. Beyond the mind there rise other powers of consciousness, tier upon\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-76</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">tier, and man can go there, live there or bring them down into his normal life and change it into their pattern. The highest of these Sri Aurobindo calls the plane of Truth-Consciousness, the Superrnind. It is the supreme luminous Power — the Light of lights — towards which the creation moves and by which the creation is moved in secret. It is the heart-centre of fulfilled harmony.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nMan has been striving through his lesser powers, through the grace of the lower gods since his advent upon earth to arrive at a reconstruction of his life and surroundings. That is why he has never attained the full measure of success. Indeed a period of success or progress was always followed by a period of decline and retrogression, a so-called golden age by an age of iron. As a matter of fact today humanity finds itself terribly enclosed in a cage of iron as it were. The earth has become too small for his soaring capacities and multitudinous necessities— he is already thinking of a place in the moon! That is only the sign and symbol of an inner impasse to which he has arrived. The anguish of the human soul has reached its acme: the problems, social, political, educational, moral it is facing have proved themselves to be totally insoluble. Yes, he has run into a cul-de-sac, where he is caught as in a death-trap. No ordinary rational methods, half-way nostrums can deliver him any more. All the outer doors and issues are now closed for him; the only way is to turn inward, there lies the open road to freedom and fulfilment. That is the way to transcendence and surpassing. To attempt any other way is not only to try the impossible but to head straight towards doomsday.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-77</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe time then is now, for the time is ripe. It will not do to say that the way proposed is beyond the reach of the common man. He has neither the capacity nor the knowledge nor even the inclination or impulse to surpass himself, to do anything non-human. First of all, as I said, if man is to survive in any form, this is the only way and there is no second. Next, what do we know of the capacity and impulsion even of the common man? Even in a smaller scale and on the material level, have we not seen to what tremendous acts of heroism he can rise automatically, through what travails—tapasya—of concentrated effort he agreed to pass, simply because the occasion demanded it? Man\'s secret soul is greater than all the limitation of his outward frame.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThat does not mean that the entire human race will wholly change over to the new life. All, without exception, are not expected to come up to the highest level of fulfilment. But that is not required, for the beginning at least. It is always the few pioneers, a select group of forerunners that form the foundation of a new creation. A first snowball perhaps, but it moves and gathers others on the way and builds up larger and larger collectivities. At all crises of evolutionary cycles such beings inevitably appear, they are thrown up by Nature or they come down from above and incarnate; especially it is so when Nature proposes to take a leap and not merely trudge and crawl.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt is the fulfilment of Nature that has to happen and is happening, the fulfilment of the inferior Nature in and through the higher divine Nature. Here we come perhaps to the very heart of the mystery. For till now, till\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-78</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">almost yesterday, we may say in a general way, the spiritual life, any kind of divine life was considered possible only through battling with Nature, through a struggle upstream against the current of Nature. Indeed Nature was despised, feared, rejected as an enemy of the Spirit. But today the wheel seems to have turned full circle. The Spirit recognises the body as its counterpart and visible form, welcomes the body as its earthly figure and expression. The old antinomy has become obsolete, because the body too on its side recognises that it has not the structure and character that millennial ignorance gave it. The material particles that constitute the physical body are found to be after all not inert masses but quantas of energy, of luminous energy. The spiritual Light above demands nothing better for its earthly home.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThis is symbolical of the collaboration that Nature is now offering to the Spirit. A new substance, made of light-energy emanating from Consciousness-Force, is now slowly permeating the earth atmosphere, as the Mother declares and it is this that will serve as the basis of the new creation and give it its law and constitution. A new world built out of knowledge and vision and luminous power is destined to come, for man is no longer in love with his ignorance, but a divine afflatus is possessing him.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe new world has to be based on new foundations. The old world was built from outside with superficial cheap elements that lower Nature offers easily and profusely. It is body\'s needs, vital hungers assembled and arranged according to a plan supplied by mind\'s ideas and notions under the directive and compulsion of the ego, the sense\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-79</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">or consciousness of one\'s separate individual existence as against others. The new world will start from the soul, the luminous divine element in man which is one with all and grow from within outward. It is as if the foundations are laid not below, but above—the tree of existence would branch out not from below upwards, but from above downward, in the image given by the ancient Rishis of India. The individual will therefore be not primarily a body housing secondary—or as it is sometimes called epiphe-nomenal—movements such as those of the mind and the vital limited and largely conditioned by it. The individual will primarily be a consciousness, a focus of energy-consciousness existing and acting in union and communion with all other similar individual foci, for all form one single undivided entity. The body and life and mind are moulded in the substance and rhythm of that sovereign consciousness. The hard egoism or self-centredness, the gross animality that seem to be the very constitution of the human individual are dissolved into the soul\'s radiant urges.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe individual can be and is to be fulfilled in and through his soul—the presiding consciousness that has at its disposal the mind, the vital and the body as its instruments and means of expression, but which till now, because of an evolutionary necessity of growth and development, acted more as an obstruction or a veil than as an aid or a channel. When in the new consciousness the individual attains its soul-status, in other words, its divinity, then a reshaping and recasting of the lower limbs becomes possible and even inevitable. The soul\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-80</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">status means freedom, harmony, purity, knowledge, power, delight and immortality, absolute and inalienable.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAs individuals grow in this line, the social structure too is altered and transmuted. The harmony and fullness that individuals present are automatically represented in the collective grouping. Instead of a battling competitive society we have not merely a cooperative but a unitive community striving in a common aspiration towards a single unique achievement. For all individuals know and feel that they are but various limbs of the same organism, luminously and unfailingly functioning each in its and for its own appointment—expressing differently the one Light supreme.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAnd nations that are finding so difficult, almost impossible, to form a comity, that are in their disparate tendencies driving towards a catastrophe, perhaps annihilation, shall undergo a sea-change. The nation, the national being is also a reality, a divine reality that has to come to its own—that is to say, its own soul. For there is a collective soul, as well as an individual soul. It is the presiding deity, the norm of consciousness and being that works out the growth and evolution of a collectivity that has found a common life. This collectivity is also enlarging itself in wider and wider commonalty. As we see actually today the nation is tending towards and growing into the supra-nation or Commonwealth or Federation as it is termed politically. The conception of the United States of the world is taking possession of the human mind; it is being applied and larger and more integrated collective groupings than the nation are developing; they may ere long become\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-81</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">familiar realities. Such formations moving towards and effectuating the one indivisible humanity open out the possibility towards a superhumanity which will have to base itself on a new principle of organisation; for that must be a new mode of consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nEven the family, the first unit of collective formation in humanity that has attained a fulfilled status, is yet capable of a remodelling, a transmutation in the higher supramental consciousness. The family instead of being built upon blood-relationship may surely have a different foundation in soul-kinship, in affinity of consciousness, comradeship in life-work. It means a total revolution, a reversal of nature, the roots being above instead of being below, as already referred to.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nSuch far-reaching changes may well be called for and inevitable if mankind is to be radically cured of all the illnesses of which it is till now a natural prey. The full health of a divine body in its individual as well as its collective and global functioning is assured only when the human being is lifted out of its mental sheath and established in the supramental status.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt is an adventure for the heroic soul, for the vanguards of humanity; but its fruition will spread abroad a benefit that even the common level shall share, even those that denied shall offer their accession and adhesion.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-82</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-016_Sri Aurobindo - 2','','publish','closed','open','','016_sri-aurobindo-2','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/016_sri-aurobindo-2/',0,'post','',0),(1621,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>THE GOLDEN LIFE-LINE</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>THE GOLDEN LIFE-LINE\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">As slow our ship her foaming track \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">Against the wind was cleaving, \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">Her trembling pennant still looked back \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">To that dear isle\'t was leaving. \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">So loth we part from all we love, \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">From all the links that bind us, \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">So turn our hearts as on we rove, \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">To those we\'ve left behind us.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThis<b> </b>is not merely children\'s homesickness; it is a fundamental note of the human nature as it is at present constituted. We always look backward, we always are tied to our roots and it is with great difficulty and much effort that we advance and go forward or upward away from our origins. In a nobler language this is called tradition. Often tradition is made identical with and taken for both life and culture. Denying the past is looked upon almost as refusing the source of life and light.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nViewed from another standpoint this harking back to the past, to the roots, as we say, is the greatest obstacle to human progress. Man progresses, indeed the whole creation advances, by breaking with the past. The leap from the mineral to the plant, from the inorganic to the organic, is the first and most significant break. Even so, are the progressive breaks from the plant to the animal and from the animal to man. In man too similar progressive, that is, radically progressive steps or leaps are recognisable.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-4</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">The ape man without tools and the first man with tools mark very different stages in human consciousness and life. And we have carried on more or less the same manner of progression till today. But against this forward movement of nature, there is a counter-pull backward. The principle of inertia, of standing still, is of the very nature of matter, the basic fact of creation. The force of gravity, earth\'s pull, does not allow you to shoot up; it brings you down, and if you stand erect, the innate tendency of the body is to sit down or lie flat, obedient to the earth\'s attraction. This physical inertia acts also upon the mind, including the vital consciousness. This is translated in the consciousness as an attachment to the past, to what man has been familiar with. Conservation is the term in respect of physical Nature and atavism is its expression in human nature.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt is so difficult for man to leave the beaten track, for that means risk and danger; our thoughts and movements are all shaped in the mould of the past, we carry out what old habits have instructed us; any new thought, any new act we happen to come across we seek to link it to an antecedent or precedent, similar in kind or form. It is a never-ending succession, a causal chain that makes up our life, the present being always produced by its past. That means the present, and so also the future, is only another form or term of the past. What is not in the past is not in the present or the future, that is to say, such is the constitution of our consciousness and nature: there is a natural and inevitable faith and trust in the past, an extension of the past; there is only apprehension for the future, uncertainty in the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-5</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">present.<sup>1</sup> It was Buddha\'s signal achievement to uncover this great illusion, the illusion of an inexhaustible and inexorably continuing past, continuing into the present and into the future. He saw that to be is not continuity but a sequence of discrete moments (and events). It is ignorance that finds a link between these entities; they are in reality absolutely separate and distinct from each other. If you can wake up from this ignorance as from a dream you will find they all disintegrate and disperse and end in nothing. The only reality is that Nothing. Shankara however says that it is not mere Nothing but Pure Existence, instead of an illusion of existences you have the original Existence, the absolute existence.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe Upanishad speaks of the creation as a garland and all the elements of life—that are like precious jewels—are strung upon a secret thread. Indeed, it is not on nothing that this multiplicity which is the creation is standing and holding together. There is however a twofold secret thread—one that binds together a world of ignorance: that is the thread of ignorance which passes through, even keeps alive as it were, all the expressions and embodiments of the ignorance, pain and suffering, greed and hunger, egoism and selfishness and all forms of what is called evil. But it is the apparent world; even so, it is not pure\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<sup>1</sup> It is not that the conscious intelligence of man is ignorant of the truth, his reason and higher perception surely sees and acknowledges it; but the life impulse that moves him, his spontaneous energy and instinct turns him away from a dynamic recognition of what otherwise should inspire his movements. The link with the past is of much greater strength than a possibility of the future.\n</font>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-6</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">delusion: it is a make-believe or falsehood which keeps behind it the true, the real world. That world lies behind the mask, the present actual world; it is another world of light and truth, power and delight and purity. There the link that binds together the succession of events and realities is a golden thread of pure consciousness. The link of ignorance is, one may say, the iron link, and is open to rust and decay inevitably. It is the link that binds together the ordinary life of ignorance, that pulls always backward, clings to all that has gone by, seeks to extend the past into the present and the future, feels unhappy if that is disturbed.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIn a new and higher life we are asked to discard that link and come out of it, to discover the other inner link, the link of light. That turns always to the future, directs all impulses and activities towards the realities that are to be.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThese are then the two chains binding, each in its own way, our life-movements, each building a whole with a special significance and fulfilment. They are two life-lines, as it were, a running parallel to each other. One, as I have said, is the normal mundane life, the other a transfigured spiritual life. The Upanishad, we know, speaks of the path of the Sun and the path of the Fathers—they roughly correspond to the two lines I have just spoken of. But the Upanishadic path of the Sun is a vertical ascension from the normal life-line into a transcendent beyond. What we meant was not an ascension beyond but a parallel growth in transformation, that is to say, what we referred to as the lower iron links are to be transmuted into the golden\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-7</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">ones, without breaking or dissolving them. The problem is to find out the secret of this alchemy that transmutes the iron links into the golden ones. Psychologically the Buddhist way is a great help even if it is not the unique and inevitable one towards that consummation. For it dislocates, disintegrates the chain that binds the being to the normal and ignorant fife. It teaches one to see and feel life as separate and isolated \'moments\', there being no real link between the moments; so if one is to live the truth of life one must learn to live from moment to moment without any thought from the past or of the future. The Biblical motto gains in this connection a deeper significance: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. One does not carry on his shoulders the burden of the past moments nor a possible burden in the thought of the morrow. One becomes free, absolutely free, with no care but just the need of the moment to note and the immediate gesture to meet it.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThat is a way, an effective way, for dissolving life, but we seek, as we have said, not dissolution or disintegration but integration—integration into a higher integer, a greater reality. The lower chain dissolved, we have to find a new status beyond the dissolution. That is perhaps what the Upanishad indicated when it said: one has to traverse death through Ignorance (perception of ignorance) and then through Knowledge (perception of the Knowledge) to attain immortality. Buddha has led us across death, now we have to reach immortality. There is a higher line of Karma and a lower line running parallel as I said to each other—the lower (the iron chain) leads from death\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-8</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">to death, the higher (the golden one) leads from life to life and from light to light.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe transference from the lower chain to the higher is to be effected by the consciousness of nothingness (Shunyam) being filled or impregnated with the new consciousness of Immortality; for the units of the normal or ignorant consciousness are themselves not wholly or essentially ignorant and mortal. They have in them what Buddha did not see or recognise—the immortal soul or self—as the Vedic Rishis said: that which is immortal in the mortal. What is mortal in the apparently mortal unit is the covering that hides the immortal nucleus. This covering is made of, as we know, the mental, the vital and the physical beings. These perish, that is to say, change; but that does not affect the immortal being within. Thus the consciousness is to be drawn away or detached from the covering and hitched on to the unchanging reality within. That forms the golden link of the chain of immortality of the Supreme Light. The transference from the lower chain is to be effected through the consciousness of the luminous immortal divine unit. It is the Divine in man, familiarly called \'antaryamin\'.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNaturally, the transference of the consciousness and being from the lower or surface line to the line that lies on a higher and deeper level does not mean, we must note, the rejection or annihilation of the lower in favour of the higher. The consciousness of the soul or self does not negate the consciousness of the body and the life and the mind. It only purifies, elevates, and transmutes them into its true and divine expression and embodiment.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-9</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nTo live in the soul is to live in eternity with the vision and inspiration of the eternal. It is living in the mind and the vital and the body that turns and binds one to the past, renders one a slave to mortality.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe units of this higher chain of consciousness are free from all drag of the past or hold of the present: their being is turned automatically towards the future, the Great Event to which all creation moves; for that is the truth of its inmost reality: the inspiration of its movements comes from that intimate source. The units of one\'s own life, all its moments share in this freedom and this life-inspiration and all together form the wonderful harmony of the golden chain. The units are not separated or isolated from each other—freedom of the individual here does not mean isolation: it is a close union, indeed, it is an indivisible unity for all units, all individual formations are identical, for in a sense all are identified with the only reality, the one supreme consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe soul-consciousness is the golden thread running through the chain of light and when it comes forward and becomes dynamic it gradually engulfs and purifies what was its covering, the life, the mind and the body and reforms them in its own light and energy expressing and embodying its divine truth and fulfilment here below.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-10</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-002_The Golden Life-Line','','publish','closed','open','','002_the-golden-life-line','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_the-golden-life-line/',0,'post','',0),(1622,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>OUR FINEST HOUR</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>OUR FINEST HOUR\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThis<b> </b>is an age of deluge and devastation and decomposition. Is this also the Doomsday?\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNature herself has started the process and man has lent his hand to hasten it. Or did man start it and Nature is hastening the work? Perhaps it is a vicious circle, but the outcome is the same.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAnyhow the question now is whether there is a remedy. How can Nature be made steady arid how can man come out of the muddle?\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nFor man the root-cause is that he is being imprisoned more and more, and circumstances of his life are such that he is losing all free movements and is being hemmed in on all sides. The walls are, as it were, pressing upon him, even to the point of suffocation. In all fields of life rules and regulations, restrictions and impediments are mounting high and are becoming an unbearable burden more and more. Whichever way he turns a few steps lead to a dead wall, and he knocks his head against something hard and hostile and irremovable. Hence his natural urge is to knock more and more, to break and destroy and come out—that seems to be the only issue. Destroy and live dangerously—that is the one way left. In destroying what stands against you if you happen to destroy yourself it matters very little, you will be destroyed willynilly either way.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIndeed an urge to destroy pure and simple leads to self-destruction. Violence is a boomerang which turns back\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-57</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">upon its own source. There is a joy in violence, perverse though it be, even when directed against oneself. Perhaps in the occult view it is the movement against oneself that is the secret source of the movement against others. The enormous increase in the incidence of suicides is a charac-ristic phenomenon of our age. It is not explained merely by the <i>force majeure </i>of actual circumstances. A dark spirit broods over the waters of existence today which aims at the annihilation of consciousness itself, the one source of life and creation.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBut may we not pause a little and consider whether that is the only choice, or the best choice—the rush for destruction. The whole past construction that now stands against man, against his farther progress, it is agreed, has to be broken down, thrown aside, but in what way? By mere physical force, brute force, by pushing and dashing and ramming from outside — well, perhaps the thing can be done, but destruction of form is not elimination of the life or spirit behind it. The past still in its present form continues because it maintains its own inner life and spirit. So long as that inner spirit is there you may break one form but another or many others will appear inspired by the same spirit. That is why the French proverb says: &quot;The more it changes, the more it remains the same.&quot;* For the truth is that destruction is not the aim, not even the destruction of what should be destroyed, the aim is the creation of a new spirit, change of the inner nature. Our attention should be focussed \nnot on the outward</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><font size=\"2\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n* &quot;Plus Ça change, plus Ça reste le même.&quot; </font>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-58</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">form but on the inner norm. If there is a new norm within and a change of nature, the outer change of form will follow automatically. The old leaves will fall off, the dead branches break away and new leaves and flowers appear with a new sap flowing in. The shell breaks off automatically when the living creature within grows and is mature enough to come out.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nOn the contrary, the prison need not be altogether a prison, it may be an occasion, an opportunity for the human consciousness to make a break-through to create a new dimension. Here is then our immediate work—to conquer inner domains, the inner truths: for all truths are found first within the consciousness, established there before they become facts. So then let us harness our power and prowess, our aspiration and sincerity, all our life energy to the labour of the inner conquest. Let us stop awhile from the temptation and the urge for destruction and turn it round towards a higher inner adventure—that of construction. Yes, the truth that we want to see established in the outer world, let us establish it in ourselves, in each one of us, in our consciousness, in our impulses and activities. We always wanted liberty and equality and fraternity in the world at large, the ideal has not been realised because we did not care to realise it in the consciousness and life of each one of us. In the collective life of mankind that truth will alone become a fact which is a fact in the inner existence and consciousness of every human being.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe inner discovery is indeed a battle and here too a victory has to be won. It needs more than in any physical battle a complete contingent of courage and bravery, calm\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-59</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">strength and persevering endurance, skill and energy to gain an absolute success. And there the field is free and vast, one can deploy oneself as largely as possible, move in any direction to any distance as one likes. It is no longer a prison,—it is a region where one meets one\'s soul.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe individual seems always to precede the society. What begins in and with the individual is spread abroad and established in wide commonalty. But this individual self-concentration does not mean that one should withdraw from the world and its activities and sit and settle within oneself, apart and aloof. It does not mean while you are in prison, to accept imprisonment, dig a cave there and go into mere meditation. In other words, to find the inner solution it is not necessary to escape from the world, go into the solitude of mountain-tops or into the depths of the forests, take to the path of total renunciation till you attain perfect <i>siddhi </i>and then turn back and share your light and leading with humanity. Some great souls have done this—Buddha and Christ and Vivekananda. And it is not for every man to try that path in the way they did. But even if the path is not easy, to some extent at least every one of us has to follow it; for we must remember our aim is not easy either. The pioneers have to accept the difficulty of the path. Pursuing the figure of the prison, of the dungeon, we may say, instead of trying to break it down because of the hopelessness of the attempt, or as the alternative: sit down quiet for the inner illumination to come; instead of that one may cut a tunnel under the wall. That should be the nature of our activity in our present situation.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-60</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe new truth, the new capacity you have to acquire in and through the activities of the normal life. It was what Sri Krishna taught to Arjuna. Arjuna was a representative of the common man, Arjuna was thought to be always in the yogic consciousness even while he was engaged in battle.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThus we are at the world\'s finest hour, for it shall find its soul.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-61</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-014_Our Finest Hour','','publish','closed','open','','014_our-finest-hour','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/014_our-finest-hour/',0,'post','',0),(1623,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>APPENDIX</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>APPENDIX</b></p>\n			<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n			<hr>\n			<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>SRI AUROBINDO </b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">I</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nFrom a certain standpoint Sri Aurobindo\'s message is very simple, almost self-evident. The sum and substance of all he says is that man is growing and has to grow in consciousness till he reaches the complete and perfect consciousness, not only in his individual but in his collective, that is to say, social life. In fact, the growth of consciousness is the supreme secret of life, the master key to earthly evolution.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nSri Aurobindo believes in evolution. Creation, according to him, has a purpose and man moves to a goal. That is nothing else than the unfolding of consciousness. Originally all was Matter, only dead Matter. At a certain stage out of Matter came Life: what was or appeared to be dead became alive. Thus the plant world was born—the first primeval stirring of consciousness, a consciousness vague, blind, practically unconscious, yet moved by a newly acquired or awakened pulsation. There was again a period of gestation and incubation bringing out at the end a rudimentary Mind, a first conscious consciousness: so the animal was born. Consciousness is clearer and freer here, emerging into formulation: it is now instinct or sensibility and in its higher grades infused with a streak of spontaneous dunking. Sensuous mentality gave birth to Mind proper, that is thought, reflection and man appeared. A fully awakened consciousness, consciousness that can turn round upon itself is the characteristic marking out human consciousness.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-65</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nSuch then are the stages in the progression of consciousness; they are clearly observable and admitted practically on all hands. Only Sri Aurobindo points out two crucial characters of this movement. First: Matter, Life, Mind-Intelligence—these are not distinct or separate entities, one coming after another, the succeeding one simply adding itself to the preceding, coming we do not know from where. Not so, for something cannot come out of nothing. If life came out of Matter, it is because life was there hidden in Matter, Matter was secretly housing, was instinct with life. That only can evolve which was involved. So, again, if Mind came out of life, it is because Mind was involved in life and therefore also in Matter although at a farther remove. Yet again, vital mind developed into Intelligence and consciousness proper, and it could be only because that too was its secret nature and hence the secret nature of Life and even brute Matter. Thus the whole chain of gradation is linked together indissolubly and the binding reality that runs through all is consciousness, overt or covert. It is indeed consciousness that lies at the root of existence—the basic substance, Matter is nothing but consciousness become unconscious; and the whole scheme or processus of the cosmos is the increasing manifestation and expression of that consciousness. Secondly, the other character is that at each cross-over, there is not only a rise in consciousness but also a reversal of consciousness, that is to say, the level attained turns back upon the preceding levels, influencing and moulding them as far as possible in its own mode and law of existence. When life appeared in Matter, wherever there was material life, the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-66</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">matter thus taken up by life behaved differently from dead matter: an organic body does not follow the strict mechanical laws of inanimate bodies. Likewise a life endowed with mind has a different functioning than mere life. And a body which houses a life and mind, which has, as it were, flowered into life and mind moves and acts in another way than an inert body or even a vitalised body. Man\'s intelligence and reason have reoriented Or tend to reorient his vital instincts and reactions, even his bodily functions and forms. A conscious regulation, even refashioning of his life and body is the very essence of human consciousness, the urge of his nature, instead of a spontaneous <i>laissez-faire </i>movement of pure vitality or the mechanical go-round of the material base. These three major provinces or layers of consciousness—Matter, Life and Mind—man has taken up into himself and in the light of his consciousness—his Intelligence—has studied and classified them arranging them serially as the well-known sciences of Physics, Biology and Psychology.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nNow, Sri Aurobindo says, evolution marches onward and will rise beyond mind to another status of consciousness which he calls Supermind. In the earthly scheme there will thus manifest a new type, a higher functioning of consciousness and a new race or species will appear on earth with this new consciousness as the ruling principle. Out of the rock and mineral came the plant, out of the plant the animal, out of the mere animal man has come and out of man the Superman will come inevitably.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nStanding on the mental plane, immured within the dimensions of Reason and mental intelligence, it is not\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-67</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">easy to contemplate the type of consciousness that will be; even as it was difficult for the ape to envisage the advent of his successor, man. But certain characteristic signs, rudimentary or fragmentary movements of the higher status are visible in the mental consciousness even as it is: the ape likewise was not without a glimmer of Reason and logic, even the faculty of ratiocination that seems to be the exclusive property of man. There is, for example, a movement we call Intuition, so different from Reason to which even Scientists and Mathematicians acknowledge their debt of gratitude for so many of their discoveries and inventions. There is also the other analogous movement called Inspiration that rules the poet and the artist disclosing to them a world of beauty and reality that is not available to the normal human consciousness. Again, there is yet another group of human beings at the top of the ladder of evolution —mystics and sages—who <i>see </i>the truth, possess the truth direct through a luminous immediacy of perception, called Revelation. Now, all these functionings of consciousness that happen frequently enough within the domain of normal humanity are still expressions of a higher mode of consciousness: they are not the product or play of Reason or logical intelligence which marks the character, the differentia of human consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nBut, as at present, these are mere glimmers and glimpses from elsewhere and man has no command or control over them. They are beyond the habitual conscious will, they come and go as they like, happy visitations from another world, they do not abide our, question and are not at our beck and call. The Supermind, on the contrary, is in full\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-68</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">possession of that consciousness of which these are faint beginnings and distant echoes. The Superman will be born when man has risen above his mind and emerged into the supramental consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nOne thing needs to be pointed out here: it is that man is expected to consciously transcend himself and deliver this supermanhood, for it is to be a conscious process, a labour of the wakeful will. That is the great difference which the new transition has brought in. So long evolution was a spontaneous and apparently unconscious process, moving slowly and inadvertently as things in nature normally move. Man rose out of the animal: he simply found himself man one day, there was no conscious effort, no previous knowledge of the change on the part of the animal undergoing the change. Likewise the animal came out of its plant origin spontaneously and unwittingly: the plant too evolved out of the inert and inanimate matter through a natural process of slow mutation. But now at the stage of manhood consciousness has become fully conscious, self-conscious, and therefore its further ascension cannot but be conscious, ever more conscious, the result of deliberate energising. This is a process of self-transformation. It has a method, a technique, a whole system of its own. The growth of consciousness, its culture and transformation is the end and purpose of all true education: its highest consummation, its supreme perfection is what is intended by Yoga, the mystic\'s system of inner discipline.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nWe say, then, supramentalisation of consciousness is the goal Nature is aiming at and man striving for: it is the next step that earth and man are taking in their evolutionary\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-69</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">urge. Man, however, represents a very crucial stage—he is the dividing line between two hemispheres—two modes of consciousness, two types of creation. As I have said, up to man it is a natural spontaneous unreflecting unconscious evolution: with man it is conscious, deliberate, wilful evolution. What was being done behind the veil in ignorance will now be done openly in full knowledge. The very first result will be the shortening of the time factor. The conscious process increases the tempo, telescopes into decades or years a process or development that would take centuries or more otherwise; in man a growth is achieved in one life that would normally need several lives. The other characteristic result is that when the Supermind establishes itself, there is no more ignorance, it is all light and knowledge. Till the mental range, even at its highest heights, it is a mixture of light and darkness, of knowledge and ignorance: there is always an element of doubt, uncertainty or partial perception: there is a groping, a trial and one moves at best from greater darkness to lesser shade. With the Superrnind all that changes: the Superman lives always in the full daylight, in the zenith consciousness, in the plenitude of knowledge. He moves from light to light, knowledge to knowledge, no longer bound to the division and duality inherent in the present human consciousness. It may be that man may not at a bound reach the peak of the Superrnind: for there are lower ranges, voluntary limitations of the Light, less absolute formulations of the perfect being through which man will have to pass for a greater enrichment of his nature and for the establishment of other orders of luminous existence upon earth. Sri Aurobindo \nhas,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-70</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">in this connection, spoken of the Over-mind and the Mind of Light. But these too lie beyond the border of mental twilight and are domains of Light, own delegates of Supermind.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt may not be out of place here just to mention a few characters proper to this supramental over-border consciousness. First of all, it is the seat and organon of complete knowledge: knowledge here is not the result of the deductive and inductive process of reason, it does not balance pros and cons and out of uncertain possibilities strike out an average probability: it is direct, straight, immediate, certain and absolute. Knowledge here comes by identity—the knower and the known are one and what is known is therefore self-knowledge. Secondly, the will too is not an effort or striving and struggling, but the spontaneous expression of the self-power of the consciousness; willing means achieving, one wills the inevitable truth, for knowledge and will too are one. Thirdly, it is the status of perfect delight, for one has passed beyond the vale of tears and entered the peace that passeth understanding, one has found that Joy is the source of creation and the truth of existence is held in Ecstasy.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIt is in other words at bottom the Vedantic status of Sat-chit-ananda (perfect Being, Consciousness-energy and Beatitude), but individualised \nserving as the basic reality of the world-life and existence: it is this that \nseeks to manifest and embody itself in its own dharma—supreme law—in and through \nthe physical forms and modes of that life and existence. Beyond this it is not \npossible here to enter into the further mysteries of the Arcanum.</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-71</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nLastly, another point and we have done. It is that all human efforts in the past in any realm or domain towards a higher life has been contributory to this supreme consummation that Sri Aurobindo envisages as corning or sure to come. It is very often asserted that human nature is irremediable and although we may try at a little amelioration of his instinctive life, especially as a social being, there can be no permanent or radical cure of the original sin of Ignorance and Inconscience with which his earthly nature is branded. Reformers, idealists, even saints and sages have seen and sought to counter the evil—some tried to get rid of it, others round it: but it is still there, as rampant as ever, apparently with no effect upon it. For one thing, evil was sought to be cured by its opposite, the good, but the good that belongs to the level of consciousness to which evil too belongs. In other words, we tried to deal with the world and treat it with the force of the Mind, even though in some cases, the mind was a high or even the highest spiritual mind. To touch the roots of the malady that extend into our deepest fibres, our most material being, dead inconscience, one must rise to the very source of consciousness, the creative truth-consciousness: the Supermind alone can transform the earth, transfigure the earthly life. In the second place, the past attempts did not all go in vain: they were preparations, the first groundwork, on various levels and in various domains of human life and consciousness where the light infiltrated, to whatever extent it may be, and dungs and forces were shaken and reshuffled to admit of other forces and inspirations; if nothing else, at least the possibility was created.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-72</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nSri Aurobindo\'s aim, we have said, is not an individual fulfilment, however glorious and successful it might be, and not merely the fulfilment of one limb only of the individual however deep and high. Sri Aurobindo embraced the whole man and the whole society. A fulfilled life in society upon earth—the highest and completest life possible, not only possible but inevitable to the human being— that is the work for which he laboured. Man\'s mind and intelligence, his life-energy, his body-form are all taken up, purified of the lower formulation, remoulded into the mode and pattern of the supramental truth-consciousness: he becomes a complete, integral perfect being expressing and embodying in all his limbs and movements the supreme reality made of utter truth and knowledge and power and delight. This being his individual life, his collective or social life too would figure the same pattern. A new society in which men have found their soul and soul function is a harmonious, a unitary body, composed of individuals who by living each one in his self live in all and living in all each one lives in his self. Likewise, an aggregate of such societies—a society of nations, as it is already called somewhat in a prophetic vein,—will also be an inherently harmonious and unified, even an unitary body too, since all these larger units will express through their corporate life each in its own special way the glory and greatness of the Divine Consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIn this global reconstitution of the earth life, Sri Aurobindo gives India a great role—a mighty destiny and a heavy responsibility. For he Considers India as the repository of the spiritual consciousness, the Guardian of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-73</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">Truth, as the Veda says, and in the new age of world unification her national being will act as the spearhead breaking into the old-world formations and signalling the shape of things to come.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-74</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-015_Sri Aurobindo - 1','','publish','closed','open','','015_sri-aurobindo-1','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/015_sri-aurobindo-1/',0,'post','',0),(1624,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>IN THESE FATEFUL DAYS</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>IN THESE FATEFUL DAYS</b></p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nTo destroy is easy; to create, it is difficult.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe vital force destroys in its violence, it is the spirit that creates in its energy of consciousness.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe vital force is easily available to man. The spirit is a far cry.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAnd yet there is no other way out: if man is to be saved, that is the only way left before him.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIf man\'s destiny is to fulfil—fulfil the purpose of creation, he will have to find out the way of the spirit. If in his present mood of perversity, he pursues blindly the urge that has possessed him, he will surely annihilate himself—willingly or unwillingly he will commit <i>hara-kiri.</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nFortunately for man, souls are there yet upon earth who have found the truth, souls that have declared unhesitatingly with the Upanishadic Rishi: &quot;I know this being luminous as the sun beyond all darkness&quot;; and that truth will be out, burst forth and spread abroad. Or in the words of the Biblical son of man: &quot;I am from above.... I am not of this world....I am He....&quot; (St. John.)\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nAnd in the end may it not be that the present ruins and ravages are merely a symptom or a resultant of the pressures that the forces of the new creation are exerting from behind or from above? It is always true, it is a fact that any creation, for that matter, any happening on the material plane is already prepared or pre-figured within or behind in a subtler region. We all know Gita\'s\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-54</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">tremendous vision: &quot;all these have already been slain by Me&quot;—the battle is fought, won or lost in another world beforehand; what we see on the material level are only the debris, <i>disjecta membra, </i>of forms and limbs thrown down from there. Only the sweeping or clearing is being done here for the appearance and establishment of what already has been built up unseen behind the material curtain. Or as it is sometimes given as an illustration or example, the breakage is that of the surface shell due to the pressing emergence of the fully formed living creature within.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nOne creates through one\'s consciousness, not through one\'s hands. A true creation must have at its origin the true consciousness, and a true consciousness has always the power to create invincibly; for consciousness is identified with essential energy. <i>Chit </i>and <i>Tapas </i>are one and the same.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nThe seed of consciousness has to be sown in the field of our being, whether it is the individual or the collective being. How is it to be done? And who is to find the seed? There must be some one or even a few who are the prophets, pioneers or forerunners, who are the appointed missionaries. You or I may be elected as one if we choose to be so.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nA vital force can create, but if it is not supported or inspired by something else, something inner, deeper and higher, the creation can be only an <i>asuric </i>(titanic) or <i>rakshasik </i>(demoniac) or even a <i>pishachic </i>\n(ghoulish) one, not a thing of light and happiness and harmony, but a thing made \nof obscurity and perversion, of pain and suffeing:\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-55</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">we saw in practice something of it—fortunately shortlived—in the Hitlerian or Stalinian regime; a soulless mental or vital or physical being can create but a chaos.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nIn the deluge of Doomsday the Lord himself appears and holds aloft safe the supreme Knowledge, the matrix of a new creation—the divine Ark. Indeed those alone who have souls, who are made of the soul-consciousness, who are in effect, parts and points, centres of the divine Being, will survive and form the nucleus of the new humanity— the rest if they cannot be corrected or converted will naturally be extirpated annihilated or else relegated to a status of barbarism worse than the animal life. But we expect a better fate for mankind.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nToday we call it—à<i> la mani</i>è<i>re </i>Churchill—our finest hour—for it is the hour when we have at our disposal the greatest opportunity to find our soul—even our God.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-56</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-013_In These Fateful Days','','publish','closed','open','','013_in-these-fateful-days','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/013_in-these-fateful-days/',0,'post','',0),(1625,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<html>\n\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=windows-1252\">\n<title>TWO EQUATIONS</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\n\n<div align=\"center\">\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"6\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\n		<tr>\n			<td>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\"><b>TWO EQUATIONS\n</b>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">I\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<i>Einstein\'s equation: </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n</i>E=mc<sup>2</sup>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nthat is, Matter becomes energy when its mass is multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<i>The new equation:</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&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; M=mc<sup>&#8734;\n</sup>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nthat is, Matter is transformed into spiritualised energy (not merely mechanical energy as in Einstein) when its mass is multiplied by consciousness raised to the power of infinity.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">II\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\" style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<i>Buddha\'s equation: </i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\"><i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n</i>D&deg;=0\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nthat is, Desire raised to the power zero is zero=Nirvana.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-52</p>\n<p class=\"footer\"><hr></p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<i>Shankara\'s equation:</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&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;\nD&deg;=I (Sachchidananda) \n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">Note: any quantity raised to the zero power is not zero but I.\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;</p>\n<p class=\"para\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\nEx: x&deg; = x <sup>a - a</sup> = X/X<sup>a</sup> = I.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"footer\">Page-53</p>\n			</td>\n		</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n\n\n\n</html>\n','-012_Two Equations','','publish','closed','open','','012_two-equations','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/012_two-equations/',0,'post','',0),(1626,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','<!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<p class=\"paracenter\">\n<img alt=\"the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - 0001-1.jpg\" src=\"/Nolini/The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo Part - 1/_images/the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - 0001-1.jpg\" style=\" width:258.96pt; height:417.84pt;\"></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">\nTHE  YOGA OF SRI   AUROBINDO</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>\nTHE   YOGA OF SRI   AUROBINDO</b></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"><b>Part One</b></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 MADRAS</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Publishers : </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Sri Aurobindo Library, </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">369 Esplanade, 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></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">First Edition ... 1939 </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Second Edition ... 1944 </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Third Edition    ...      1950</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press </p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Pondicherry</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Printed in \nIndia</p>\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-001_Pre_Content','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-001_pre_content','','','2021-11-23 17:21:52','2021-11-23 17:21:52','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-001_pre_content/',0,'post','',0),(1627,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','<!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_Nature^s Own Yoga.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\">NATURE\'S OWN YOGA \n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\">(1)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo\'s Yoga is in the direct line of Nature\'s own Yoga. Nature has a Yoga\' which she follows unfailingly and inevitably—for it is her innermost law of being. Yoga means, in essence, a change or transformation of consciousness, a heightening and broadening of consciousness which is effected by communion or union or identification with a higher and vaster consciousness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis process of a developing consciousness in Nature is precisely what is known as Evolution. It is the bringing out and fixing of a higher and higher principle of consciousness, hitherto involved and concealed behind the veil, in the earth consciousness as a dynamic factor in Nature\'s manifest working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-10</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe course of evolution has not come to a stop with man and the next stage, Sri Aurobindo says, which Nature envisages and is labouring to bring out and establish is the life now superconscious to us, embodied in a still higher type of created being, that of the superman or god-man. The principle of consciousness which will determine the nature and build of this new being is a spiritual principle beyond the mental principle which man now incarnates: it may be called the Supermind or Gnosis.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFor, till now Mind has been the last, term of the evolutionary consciousness—Mind as developed in man is the highest instrument built up and organised by Nature through which the self-conscious being can express itself. That is why the Buddha said: Mind\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-11</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">is first of all principles, Mind is the highest of all principles: indeed Mind is the constituent of all principles—<i>mano puvvangama dh</i>&#257;<i>mma. </i>The consciousness beyond mind has not yet been made a patent and dynamic element in the life upon earth; it has been glimpsed or entered into in varying degrees and modes by saints and seers; it has cast its derivative illuminations in the creative activities of poets and artists, in the finer and nobler urges of heroes and great men of action. But the utmost that has been achieved, the summit reached in that direction, as exampled in spiritual disciplines, involves a withdrawal from the evolutionary cycle, a merging and an absorption into the static status that is altogether beyond it, that lies, as it were, at the other extreme—the Spirit in itself, Atman, Brahman, Sachchidananda, Nirvana, the One without a second, the Zero without a first.</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe first contact that one has with this static supra-reality is through the higher ranges of the mind : a direct and closer communion is established through a plane which is just\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-12</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">above the mind—the Overmind, as Sri Aurobindo calls it. The Overmind dissolves or transcends the ego-consciousness which limits the being to its individualised formation bounded by an outward and narrow frame or sheath of mind, life and body ; it reveals the universal Self and Spirit, the cosmic godhead and its myriad forces throwing up myriad forms; the world-existence there appears as a play of ever-shifting veils upon the face of one ineffable reality, as a mysterious cycle of perpetual creation and distruction—it is the overwhelming vision given by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita. At the same time, the initial and most intense experience which this cosmic consciousness brings is the extreme relativity, contingency and transitoriness of the whole flux, and a necessity seems logically and psychologically imperative to escape into the abiding substratum, the ineffable Absoluteness.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis has been the highest consummation, the supreme goal which the purest spiritual experience and the deepest aspiration of the human consciousness generally sought to attain.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-13</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">But in this view, the world or creation or Nature came in the end to be looked upon as fundamentally a product of Ignorance : ignorance and suffering and incapacity and death were declared to be the very hall-mark of things terrestrial. The Light that dwells above and beyond can be made to shed for a while some kind of lustre upon the mortal darkness but never altogether to remove or change it—to live in the full light, to be in and of the Light means to pass beyond. Not that there have not been other strands and types of spiritual experiences and aspirations, but the one we are considering has always struck the major chord and dominated and drowned all the rest.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nBut the initial illusory consciousness of the Overmind need not at all lead to the static Brahmic consciousness or Sunyam alone. As a matter of fact, there is in this particular processus of consciousness a hiatus between the two, between Maya and Brahman, as though one has to leap from, the one into the other <i>somehow. </i>\nThis hiatus is filled up in Sri Aurobindo\'s Yoga by the principle of Supermind,</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-14</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">not synthetic-analytic<sup>1</sup> in knowledge like Overmind and the highest mental intelligence, but unescapably unitarian even in the utmost diversity. Supermind is the&quot; Truth-consciousness at once static and dynamic, self-existent and creative: in Supermind the Brahmic consciousness — Sachchidananda — is ever self-aware and ever manifested and embodied in fundamental truth-powers and truth-forms for the play of creation; it is the plane where the One breaks out into the Many and the Many still remain one, being and knowing themselves to be but various self-expressions of the   One ;  it  develops   the\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<sup>1</sup> The Supermind is not merely synthetic. &quot;The Supermind is synthetic only on the lowest spaces of itself, where it has to prepare the principles of Over-mind,—synthesis is necessary only where analysis has taken place, one has dissected everything, put in pieces (analysis), so one has to piece together. But Supermind is unitarian, has never divided up, so it does not need to add and piece together the parts and fragments. It has always held the conscious Many together in the conscious One.&quot;\n</p>\n<p class=\"pararight\">Sri Aurobindo</p>\n	<p class=\"pararight\">\n<br>\n</p><p class=\"pageno\">Page-15</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">spiritual archetypes, the divine names and forms of all individualisations of an evolving existence.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Upanishads speak of a solar and a lunar Path in the spiritual consciousness. Perhaps they have some reference to these two lines—one through the Mayic consciousness of the Overmind enters into the static Bliss, ecstatic Nihil, and the other mounts still farther to the solar status which is a mass, a sea, an infinity of that light and ecstasy but which can at the same time express and embody itself as the creative Truth-consciousness (<i>surya savitri).</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn the Supermind things exist in their perfect spiritual reality; each is consciously the divine reality in its transcendent essence, its cosmic extension, its spiritual individuality; the diversity of a manifested existence is there, but the mutually exclusive separativeness has not yet arisen. The ego, the knot of separativity, appears at a later and lower stage of involution ; what is here is indivisible nexus of individualising centres of the one eternal truth of being. Where Supermind and Overmind</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-16</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">meet, one can see the multiple godheads, each distinct in his own truth and beauty and power and yet all together forming the one supreme consciousness infinitely composite and inalienably integral. But stepping back into Supermind one sees something more— Oneness gathering into itself all diversity, not destroying it, but annulling and forbidding the separative consciousness that is the beginning of Ignorance. The first shadow of the Illusory Consciousness, the initial possibility of the movement of Ignorance comes in when the supramental light enters the penumbra of the mental sphere. The movement of Supermind is the movement of light without obscurity, straight, unwavering, unswerving, absolute. The Force here contains and holds in their oneness of Reality the manifold but not separated lines of essential and unalloyed truth: its march is the inevitable progression of each one assured truth entering into and upholding every other and therefore its creation, play or action admits of no trial or stumble or groping or deviation; for each truth rests on all others and on that which harmonises them\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-17</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">all and does not act as a Power diverging from and even competing with other Powers of being. In the Overmind commences the play of divergent possibilities—the simple, direct, united and absolute certainties of the supra-mental consciousness retire, as it were, a step behind and begin to work themselves out through the interaction first of separately individualised and then of contrary and contradictory forces. In the Overmind there is a conscious underlying Unity but yet each Power, Truth, Aspect of that Unity is encouraged to work out its possibilities as if it were sufficient to itself and the others are used by it for its own enhancement—until in the denser and darker reaches below Overmind this turns out a thing of blind conflict and battle and, as it would appear, of chance survival. Creation or manifestation originally means the concretisation or devolution of the powers of Conscious Being into a play of united diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-18</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling, the gradual disclosure and deliverance of the Spirit, the ascension and revelation of the involved consciousness through a series of awakenings — Matter awakening into life, life awakening into mind and mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the mind, into a power of conscious Spirit.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescience—of Involution—has been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic Time-Space the splendours of the timeless Reality. The material body came into existence bringing with it inevitably, as it seemed, mortality; it appeared even to be fashioned out of mortality, in order that in this very frame and field of mortality, Immortality, the eternal Spirit Consciousness which\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-19</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">is the secret truth and reality in Time itself as well as behind it, might be established and that the Divine might be possessed, or rather, possess itself not in one unvarying mode of the static consciousness, as it does even now behind the cosmic play, but in the play itself and in the multiple mode of the terrestrial existence.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(2)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe secret of evolution, I have said, is an urge towards the release and unfoldment of consciousness out of an apparent unconsciousness. In the early stages the movement is very slow and gradual; there it is Nature\'s original unconscious process. In man it acquires the possiblity of a conscious and therefore swifter and concentrated process. And this is in fact the function of Yoga proper, viz., to bring about the evolution of consciousness by hastening the process of Nature through the self-conscious will of man.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAn organ in the human being has been especially developed to become the effective\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-20</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">instrument of this accelerated Yogic process— the self-consciousness which I \nreferred to as being the distinctive characteristic of man is a function of this organ. It is his soul, his &quot;psychic being&quot;; originally it is the spark of the Divine Consciousness which came down and became involved in Matter and has been endeavouring since to release itself through the upward march of evolution. It is this which presses on continually as the stimulus to the evolutionary movement; and in man it has attained sufficient growth and power and has come so far to the front from behind the veil that it can now lead and mould his external consciousness. It is also the channel through which the Divine Consciousness can flow down into the inferior levels of human nature. It is the &quot;being no bigger than the thumb ever seated within the heart&quot;, spoken of in the Upanishads. It is likewise the basis of true individuality and personal identity. It is again the reflection or expression in evolutionary Nature of one\'s essential self—<i>jiv</i>&#257;<i>tman—</i>that is above, an eternal portion of the Divine, one with the Divine and yet not dissolved and lost in it. The psychic</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-21</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">being is thus on the one hand in direct contact with the Divine and the higher consciousness, and on the other it is the secret upholder and controller <i>(bhart</i>&#257;<i>, antary</i>&#257;<i>min) </i>\nof the inferior consciousness, the hidden \nnucleus round which the body and the life and the mind of the individual are \nbuilt up and organised.</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter.\n</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-22</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness— which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness—in a word, its divinisation.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis then is the secret of, not the renunciation and annulment, but the transformation of the ordinary human nature:-—fifst of all, its <i>psychicisation, </i>that is to say, making it move and live and be in communion and identification with the light of the psychic being, and, secondly, through the soul and the ensouled mind and life and body, to open out into the supramental consciousness and let it come down here below and work and achieve.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe soul or the true being in man uplifted in the supramental consciousness and at the same time coming forward to possess a divinsed mind and life and body as an instrument and channel of its self-expression and an embodiment of the Divine Will and Purpose—such is the goal  that Nature\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-23</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nseeking to realise at present through her evolutionary <i>elan. </i>\nIt is to this \nlabour that man has been called so that in and through him the destined \ntranscendence and transformation can take place.</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not easy, however, nor is it necessary for the moment to envisage in detail what this divinised man would be like, externally— his mode of outward being and living, <i>kim asita vrajeta kim, </i>as Arjuna queried—or how the collective life of the new humanity would function or what would be the composition of its social fabric. For what is happening is a living process, an organic growth; it is being-elaborated through the actions and reactions of multitudinous forces and conditions, known and unknown; the precise configuration of the final outcome cannot be predicted with exactitude. But the Power that is at work is omniscient; it is selecting, rejecting, correcting, fashioning, creating, co-ordinating elements in accordance with and by the drive of the inviolable law of Truth and Harmony that reigns in Light\'s &quot;own home&quot;—<i>swe dame</i>—the Supermind.</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-24</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is also to be noted that as mind is not the last limit of the march of evolution, even so the progress of evolution will not stop with the manifestation and embodiment of the Supermind. There are other still higher principles beyond and they too presumably await manifestation and embodiment on earth. Creation has no beginning in time <i>(an</i>&#257;<i>di) </i>nor has it an end (<i>ananta). </i>It is an eternal process of the unravelling of the mysteries of the Infinite. Only, it may be said that with the Supermind the creation here enters into a different order of existence. Before it there was the domain of Ignorance, after it will come the reign of Light and Knowledge. Mortality has been the governing principle of life on earth till now; it will be replaced by the consciousness of immortality. Evolution has proceeded through struggle and pain; hereafter it will be a spontaneous, harmonious and happy flowering.</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, with regard to the time that the present stage of evolution is likely to take for its fulfilment, one can presume that since or if the specific urge and stress has manifested\n</p>\n<p class=\"pageno\">Page-25</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">and come up to the front, this very fact would show that the problem has become a problem of actuality, and even that it can be  dealt with as if it had to be solved now or never. We have said that in man, with man\'s self-consciousness or the consciousness of the psychic being as the instrument, evolution has attained the capacity of a swift and concentrated process, wich is the process of Yoga ; the process will become swifter and more concentrated, the more that instrument grows and gathers power and is infused with the divine afflatus. In fact, evolution has   been such a process of gradual acceleration in tempo from the very beginning. The earliest stage, for example, the stage of dead Matter, of the play of the mere chemical force was a very, very long one ; it took millions and millions of years to come to the point when the manifestation of life became possible. But the period of elementary life, as manifested in the plant world that followed, although it too lasted a good many millions of years, was much briefer than the preceding period—it ended with the advent of the first animal form. The age of animal\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-26</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">life, again, has been very much shorter than that of the plant life before man came upon earth. And man is already more than a million or two years old—it is fully time that a higher order of being should be created out of him.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-27</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-003_Nature\'s Own Yoga','','publish','closed','open','','003_natures-own-yoga','','','2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/003_natures-own-yoga/',0,'post','',0),(1628,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','<!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_Sri Aurobindo and His ^School^.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</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SRI AUROBINDO AND HIS \' SCHOOL\'\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">ACONSIDERABLE amount of vague misunderstanding and misapprehension seems to exist in the minds of a certain section of our people as to what Sri Aurobindo is doing in his retirement at Pondicherry. On the other hand, a very precise exposition, an exact formula of what he is not doing has been curiously furnished by a well-known patriot in his indictment of what he chooses to call the &quot;Pondicherry School&quot; of contemplation. But he has arrived at this formula by &quot;openly and fearlessly&quot; affirming what does not exist; for the things that Sri Aurobindo is accused of doing are just the things that he is not doing. In the first place, Sri Aurobindo is not doing &quot;peaceful contemplation&quot;; in the second place, he is not doing active propaganda either; in the third place, he is not doing <i>pr</i>&#257;<i>n</i>&#257;<i>y</i>&#257;<i>ma </i>or\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-28</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">even <i>dhy</i>&#257;<i>na </i>in the ordinary sense of the word; and, lastly, he is not proclaiming or following the maxim that &quot;although action may be tolerated as good, his particular brand of Yoga is something higher and better.&quot;\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEvidently the eminent politician and his school of activism are labouring under a Himalayan confusion: when they speak of Sri Aurobindo, they really have in their mind some of the old schools of spiritual discipline. But one of the marked aspects of Sri Aurobindo\'s teaching and practice has been precisely his insistence on putting aside the inert and life-shunning quietism, illusionism, asceticism and monasticism of a latter day and decadent India. These ideals are perhaps as much obstacles in his way as in the way of the activistic school. Only Sri Aurobindo has not had the temerity to say that &quot;it is a weakness to seek refuge in contemplation&quot; or to suggest that a Buddha was a weakling or a Shankara a poltroon.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis much as regards what Sri Aurobindo is not doing; let us now turn and try to understand what he is doing. The distinguished\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-29</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">man of action speaks of conquering Nature and fighting her. Adopting this war-like imagery, we can affirm that Sri Aurobindo\'s work is just such a battle and conquest. But the question is, what is &quot;nature&quot; and what is the kind of conquest that is sought, how are we to fight and what are the required arms and implements? A good general should foresee all this, frame his plan of campaign accordingly and then only take the field. The above mentioned leader proposes &quot;ceaseless and unselfish action&quot; as the way to fight and conquer Nature. He who speaks thus does not know and cannot mean what he says.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nEuropean science is conquering Nature in a way. It has attained to a certain kind and measure, in some fields a great measure, of control and conquest; but however great or striking it may be in its own province, it does not touch man in his more intimate reality and does not bring about any true change in his destiny or his being. For the most vital part of nature is the region of the life-forces, the powers of disease and age and death, of strife and greed and lust—all the instincts of\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-30</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">the brute in man, all the dark aboriginal forces, the forces of ignorance that form the very-groundwork of man\'s nature and his society. And then, as we rise next to the world of the mind, we find a twilight region where falsehood masquerades as truth, where prejudices move as realities, where notions rule as ideals.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower <i>dharma, </i>imperfect mode of life— the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even a hair\'s breadth away from the path that it has chalked out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and re-shuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To  displace earth (and to conquer nature\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-31</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo does not preach flight from life and a retreat into the silent and passive Infinite; the goal of life is not, in his view, the extinction of life. Neither is he satisfied on that account to hold that life is best lived in the ordinary round of its un-regenerate dharma. If the first is a blind alley, the second is a vicious circle,—both lead nowhere.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo\'s Sadhana starts from the perception of a Power that is beyond the ordinary nature yet is its inevitable master, a fulcrum, as we have said, outside the earth. For what is required first is the discovery and manifestation of a new soul-consciousness in man which will bring about by the very pressure and working out of its self-rule an absolute reversal of man\'s nature. It is the Asuras who are now holding sway over humanity, for man has allowed himself so long to be built in the image of the Asura; to dislodge  the Asuras,  the  Gods  in their\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-32</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">sovereign might have to \n	be forged in the human being and brought into play. \n	It is a \n	stupendous task, some would say impossible; but it is very far \n	removed from quietism or passivism. Sri Aurobindo is in retirement, \n	but it is a retirement only from the outward field of present \n	physical activities and their apparent actualities, not from the \n	true forces and action of life. It is the retreat necessary to one \n	who has to go back into himself to conquer a new plane of creative \n	power,— an entrance right into \n	the world of basic forces, of fundamental realities, into the \n	flaming heart of things where all actualities are born and take \n	their first shape. It is the discovery of a power-house of \n	tremendous energism and of the means of putting it at the service of \n	earthly life.</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnd, properly speaking, it is not at all a school, least of all a mere &quot;school of thought&quot;, that is growing round Sri Aurobindo. It is rather the nucleus of a new life that is to come. Quite naturally it has almost insignificant proportions at present to the outward eye,\nfor the work is still of the nature of experiment \nand trial in very restricted limits, something</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-33</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">in the nature of what is done in a laboratory\nwhen a new power has been discovered, but has still to be perfectly formulated in its process. And it is quite a mistake to suppose that there is a vigorous propaganda carried on in its behalf or that there is a large demand for recruits. Only the few, who possess the call within and are impelled by the spirit of the future, have a chance of serving this high attempt and great realisation and standing among its first instruments and pioneer workers.\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-34</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-004_Sri Aurobindo and His School','','publish','closed','open','','004_sri-aurobindo-and-his-school','','','2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/004_sri-aurobindo-and-his-school/',0,'post','',0),(1629,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','<!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<p class=\"paracenter\">THE   YOGA OF SRI   AUROBINDO</p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">Part One</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\"><a href=\"the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-001_Pre_Content\">Pre-Content</a></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<div align=\"center\">\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\"><a href=\"-002_A-Yoga-of-The-Art-of-Life\">A Yoga of the Art of Life</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-003_Natures-Own-Yoga\">Nature\'s own Yoga</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n	<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-004_Sri-Aurobindo-and-His-School\">Sri Aurobindo and His \'School\'</a></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n	<td width=\"45%\"></td>\n	<td>\n<p class=\"para\"><a href=\"-005_Sri-Aurobindos-Gita\">Sri Aurobindo\'s Gita</a></p></td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-00_Contents','','publish','closed','open','','the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-00_contents','','','2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/the-yoga-of-sri-aurobindo-part-1-00_contents/',0,'post','',0),(1630,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','<!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_A Yoga of The Art of Life.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\">A YOGA OF THE ART OF LIFE\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(1)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nWHEN Sri Aurobindo said, &quot;Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity,&quot; many heaved a sigh <i>of </i>relief and thought that the great soul was after all not entirely lost to the world, his was hot one more name added to the long list of Sannyasins that India has been producing age after age without much profit either to herself or to the human society (or even perhaps to their own selves). People understood his Yoga to be a modern one, dedicated to the service of humanity. If service to humanity was not the very sum and substance of his spirituality, it was, at least, the fruitful end and consummation. His Yoga was a sort of art to explore and harness certain unseen powers that can better and ameliorate human life in a more\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-1</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">successful way than mere rational scientific methods can hope to do.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo saw that the very core of his teaching was being missed by this common interpretation of his saying. So he changed his words and said, &quot;Our Yoga is not for humanity but for the Divine.&quot; But I am afraid this change of front, this <i>volte-face, </i>as it seemed, was not welcomed in many quarters; for thereby all hope of having him back for the work of the country or the world appeared to be totally lost and he came to be, looked upon again as an irrevocable &quot;metaphysical&quot; dreamer, aloof from physical things and barren, even like the Immutable Brahman.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(2)\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIn order to get a nearer approach to the ideal for which Sri Aurobindo is labouring, we may combine with advantage the two mottoes he has given us and say that his mission is to find and express the Divine in humanity. This is the service he means to render to humanity, viz., to manifest and\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-2</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">embody in it the Divine: his goal is not merely an amelioration, but a total change and transformation, the divinisation of human life.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere also one must guard against certain misconceptions that are likely to occur. The transformation of human life does not necessarily mean that the entire humanity will be changed into a race of gods or divine beings; it means the evolution or appearance on earth of a superior type of humanity, even as man evolved out of animality as a superior type of animality, not that the entire animal kingdom was changed into humanity.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs regards the possibility of such a consummation,—Sri Aurobindo says it is not a possibility but an inevitability—one must remember that the force that will bring about the result and is already at work is not any individual human power, however great it may be, but the Divine himself, it is the Divine\'s own Shakti that is labouring for the destined end.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nHere is the very heart of the mystery, the master-key to the problem. The advent of the superhuman or divine race, however stupendous\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-3</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">or miraculous the phenomenon may appear to be, can become a thing of practical actuality, precisely because it is no human agency that has undertaken it but the Divine himself in his supreme potency and wisdom and love. The descent of the Divine into the ordinary human nature in order to purify and transform it and be lodged there is the whole secret of the sadhana in Sri Aurobindo\'s Yoga. The sadhaka has only to be quiet and silent, calmly aspiring, open and acquiescent and receptive to the one Force; he need not and should not try to do things by his independent personal effort, but get them done or let them be done for him in the dedicated consciousness by the Divine Master and Guide. All other Yogas or spiritual disciplines in the past envisaged ah ascent of the consciousness, its sublimation into the consciousness of the Spirit and its fusion and dissolution there in the end. The descent of the Divine Consciousness to prepare its definitive home in the dynamic and pragmatic human nature, if considered at all, was not the main theme of the past efforts and achievements. Furthermore, the descent\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-4</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">spoken of here is the descent, not of a divine consciousness—for there are many varieties of divine consciousness—but of the Divine\'s own consciousness, of the Divine himself with his Shakti. For it is that that is directly working out this evolutionary transformation of the age.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nIt is not my purpose here to enter into details as to the exact meaning of the descent, how it happens and what are its lines of activity and the results brought about. For it is indeed an actual descent that happens: the Divine Light leans down first into the mind and begins its purificatory work there— although it is always the inner heart which first recognises the Divine Presence and gives its assent to the Divine action—for the mind, the higher mind that is to say, is the summit of the ordinary human consciousness and receives more easily and readily the Radiances that descend. From the Mind the Light filters into the denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-5</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storied edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate.</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAnother question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some astronomical distance in future, like the cooling of the sun, as someone has suggested for an analogy. In view of the magnitude of the work one might with reason say that the whole eternity is there before us, and a century or even a millennium should not be grudged to such a labour—for it is nothing less than an undoing of untold millenniums in the past and the building of a far-flung futurity. However, as we have said, since it is the Divine\'s own\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-6</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">work and since Yoga means a concentrated and involved process of action, effectuating in a minute what would perhaps take years to accomplish in the natural course, one can expect the work to be done sooner rather than later. Indeed, the ideal is one of <i>here </i>and <i>now</i>—here upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very body—not hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nAs to the extent of realisation, we say again that that is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the substance that counts. Even if it were a small nucleus it would be sufficient, at least for the beginning, provided it is the real;- the genuine thing—\n</p>\n	<br>\n	<p class=\"para\"><i>Swalpamapyasya dharmasya trayate mahato bhayat.</i>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nNow, if it is asked what is the proof of it all, how can one be sure that one is not running after a mirage, a chimera? We can\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-7</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">only answer with the adage, the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">(3)\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nI have a word to add finaly in justification of the title of this essay. For, it may be asked, how can sprituality be considered as one of the Arts or given an honourable place in their domain ?\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nFrom a certain point of view, from the point of view of essentials and inner realities, it would appear that spirituality is, at least, the basis of the arts, if not the highest art. If art is meant to express the soul of things, and since the true soul of things is the divine element in them, then certainly spirituality, the discipline of coming in conscious contact with the Spirit, the Divine, must be accorded the regal seat in the hierarchy of the arts. Also, spirituality is the greatest and the most difficult of the arts; for it is the art of life. To make of life a perfect work of beauty, pure in its lines, faultless in its rhythm, replete with strength, iridescent with light, vibrant with delight—an\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-8</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">embodiment of the Divine, in a word—is the highest ideal of spirituality; viewed as such, spirituality—the spirituality that Sri Aurobindo practises—is the <i>ne plus ultra </i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-9</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-002_A Yoga of The Art of Life','','publish','closed','open','','002_a-yoga-of-the-art-of-life','','','2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/002_a-yoga-of-the-art-of-life/',0,'post','',0),(1631,1,'2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','<!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_Sri Aurobindo^s Gita.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</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"paracenter\">SRI AUROBINDO\'S GITA\n</p>\n	<p class=\"paracenter\"></p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTHE supreme secret of the Gita, <i>rahasyam uttamam, </i>has presented itself to diverse minds in diverse forms. All these however fall, roughly speaking, into two broad groups of which one may be termed the <i>orthodox </i>school and the other the <i>modern </i>school. The orthodox school as represented, for example, by Shankara or Sridhara, viewed the Gita in the light of the spiritual discipline more or less current in those ages, when the purpose of life was held out to be <i>emancipation </i>from life, whether through desireless work or knowledge or devotion or even a combination of the three. The Modern School, on the other hand, represented by Bankim in Bengal and more thoroughly developed and systematised in recent times by Tilak, is inspired by its own Time-Spirit and finds in the Gita a gospel of life-fulfilment. The older interpretation laid\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-35</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">stress upon a spiritual and religious, which meant therefore in the end an <i>other-worldly </i>discipline; the newer interpretation seeks to dynamise the more or less quietistic spirituality which held the ground in India of later ages, to set a premium upon action, upon duty that is to be done in our work-a-day life, though with a spiritual intent and motive.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThis neo-spirituality which might claim its sanction and authority from the real old-world Indian discipline—say, of Janaka and Yajnavalkya—labours, however, in reality, under the influence of European <i>activism </i>and <i>ethicism. </i>It was this which served as the immediate incentive to our spiritual revival and revaluation and its impress has not been thoroughly obliterated even in the best of our modern exponents. The bias of the vital urge and of the moral imperative is apparent enough in the modernist conception of a dynamic spirituality. Fundamentally the dynamism is made to reside in the <i>elan </i>of the ethical man,—the spiritual element, as a consciousness of supreme unity in the Absolute (Brahman) or of love and delight in God, serving\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-36</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">only as an atmosphere for the mortal activity.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nSri Aurobindo has raised action completely out of the mental and moral plane and has given it an absolute spiritual life. Action has been spiritualised by being carried back to its very source and origin, for it is the expression in life of God\'s own Consciousness-Energy (Chit-shakti).\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Supreme Spirit, Purushottama, who holds in himself the dual reality of Brahman and the world, is the master of action, who acts but in actionlessness, the Lord in whom and through whom the universes and their creatures live and move and have their being. Karmayoga is union in mind and soul and body with the Lord of action in the execution of his cosmic purpose. And this union is effected through a transformation of the human nature, through the revelation of the Divine Prakriti and its descent upon and possession of the inferior human vehicle.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nArrived so far, we now find, if we look back, a change in the whole perspective. Karma and even Karmayoga, which hitherto seemed to be the pivot of the Gita\'s teaching,\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-37</p>\n<hr>\n	<p class=\"para\">retire somewhat into the background and present a diminished stature and value. The centre of gravity has shifted to the conception of the Divine Nature, to the Lord\'s own status, to the consciousness above the three Gunas, to absolute consecration of each limb of man\'s humanity to the Supreme Purusha for his descent and incarnation and play in and upon this human world.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe higher secret of the Gita lies really in the later chapters, the earlier chapters being a preparation and passage to it or partial and practical application. This has to be pointed out, since there is a notion current which seeks to limit the Gita\'s effective teaching to the earlier part, neglecting or even discarding the later portion.\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe style and manner of Sri Aurobindo\'s interpretation is also supremely characteristic: it does not carry the impress of a mere metaphysical dissertation—although in matter it clothes throughout a profound philosophy; it is throbbing with the luminous life of a prophet\'s message, it is instinct with something of the Gita\'s own <i>mantrashakti.</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-38</p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"para\">\n<u><i>Works by the Author</i> </u>\n</p>\n	<br>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Yoga of Sri Aurobindo <i>(in five parts)</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Coming Race\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTowards a New Society\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Malady of the Century\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe Approach to Mysticism\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nThe World War (1939-45)—Its Inner Bearings\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTowards the Light <i>(Aphorisms)</i>\n</p>\n<p class=\"para\">\nTowards the Heights <i>(Prose Poems)</i>\n</p>\n<br><p class=\"pageno\">Page-39</p>\n	</td>\n</tr>\n	</table>\n</div>\n</html>\n','-005_Sri Aurobindo\'s Gita','','publish','closed','open','','005_sri-aurobindos-gita','','','2021-11-23 17:21:53','2021-11-23 17:21:53','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/005_sri-aurobindos-gita/',0,'post','',0),(1632,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:57','2021-11-23 17:57:57','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040209;18484400\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040218;1230900\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">There\'s\r\na Divinity</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.06cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=2><I>There\'s a Divinity that shapes our ends,</I></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.06cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=2><I>Rough-hew them how we will. </I>*</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.06cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>That is what man can do at his best, and even at his\r\nworst, <I>rough-hew. </I>Ignorant as he is, crude as his instruments\r\nare, he can do no better (and happily, no worse either). The ideals\r\nhe has do not go very far, not much beyond his nose – they are\r\nlimited by his senses, by his notions, by his immediate reactions to\r\nthe circumstances of the moment. Even when the ends are commendable,\r\nthe purposes decent, even when he is happily inspired, the materials\r\nand means at his disposal are crude and he uses them in a rough and\r\nready manner. What he can achieve in this direction is not even a\r\nnear but a very far approximate. And w hen he is otherwise inspired,\r\nwhen suggestions and impulsions come to him from the Hostiles, well,\r\nhe hews his way, as Hitler did – and some others are doing now –\r\nto wrong ends; even there he does not succeed wholly, realises his\r\ndesign very partially, <I>grosso modo. </I>The stone club in the hand\r\nof the palaeolithic man and the atom bomb in the hand of the modern\r\nare equally rough instruments, and the ends which they serve, whether\r\nfor good or for evil, are also gross, neither far-visioned nor deep\r\ninspired, but superficial, strait and narrow, blindly immediate. In\r\neither case, however, the Divine remains unaffected, firmly seated\r\nbehind and in and through both, in and through their ignorant and\r\nperverse wills, it is His Will that works itself out and finds\r\nfulfilment in the end. Whether one is for or against the Divine,\r\nwhether one is a God or an Asura, each in his own way contributes to\r\nthe progressive realisation of</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=2>-------------------------------</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=2>* <I>Hamlet, </I>Act v, Sc. ii</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 386</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>the\r\nCosmic Purpose. From a certain point of view even it may seem as\r\nthough nothing helps or hinders, all are like a straw in a rushing\r\ncurrent.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In our human reckoning, we seem to help the evolutionary\r\ncourse sometimes and sometimes hamper it with our efforts in so far\r\nas they are well directed or ill directed. In the practice of\r\nspiritual life too, one may be tempted to find a measurable\r\nproportion between the personal endeavour and the attainment. However\r\nthat may be, at the end of all human efforts, the finishing touch\r\nalways comes from the Divine Grace. Whether we succeed or fail,\r\nwhatever be the human judgment of the situation, the Grace is sure to\r\nintervene in the final stage: to success it will bring more success\r\ngiving it the peak of fulfilment, and failure too it will transmute\r\ninto a glorious triumph.</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.4cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 387</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-78_There_s a Divinity','','publish','closed','open','','78_there_s-a-divinity','','','2021-11-23 17:57:57','2021-11-23 17:57:57','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/78_there_s-a-divinity/',0,'post','',0),(1633,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:57','2021-11-23 17:57:57','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040107;18002500\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040216;22194500\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin-left: 1.06cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">The Basis of Unity</font></b></p>\r\n			<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"font-style:normal; text-indent:0.34cm; page-break-after:avoid; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3><b>I</b></FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"font-style:normal; text-indent:0.34cm; page-break-after:avoid; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A MODERN society or people cannot have religion, that is\r\nto say, credal religion, as the basis of its organized collective\r\nlife. I t was mediaeval society and people that were organized on\r\nthat line. Indeed mediaevalism means nothing more – and nothing\r\nless – than that. But whatever the need and justification in the\r\npast, the principle is an anachronism under modern conditions. It was\r\nneeded, perhaps, to keep alive a truth which goes into the very roots\r\nof human life and its deepest aspira&shy;tion; and it was needed also\r\nfor a dynamic application of that truth on a larger scale and in\r\nsmaller details, on the mass of mankind and in its day to day life.\r\nThat was the aim of the Church Militant and the Khilafat; that was\r\nthe spirit, although in a more Sattwic way, behind the Buddhistic\r\nevan&shy;gelism or even Hindu colonization.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration\r\ntowards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that\r\ngives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the\r\nexistence lodged in this \'sphere of sorrow\' here below. Credal\r\nparaphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of\r\nspiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain\r\nlevel of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of\r\ndevelopment in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely\r\nbecause it had attained to a necessary extent this mental\r\nenlightenment and this life development. So the scheme or scaffolding\r\nthat was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have\r\neither no reality at all or only a modified utility.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A modern people is a composite entity, especially with</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 51</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>regard\r\nto its religious affiliation. Not religion, but culture is the basis\r\nof modern collective life, national or social. Culture includes in\r\nits grain that fineness of temperament which appreciates all truths\r\nbehind all forms, even when there is a personal allegiance to one\r\nparticular form.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In India, it is well known, the diversity of\r\naffiliations is colossal, <I>sui generis. </I>Two major affiliations\r\nhave today almost cut the country into two; and desperate remedies\r\nare suggested which are worse than the malady itself, as they may\r\nkill the patient outright. If it is so, it is, I repeat, the\r\nmediaeval spirit that is at:, the bottom of the trouble.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The rise of this spirit in modern times and conditions\r\nis a phenomenon that has to be explained and faced: it is a ghost\r\nthat has come out of the\' past and has got to be laid and laid for\r\ngood. First of all, it is a reaction from modernism; it is a reaction\r\nfrom the modernist denial of certain fundamental and eternal truths,\r\nof God, soul, and immortality: it is a reaction from the modernist\r\naffirmation of the mere economic man. And it is also a defensive\r\ngesture of a particular complex of consciousness that has grown and\r\nlives powerfully and now apprehends expurgation and elimination.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In Europe such a contingency did not arise, because the\r\nreligious spirit, rampant in the days of Inquisitions and St.\r\nBartholomews, died away: it died, and (or, because) it was replaced\r\nby a spirit that was felt as being equally, if not more, authentic\r\nand, which for the moment, suffused the whole consciousness with a\r\nlarge and high afflatus, commensurate with the amplitude of man\'s\r\naspiration. I refer, of course, to the spirit of the Renaissance. It\r\nwas a spirit profane and secular, no doubt, but on that level it\r\nbrought a catholicity of temper and a richness in varied interest –\r\na humanistic culture, as it is called – which constituted a living\r\nand unifying ideal for Europe. That spirit culminated in the great\r\nFrench Revolution which was the final <I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\">coup\r\n</FONT>de grace </I>to all that still remained of mediaevalism, even\r\nin its outer structure, political and economical. </FONT>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In India the spirit of renascence came very late, late\r\nalmost by three centuries; and even then it could not flood the whole\r\nof the continent in all its nooks and corners, psychological and\r\nphysical. There were any number of pockets (to use a current</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 52</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>military\r\nphrase) left behind which guarded the spirit of the past and offered\r\npersistent and obdurate resistance. Perhaps, such a dispensation was\r\nneeded in India and inevitable also; inevitable, because the\r\nreligious spirit is closest to India\'s soul and is its most direct\r\nexpression and cannot be uprooted so easily; needed, because India\'s\r\nand the world\'s future demands it and depends upon it.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Only, the religious spirit has to be bathed and purified\r\nand enlightened by the spirit of the renascence: that is to say, one\r\nmust learn and understand and realize that Spirit is the thing –\r\nthe one thing needful – </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 face=\"Times New Roman Baltic,serif\"><I>Tamevaikam\r\njÄnatha</I></FONT><FONT SIZE=3><I><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman Baltic, serif\">; </FONT></I>\'religions\' are its names and forms, appliances\r\nand decorations. Let us have by all means the religious spirit, the\r\nfundamental experience that is the inmost truth of all religions,\r\nthat is the matter of our soul; but in our mind and life and body let\r\nthere be a luminous catholicity, let these organs and instruments be\r\ntrained to see and compare and appreciate the variety, the numberless\r\nfacets which the one Spirit naturally presents to the human\r\nconsciousness. </FONT><FONT SIZE=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><I>Ekam sat</I></FONT><FONT SIZE=3 face=\"Times New Roman,serif\"><I>\r\nviprÄh bahudhÄ vadanti.</I></FONT><FONT SIZE=3><I><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman Baltic, serif\"> </FONT></I>It is an ancient truth that man\r\ndiscovered even in his earliest seekings; but it still awaits an\r\nadequate expression and application in life.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; page-break-after:avoid; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3><B>II</B></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>India\'s historical development is marked by a special\r\ncharacteristic which is at once the expression of her inmost nature\r\nand the setting of a problem which she has to solve for herself and\r\nfor the whole human race. I have spoken of the diversity and\r\ndivergence of affiliations in a modern social unit. But what\r\ndistinguishes India from all other peoples is that the diversity and\r\ndivergence have culminated here in contra&shy;dictoriness and mutual\r\nexclusion.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The first extremes that met in India and fought and\r\ngradually coalesced to form a single cultural and social whole were,\r\nas is well known, the Aryan and the non-Aryan. Indeed, the geologists\r\ntell us, the land itself is divided into two parts structurally quite\r\ndifferent and distinct, the Deccan plateau and the Himalayan ranges\r\nwith the Indo-Gangetic plain: the</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 53</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>former\r\nis formed out of the most ancient and stable and, on the whole,\r\nhorizontally bedded rocks of the earth, while the latter is of\r\ncomparatively recent origin, formed out of a more flexible and weaker\r\nbelt (the Himalayan region consisting of a colossal flexing and\r\ncrumpling of strata). The disparity is so much that a certain group\r\nof geologists hold that the Deccan plateau did not at all form part\r\nof the Asiatic continent, but had drifted and dashed into it: in fact\r\nthe Himalayas are the result of this mighty impact. The usual\r\ndivision of an Aryan and a Dravidian race may be due to a memory of\r\nthe clash of the two continents and their races.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>However, coming to historical times, we see wave after\r\nwave of the most heterogeneous and disparate elements – Sakas and\r\nHuns and Greeks, each bringing its quota of exotic material &shy;enter\r\ninto the oceanic Indian life and culture, lose their separate foreign\r\nidentity and become part and parcel of the common whole. Even so, –\r\na single unitary body was formed out of such varied and shifting\r\nmaterials – not in the political, but in a socio-religious sense.\r\nFor a catholic religious spirit, not being solely doctrinal and\r\npersonal, admitted and embraced in its supple and wide texture almost\r\nan infinite variety of approaches to the Divine, of forms and norms\r\nof apprehending the Beyond. It has been called Hinduism: it is a vast\r\nsynthesis of multiple affiliations. It expresses the characteristic\r\ngenius of India and hence Hinduism and Indianism came to be looked\r\nupon as synonymous terms. And the same could be defined also as Vedic\r\nreligion and culture, for its invariable basis – the bed-rock on\r\nwhich it stood firm and erect – was the Vedas, the Knowledge seen\r\nby the sages. But there had already-risen a voice of dissidence and\r\ndiscord-that of Buddha, not so much, perhaps, of Buddha as of\r\nBuddhism. The Buddhistic enlightenment and discipline did not admit\r\nthe supreme authority of the Vedas; it sought other bases of truth\r\nand reality. It was a great denial; and it meant and worked for a\r\nvital schism. The denial of the Vedas by itself, perhaps, would not\r\nbe serious, but it became so, as it was symptomatic of a deeper\r\ndivergence. Denying the Vedas, the Buddhistic spirit denied life. It\r\nwas quite a new thing in the. Indian consciousness and spiritual\r\ndiscipline. And it left such a stamp there that even today it stands\r\nas the dominant character of</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 54</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>the\r\nIndian outlook. However, India\'s synthetic genius rose to the\r\noccasion and knew how to bridge the chasm, close up the fissure, and\r\npresent again a body whole and entire. Buddha became one of the\r\nAvataras : the discipline of Nirvana and Maya was reserved as the\r\nlast duty to be performed at the end of life, as the culmination of a\r\nfull-length span of action and achievement; the way to Moksha lay\r\nthrough Dharma and Artha and Kama, Sannyasa had to be built upon\r\nBrahmacharya and Garhasthya. The integral ideal was epitomized by\r\nKalidasa in his famous lines about the character of the Raghus:</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"margin-left:1.01cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>They devoted themselves to study in their boyhood, in\r\nyouth they pursued the objects of life; when old they took to\r\nspiritual austerities, and in the end they died united with the\r\nhigher consciousness.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Only this process of integration was not done in a day,\r\nit took some centuries and had to pass through some unpleasant\r\nintermediary stages.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>And still this was not the last – it could not be the\r\nlast – antithesis that had to be synthetized. The dialectical\r\nmovement led to a more serious and fiercer contradiction. The\r\nBuddhistic schism was after all a division brought about from within:\r\nit could be said that the two terms of the antinomy belonged to the\r\nsame genus and were commensurable. The idea or experience of Asat and\r\nMaya was not unknown to the Upanishads, only it had not there the\r\nexclusive stress which the later developments gave it. Hence quite a\r\ndifferent, an altogether foreign body was imported into what was or\r\nhad come to be a homogeneous entity, and in a considerable mass.\r\nUnlike the previous irruptions that merged and were lost in the\r\ngeneral life and consciousness, Islam entered as a leaven that\r\nmaintained its integrity and revolutionized Indian life and culture\r\nby infusing into its tone a Semitic accent. After the Islamic impact\r\nIndia could not be what she was before – a change became inevitable\r\neven in the major note. It<B> </B>was a psychological cataclysm\r\nalmost on a par with the geological one that formed her body; but the\r\nspirit behind which created the body was working automatically,\r\ninexorably towards the </FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 55</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>greater\r\nand more difficult synthesis demanded by the situa&shy;tion. Only the\r\nthing is to be done now consciously, not through an unconscious\r\nprocess of <I>laissez-faire </I>as on the inferior stages of\r\nevolution in the past. And that is the true genesis of the present\r\nconflict.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>History abounds in instances of racial and cultural\r\nim&shy;mixture. Indeed, all major human groupings of today are\r\ninvariably composite formations. Excepting, perhaps, some primitive -\r\naboriginal tribes there are no pure races existent. The Briton, the\r\nDane, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman have combined to form the\r\nBritish; a Frenchman has a Gaul, a Roman, a Frank in him; and a\r\nSpaniard\'s blood would show an Iberian, a Latin, a Gothic, a Moorish\r\nelement in it. And much more than a people, a culture in modern times\r\nhas been a veritable cockpit of multifarious and even incongruous\r\nelements. There are instances also in which a perfect fusion could\r\nnot be accomplished, and one element had to be rejected or crushed\r\nout. The complete disappearance of the Aztecs and Mayas in South\r\nAmerica, the decadence of the Red Indians in North America, of the\r\nNegroes in Africa as a result of a fierce clash with European peoples\r\nand European culture illustrate the point.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Nature, on the whole, has solved the problem of blood\r\nfusion and mental fusion of different peoples, although on a smaller\r\nscale. India today presents the problem on a larger scale and on a\r\nhigher or deeper level. The demand is for a spiritual fusion and\r\nunity. Strange to say, although the Spirit is the true bed-rock of\r\nunity – since, at bottom, it means identity – it is on this plane\r\nthat mankind has not yet been able to really meet and coalesce.\r\nIndia\'s genius has been precisely working in the line of a perfect\r\nsolution of this supreme problem.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Islam comes with a full-fledged spiritual soul and a\r\nmental and vital formation commensurable with that inner being and\r\nconsciousness. It comes with a dynamic spirit, a warrior mood, that\r\naims at conquering the physical world for the Lord, a temperament\r\nwhich Indian spirituality had not, or had lost long before, if she\r\nhad anything of it. This was, perhaps, what Vivekananda meant when he\r\nspoke graphically of a Hindu soul with a Muslim body. The Islamic\r\ndispensation, however, brings with it not only something complementary, </FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 56</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>but also something contradictory, if not for anything else, at least\r\nfor the strong individuality which does not easily yield to\r\nassimilation. Still, in spite of great odds, the process of\r\nassimilation was going on slowly and surely. But of late it appears\r\nto have come to a dead halt; difficulties have been presented which\r\nseem insuperable.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>If religious toleration were enough, if that made up\r\nman\'s highest and largest achievement, then Nature need not have\r\nattempted to go beyond cultural fusion; a liberal culture is the\r\nsurest basis for a catholic religious spirit. But such a spirit of\r\ntoleration and catholicity, although it bespeaks a widened\r\nconsciousness, does not always enshrine a profundity of being. Nobody\r\nis more tolerant and catholic than a dilettante, but an ardent\r\nspiritual soul is different.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>To be loyal to one\'s line of self-fulfilment, to follow\r\none\'s self-law, <I>swadharma, </I>wholly and absolutely – without\r\nthis no spiritual life is possible – and yet not to come into clash\r\nwith other lines and loyalties, nay more, to be in positive harmony\r\nwith them, is a problem which has not been really solved. It was\r\nsolved, perhaps, in the consciousness of a Ramakrishna, a few\r\nindividuals here and there, but it has always remained a source of\r\nconflict and disharmony in the general mind even in the field of\r\nspirituality. The clash of spiritual or religious loyalties has taken\r\nsuch an acute form in India today, they have been carried to the\r\nbitter extreme, in order, we venture to say, that the final synthesis\r\nmight be absolute and irrevocable. This is India\'s mission to \'York\r\nout, and this is the lesson which she brings to the world.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The solution can come, first, by going to the true\r\nreligion of the Spirit, by being truly spiritual and not merely\r\nreligious, for, as we have said, real unity lies only in and through\r\nthe Spirit, since Spirit is one and indivisible; secondly, by\r\nbringing down something – a great part, indeed, if not the whole –\r\nof this puissant and marvellous Spirit into our life of emotions and\r\nsensations and activities.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>If it is said that this is an ideal for the few only,\r\nnot for the mass, our answer to that is the answer of the Gita<I> –\r\nYad yad acharati sreshthah. </I>Let the few then practise and achieve\r\nthe ideal: the mass will have to follow as far as it is possible and\r\nnecessary. It is the very character of the evolutionary system of</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 57</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>Nature,\r\nas expressed in the principle of symbiosis, that any considerable\r\nchange in one place (in one species) is accompanied by a\r\ncorresponding change in the same direction in other contiguous places\r\n(in other associated species) in order that the poise and balance of\r\nthe system may be maintained.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>It is precisely strong nuclei that are needed (even,\r\nperhaps, one strong nucleus is sufficient) where the single and\r\nintegrated spiritual consciousness is an accomplished and established\r\nfact: that acts inevitably as a solvent drawing in and assimilating\r\nor transforming and re-creating as much, of the surroundings as its\r\nown degree and nature of achievement inevitably demand.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>India did not and could not stop at mere cultural fusion\r\n– which was a supreme gift of the Moguls. She did not and could not\r\nstop at another momentous cultural fusion brought about by the\r\nEuropean impact. She aimed at something more. Nature demanded of her\r\nthat she should discover a greater secret of human unity and through\r\nprogressive experiments apply and establish it in fact. Christianity\r\ndid&quot; not raise this problem of the greater synthesis, for the\r\nChristian peoples were more culture-minded than religious-minded. It\r\nwas left for an Asiatic people to set the problem and for India to\r\nwork out the solution.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"center\" STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 58</FONT></P>\r\n<hr align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm;\">\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-11_The Basis of Unity','','publish','closed','open','','11_the-basis-of-unity','','','2021-11-23 17:57:57','2021-11-23 17:57:57','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/11_the-basis-of-unity/',0,'post','',0),(1634,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:57','2021-11-23 17:57:57','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<html xmlns:v=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml\"\r\nxmlns:o=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office\"\r\nxmlns:w=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word\"\r\nxmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40\">\r\n\r\n<head>\r\n<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n<meta name=ProgId content=\r\n<meta name=Generator content=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n<meta name=Originator content=\r\n</head>\r\n\r\n<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue style=\'tab-interval:.5in\' background=\"_Gif_Image/gray01.gif\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<div class=Section1>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:150%\' align=\"center\"><b>\r\n<span lang=EN\r\nstyle=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'><font size=\"4\">Nolini Kanta Gupta – a\r\nbrief life-sketch</font></span></b><span lang=EN\r\nstyle=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'><o:p><font size=\"4\">&nbsp;</font></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'font-size:11.0pt;mso-ansi-language:\r\nEN\'>DREAMER</span><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'> and\r\nrevolutionary, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, philosopher and man of deep\r\nspiritual realisation, Nolini Kanta Gupta stands foremost among the men of this\r\ncentury who are destined to leave their mark on generations to come. Born on 13\r\nJanuary 1889 of a cultured and well-to-do family in Bengal, he came early in\r\nhis teens under the influence of Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary par\r\nexcellence, and \'a mighty prophet of Indian Nationalism\' of the age. Leaving a\r\nbrilliant academic career only half-finished and spurning the lure of a\r\nlucrative position under Government, he joined a small group of brilliant young\r\nmen who working under the inspiration and guidance of Sri Aurobindo in the\r\nearly years of the century became a terror to the British rule and paved the\r\nway for succeeding generations to win the country\'s freedom. After having spent\r\na year in jail as an under-trial prisoner in the historic Alipore Bomb Case, he\r\nwas taken in had by Sri Aurobindo and with him he remained ever since. After\r\nthe Master\'s passing he continued as a Trustee and Secretary of Sri Aurobindo\r\nAshram.<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'>His\r\napprenticeship in writing commenced as a sub-editor of the two journals\r\nconducted by Sri Aurobindo in 1909 and 1910. He was taught Greek, Latin, French\r\nand Italian by the Master himself and the knowledge he acquired then has borne\r\nample fruit during the past half a century of almost incessant writing on a\r\nvariety of themes. He has about 60 books to his credit, of which about 16 are\r\nin English and 44 in Bengali, not to speak of innumerable articles and poems in\r\nEnglish, Bengali and French, scattered in the periodicals of the time. As an\r\nexponent of the revelations of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, he stands supreme.\r\nAnd his interests are as varied as are remarkable the clarity, succinctness,\r\nelegance, and originality of his thought. His early training in Sanskrit\r\nenabling him to cover the wide range of Sanskrit literature up to the Vedic and\r\nUpanishadic lore and in the classical languages of the West has given him a\r\nliterary acumen which he has brilliantly employed in some of his most\r\noutstanding studies in modern and early Bengali literature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'>As a critic of\r\nTagore\'s works, he is recognised as an authority. His originality of thought\r\nand literary talents were recognised and commended by Rabindranath Tagore\r\nhimself. His monograph on the Poet was published on the occasion of his birth\r\ncentenary in 1961.<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'>He is no\r\ninconsiderable a poet in French language and has rendered into English almost\r\nall the talks and writings of the Mother from the original French. He was\r\nequally at home in English and in his mother-tongue Bengali; the latter he\r\nparticularly enriched by some of the most penetrating studies of the import of\r\nrecent explorations of science. He edited two of the most important\r\nperiodicals, in English and Bengali, published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in\r\nPondicherry. He held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Languages at the\r\nSri Aurobindo Centre of Education to which he was a constant inspiration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'>Any life-sketch\r\nof his would be incomplete if no mention was made and proper place given to his\r\nwife Srimati Indulekha Gupta. When Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta left his\r\ngarhasthyajivan for good and joined his master, Sri Aurobindo, at Pondicherry\r\nin 1926, she took over the responsibilities that naturally developed on her and\r\ndischarged them admirably. She resumed her studies in the midst of daily\r\ndomestic chores of a big hoint family and gradually passed all her university\r\nexaminations. She became an able headmistress of a girl\'s school and succeeded\r\nin bringing up her three sons through their school and college education. Her\r\nsons one by one joined the Ashram and in 1947 she also finally joined it, the\r\nplace she had visited with her husband immediately after her marriage in 1921<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'>Nolinida once\r\nmentioned that when he left his purbashram he placed the entire situation and\r\nhis family duties in Sri Aurobindo\'s hands and His Grace indeed took good care\r\nof them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<p style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%\'><span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'>Nolini Kanta\r\nGupta passed away at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on 7 February 1984<o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n<div class=MsoNormal align=center style=\'text-align:center\'>\r\n\r\n<hr size=2 width=\"100%\" align=center>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n<p align=right style=\'margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:0;text-align:right;\r\ntext-indent:29.2pt; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\'>\r\n<span lang=EN style=\'mso-ansi-language:EN\'><a\r\nhref=\"index\"><span style=\'text-decoration:none;text-underline:none\'>\r\n<a href=\"-00_-Content\"><img\r\nborder=0 width=28 height=23 id=\"_x0000_i1028\"\r\nsrc=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\"></a></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>\r\n\r\n</div>\r\n\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n\r\n</body>\r\n\r\n</html>\r\n','-27_Life-sketch','','publish','closed','open','','27_life-sketch','','','2021-11-23 17:57:57','2021-11-23 17:57:57','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/27_life-sketch/',0,'post','',0),(1635,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040110;4412900\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;21523800\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:-0.03cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-weight:700\"><font size=\"4\">The\r\nImmortal Nation</font></span></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>GIBBON\'S <I>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire </I>must\r\nhave been the original source of the inspiration that moved later on\r\nSpengler and Toynbee and others to posit a life-line for nations and\r\nraces and mark its various stages of growth and evolution. The\r\ngeneral theory put in a nutshell would be like this: mankind is\r\ncomposed of groups or aggregates of individuals and each has a\r\nlife-history of its own even like an individual human being, in other\r\nwords, an inescapable cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decline and\r\ndisintegration. All groups – peoples; races, nations – have to\r\npass through these destined stages, although, naturally, at different\r\ntimes and with a varying tempo. The view implies two conclusions or\r\nrather postulates: (l) that whatever is born must die, there is no\r\nresurrection or rejuvenation, neither in the individual nor in. the\r\ncollective life and (2) that humanity remains on the whole more or\r\nless the same, there is no global progress: there is no continued\r\nmarch forward towards a kingdom of heaven upon earth, even as there\r\nhas not been a decline and deterioration from some Golden Age in the\r\npast.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Is this so, in point of fact or is it bound to be so, in\r\npoint of theory? What are the facts? There are at least two human\r\ngroups or peoples extant that seem to point to a different\r\ncon&shy;clusion. I speak of China and especially of India. Egypt and\r\nGreece and Rome, the Minoans, the early Mesopotamians had their day.\r\nThey rose, they lived, they died and are no more. But India and\r\nChina, although almost contemporaneous with any of those earliest\r\ncivilisations, have not vanished; they continue still today. In\r\nrespect of India at least it cannot be said that she is not today, is\r\ntotally different from what she was in her Vedic epoch or even in her\r\nHarappa and Mohenjo-daro</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 238</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>days, in the sense that modern Egypt is not the Egypt of\r\nthe Pharaohs, nor the Greece of Venizelos the Greece of Pericles.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>It is true there were periods of decline and almost\r\ntotal disintegration in India, but she survived and revived. And the\r\nrevival did not mean a negation of her past and of her origins, a\r\ncomplete severance from her essential life and genius. The spirit and\r\neven the fundamental outline of the form in which that spirit moulded\r\nitself did not change, they remained constant and the same. It is\r\nsaid the Varna and the Ashrama (roughly translated as <I>caste </I>and\r\n<I>order) </I>that give the characteristic structure of Indian\r\nsociety even today characterised also the Vedic society; and the\r\nsystem of village autonomy that survives even today ruled Harappan\r\nIndia also. It has also been pointed out that the administrative\r\nsystem pursued by the British in India was nothing brand new imported\r\nfrom outside, but only a continuation, with minor adaptations, of the\r\nsystem consolidated by the Moguls who again had taken it up from the\r\nMauryas; a system initiated perhaps by still earlier legislators and\r\nbuilders of Indian polity. Mussolini of twentieth century Italy is in\r\nno way related to Cato or Julius Caesar of ancient Rome, but Sri\r\nRamakrishna or Sri Aurobindo is a direct descendant of the Vedic\r\nRishis.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>What is the cause of this \'strange longevity or\r\nstability that India or China enjoys? Whence this capacity to renew\r\nlife, to rejuvenate the past that survives and persists? Before\r\ndealing with this question let us turn for a while to another curious\r\nphenomenon : which is allied to it and may throw some light upon it.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>It is about the life-span of peoples. The life-span of\r\npeoples is not uniform: it differs with different peoples and differs\r\nconsiderably. The Spanish or Portuguese hegemony in modern Europe was\r\nafter all rather brief – a matter of one century or two – in\r\ncomparison with the lease enjoyed by Rome or Greece. Indeed it might\r\nseem. that the older the nation the longer it lived. Take, for\r\nexample, the oldest nation recognized as such in history, Egypt; her\r\nlife-span is to be measured not by centuries but by millenniums. The\r\nHellenic civilisation that succeeded the Egyptian did not last as\r\nlong and yet it lasted more than its own successor, the Roman, did.\r\nHow was it then the more ancient people resisted more successfully\r\nthe forces of </FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 239</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>decline and disintegration? What was it that made the\r\nlater and younger nations less successful in the battle of life?</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Another fact. The Asiatic peoples or nations endured\r\ngenerally longer than their European brethren. I have spoken of India\r\nand China, I may now refer to Persia, the old Persia that has a\r\nglorious story to tell for more than a thousand years (from Cyrus to\r\nthe last of the Sassanides) ending or suffering a sea-change with the\r\nadvent of the Arabs. The Arabs themselves and also the Hebrews were\r\nlikewise long-lived peoples, although both of them have this especial\r\ncharacteristic that theirs is not a land-locked civilisation, that is\r\nto say, they were not peoples wedded to their own land, a\r\nmother-country of their own, theirs was a peripatetic genius which\r\nwent abroad and sought to make their own or make themselves over to\r\nand enter into other countries and other cultures. Perhaps this is\r\ntheir way of securing a long life.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The reason for a long life must necessarily be in the\r\nmode of life itself. The life lived by later nations had a very\r\ndominant politico-economic bias. The government, the political, that\r\nis to say, administrative power was of outstanding importance, the\r\neconomic factor being necessarily an indispensable adjunct. On the\r\nother hand, in Egypt, in Greece and in all the Eastern countries, the\r\nmain stream of life ran in another channel; it was cultural and\r\nideative. What remains of Greece or even of Egypt, what the Eastern\r\ncountries carry still here and there in a living manner is that\r\nelement – that which is immortal in mortality, as the Vedic Rishis\r\nsay. The stone monuments bear a significance and a message even to\r\nus, because they embody and point to what moved, inspired and\r\nfashioned the consciousness, the inner life of these races. And it is\r\nthat that outlives the glories of governments and rulers.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>What happened usually in ancient times among more\r\nancient peoples, and in Asia generally, happened with characteristic\r\nemphasis in India. The physical vastness of China or of India, their\r\nteeming populations – much greater than any single nation or\r\ncountry – are sometimes adduced as reasons of the stability or\r\nlongevity of these two Asiatic peoples. But I suppose Matthew\r\nArnold\'s graphic vision of the situation – in his famous lines\r\nabout the dreaming East and the legions thundering past – hits the\r\nmark closer, although his was a disparaging,</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 240</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>not an appreciating note. That is to say, here in India\r\nthe king, the administrator, the political or economic factor were\r\nsuperficial limbs of the society, they lay at the periphery of the\r\npeople\'s consciousness. Wars and revolutions did not affect or touch\r\nessentially the life-movement. Here was a people terribly concerned\r\nwith inner values: these were much more important than an occupation\r\nwith problems of food and lodging. We are all familiar with the\r\npoignant cry of an Indian woman of the Vedic age: what shall I do\r\nwith the thing that does not give me Immortality?</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The truth then is this: the stronger the inner life a\r\nnation builds up and organises, the longer it lives and the greater\r\nthe power it acquires to revive when it falls for a time into\r\ndecline. Naturally, a good deal depends upon the nature and quality\r\nof this inner life. There are certain types of inner life which mean\r\nthe very source of life, there are others that are only secondary\r\nsources. Ancient Greece or even modern France has had a\r\nwell-developed inner life, but this inner life was very strongly\r\nwedded to and welded into the outer life, it lay at least at one\r\nremove farther from the true source of life. Ancient Egypt less\r\nintellectual, less mentally cultivated, was in contact with the\r\noccult, the subliminal base of life, more potent and dynamic springs\r\nof consciousness. This was the cause of Egypt\'s greater longevity and\r\nsome capacity of renewal. The older people generally lived in, or at\r\nleast, were in living contact with principles of existence more\r\nfundamental and therefore more enduring. The gods of the mind and of\r\nthe inner vital enjoy a longer immortality than the deities that rule\r\nman\'s outer life and body.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Viewed from this standpoint India stands as a case <I>sui\r\ngeneris. </I>She did not stop short satisfied with the lesser gods.\r\nShe aspired for the highest One, the supreme spiritual reality and it\r\nwas her mission, her destiny, to foster it and keep guard over it for\r\nthe sake of humanity. Whatever the outer vicissitudes, she maintained\r\nthroughout the inner continuity of her spiritual life and\r\nrealisation. That is where she drank of the nectar of immortality and\r\nthat is how she could always revive and renew herself after a period\r\nof decline and almost disintegration, because she possessed the\r\nmystery of the self. Other peoples were busy about many other things\r\nimportant or </FONT>\r\n</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 241</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>unimportant in some measure, but here was a race that\r\nnever forgot the one thing needful. India of today, we repeat, is\r\nfundamentally and essentially the India of the Vedas, even in a more\r\nliteral sense than that China of Mao-tse- Tung (or Sun-yat-Sen) is\r\nthe China of Lao-tse.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A race dies out altogether or continues to lead a\r\nsuperficial mechanical existence, that is to say, vegetates as an\r\ninchoate mass, when it knows to live only in its body, confined only\r\nto the demands of the barest physical necessities. The life of a race\r\ngains a meaning and a new vitality when a higher light and aspiration\r\ninspire and move its spirit; when a deeper and finer sensibility, a\r\nnobler ambition stir its affections, when a superior intelligence and\r\nunderstanding illumine its mental horizon, its lease of life is\r\nincreased by that and also its power of recuperation and renewal. And\r\nthe further it enters into these basic constants of existence the\r\ngreater that power of rejuvenation.<FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\">&sup1;</FONT></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>We may compare with profit perhaps in this regard the\r\nlife of an individual person with that of a people or nation. Even as\r\nan individual has a soul beyond his body and mind, a spiritual\r\npersonality behind his apparent name and form, a nation too has a\r\nsoul apart from its political, economic and cultural life. As in the\r\nindividual, in the aggregate too a spiritual principle seeks to\r\nexpress and incarnate itself. It is this immortal reality in the\r\nindividual man that reincarnates in life after life surviving\r\napparent death and disintegration. But only those individuals that\r\nlive consciously a soul-life, express to some extent at least the\r\nsoul\'s light in and through the external personality of a mind and\r\nbody and vitality and maintain a true individuality and a strong and\r\ndurable forma&shy;tion through the lives; otherwise, the soul is\r\nthere no doubt, but in its own world, exerts only a very indirect\r\ninfluence and the rest of the personality, the dynamic members\r\ndisintegrate and are taken up into the general earth atmosphere.\r\nSomething of the same kind is likely to happen in the case of\r\ncollective groups too. A nation like India that hitched her wagon of\r\nlife to a star-the supreme spiritual reality – is bound to regain\r\nher</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>----------</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3><FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\">&sup1;</FONT> Toynbee also\r\nspeaks of the possibility of, national regeneration-freedom from the\r\ncycle of decline and death-through religion (although he limits\r\nreligion to the Christian faith).</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 242</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>life always through whatever calamities and catastrophes\r\nmight befall her.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.31cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>One may note three or four crises, practically rebirths,\r\nin India\'s life history. They correspond roughly with the great\r\nracial infiltrations or what is described as such by anthropologists,\r\nwhat others may describe as operations of blood transfusion. There\r\nwas an original autochthonous people, the early humanity out of the\r\nstone age, usually called proto&shy;Dravidians, whose remnants are\r\nstill found among the older and cruder aboriginal tribes. Then the\r\nDravidian infusion which culminated in the humanity, the Indian\r\nhumanity, of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. Next the Aryan avatar. One\r\nusually begins Indian history with the Dravido-Aryan civilisation\r\nwhich is taken as the basic foundation, the general layout of the\r\nwhole structure. The first shock or blow the edifice received was\r\nfrom the Greeks and then the Huns and Scythians – the Tartars–\r\nsomething that struck at the most essential element of Indian culture\r\nand character. Psychologically the new leaven was brought in and\r\ninjected by Gautama Buddha – the un-Vedic Buddha– the external\r\ninvasion and penetration was possible because of this opening already\r\nmade from within. This injection was necessary as an antidote to the\r\ndecline and fall that had set in sometime between the passing of Sri\r\nKrishna and the advent of Buddha. But traditional India absorbed this\r\nnew leaven and came out with a renewed and enriched personality. The\r\nnext major shaking came with the Islamic inundation. This meant or\r\nwould have meant a great and even catastrophic reversal, but this too\r\nin the course of centuries succeeded only in invigorating and\r\nenlarging the life and consciousness of eternal India. The last and\r\nperhaps the most dangerous assault came from the Europeans, the\r\nPortuguese, the Dutch, the French and finally, most of all, from the\r\nBritish. An absolutely matter-of-fact vitalistic Europe overran and\r\noverwhelmed a predominantly otherworldly spirit and almost succeeded\r\nin obliterating that spirit and replacing it by a replica of its own\r\nlife-pattern and <I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\">Weltanschauung.\r\n</FONT></I>Even such a blow India could survive, not only so, could\r\nutilise it for her own purpose, for the greater fulfilment of her\r\nmission in life. She is coming out of that</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 243</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>ordeal a towering personality, a godhead for the\r\nremoulding of humanity and earth-life. </FONT>\r\n</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.31cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>It may be argued that all nations and peoples are a\r\nmixture\' of various races and foreign strands which are gradually,\r\nsoldered and unified together in course of time. The British nation,\r\nfor example, is built upon a base of Celtic blood and culture (the\r\noriginal Briton), to which were added one by one the German (Angles\r\nand the Saxon), the Danish, the French. But what is to be noted is\r\nthat the resultant is at the end some. _ thing very different from\r\nthe start – something unrecognisable when compared with the\r\noriginal pattern and genius. The resultant seems to be arrived at not\r\nby a gradual evolution and continuous transformation but by disparate\r\nechelons or , breaks, as it were, in the line. In France also or in\r\nItaly the] growth and the unification were achieved through violent\r\n;1 revolutions, eruptions and irruptions. In the former, <FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\">a\r\n</FONT>Gaelic; and Iberian base and in the latter an Etruscan were\r\nall but; swept off by the Roman rule which again saw its end at the\r\nhand of the Barbarians. The history of Greece offers a typical\r\npicture of the destiny of these peoples. Her life-line is sundered\r\ncompletely at three different epochs giving us not one but three\r\ndifferent personalities or peoples: at the outset there was the\r\noriginal classical Greece, then the first and milder although\r\nsufficiently serious break came with the Roman conquest; the second\r\ncatastrophic change was wrought by the Goths and Vandals which was\r\nstabilised in the Byzantine Empire and the third avatar appeared with\r\nthe Turkish regime. At the present time, she is acquiring another\r\nlife and body.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Indeed, viewed from this angle, the whole conscious\r\npersonality of Europe seems to have been cut across by such hiatuses,\r\ntwo or three of them of a serious kind. Upon a primitive and\r\nmythologic stratum was laid the Gr<FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\">&aelig;</FONT>co-Roman\r\nand then there was a strong Hebraic or Old Testament influence,\r\nfinally the known Christian or New Testament element; to that must be\r\nadded the modern New Enlightenment, that is to say, of Science and\r\nRationalism and Materialism. These several strands have not been\r\nwelded or harmonised together very well. They are very often at\r\nvariance with each other and combating each other. It is this\r\nschizophrenia that lies at the bottom of European malady. Europe has\r\nnot been</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.42cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 244</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\">able </FONT>to\r\ndevelop a wholly unified or one-pointed spiritual personality. On the\r\nother hand, it has developed very well-defined and sharply separated\r\nnations in its bosom, a sign and resultant of the lack of complete\r\nintegration. India has some-times been spoken of as a continent\r\nconsisting of many and varied nations, and not as a unified nation,\r\nshe being more like Europe than a particular nation like England or\r\nFrance. We may answer that India possesses a more unified soul than\r\nEurope and that is why her sub-nations do not stand out in any\r\nintransigent separativeness like the nations in Europe. Even Asia\r\npossesses a more unified and integrated soul-personality than Europe;\r\nfor, as I have said, her peoples stand upon a deeper strand of life\r\nand consciousness, something that is in contact with and is inspired\r\nby the Spiritual truth and reality. It is more so in India, where one\r\nhas the very emblem and exemplar of this spiritual unity and the\r\nspiritual personality that derives from there.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.3cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A nation or people then possesses or is composed of\r\nseveral souls or several layers of an oversoul. Even like the\r\nindividual it has a physical soul, that is to say, a body\r\nconsciousness, a vital soul, a mental soul and finally the true or\r\ninmost soul, the oversoul. When one lives in any of the inferior\r\nsouls, one has precarious and disintegrated life – whether it is a\r\nnation or an individual. It is only when one is conscious of one\'s\r\ninmost self, then only the person or the people can attain some kind\r\nof immortality, the power of rejuvenation in those external parts –\r\nthe mental, vital and physical – that make up the terrestrial life\r\nand that are ever subject to decline, decay and death.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.32cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A nation, however, that has achieved something, created\r\nsomething, made a strong formation in the mental or in the vital\r\nworld may die physically, but the formation, the creation, the\r\nachievement remains and continues to be alive in the terrestrial\r\natmosphere, in the general consciousness of man. Ancient Greece is\r\ndead, Augustan Rome is gone, but the mind of light that Greece\r\nbrought into play, the cast of social character that Rome established\r\nare among the permanent acquisitions of human culture and\r\ncivilisation. They have gone into the making of the warp and woof of\r\nthe standard human life today. Apart, however, from this general\r\nsurvival, could there be a reappearance of the very soul of a nation\r\nin another</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 245</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>nation, in the same way as an individual soul\r\nreincarnates itself in another individual body? That question is\r\nasked, as sometimes it has been suggested, from certain significant\r\nand striking similarities, that ancient Greece incarnated in modern\r\nFrance and that there is a Roman stamp in the British nation. The\r\npossibility may not be altogether ruled out of court. But still it\r\nmust be understood that the two phenomena are not quite identical,\r\nthere is a difference in nature and kind. Rebirth in the sense of\r\nreincarnation is especially an individual phenomenon, the individual\r\nforming a divine centre, <FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\">a\r\n</FONT>focus of consciousness which the group is not; the group is\r\nmore a field and a frame for the individual in spite of a conscious\r\nexistence of its own.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.43cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In<B> </B>any case, the revival or renaissance of a\r\nnation – a collective consciousness and being – is quite\r\npossible, and the normal curve of life – birth and growth and death\r\n– is not even for it the ineluctable destiny. For like the\r\nindividual, the group too has that in it or the possibility of that\r\nin it which is akin, to – an isotope of – the soul or self, the\r\nimmortal conscious being.</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.43cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 246</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-44_The Immortal Nation','','publish','closed','open','','44_the-immortal-nation','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/44_the-immortal-nation/',0,'post','',0),(1636,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040107;18014700\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040216;20554200\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin-left: 1.08cm; margin-right: 2.51cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<P ALIGN=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">Three\r\nDegrees of Social Organisation</font></b><font size=\"4\"><BR>\r\n</font></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">DECLARATION of Rights is a characteristic\r\nmodern phenomenon. It is a message of liberty and freedom, – no\r\ndoubt of secular liberty and freedom – things not very common in\r\nthe old world; and yet at the same time it is a clarion that calls\r\nfor and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has\r\n</span><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">s</span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">anctified\r\nthe individual or a unit collectivity, it has also </span><I><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman,sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">pari\r\npassu</span></FONT><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"> </span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">d</span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">eveloped\r\na fissiparous tendency in human organisation. Society based on or\r\nliving by the principle of Right becomes naturally and inevitably a\r\ncompetitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing more – and,\r\nof course, nothing less – than a bundle of rights, human\r\naggregation is bound to be an exact image of Darwinian Nature –red in tooth and claw.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">But Right is not the only term on which an\r\nideal or even a decent society can be based. There is another term\r\nwhich can serve equally well, if not better. I am obviously referring\r\nto the conception of duty. I tis an old world conception; it isa\r\nconcep&shy;tion particularly familiar to the East. The Indian term\r\nfor Right is also the term for </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">duty-adhikara </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">means both. In\r\nEurope too, in more recent times, when after the frustration of the\r\ndream of a new world envisaged by the French Revolu&shy;tion, man was\r\ncalled upon again to rise and hope, it was Mazzini who brought\r\nforward the new or discarded principle </span><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">as\r\na </span></FONT><I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">mantra\r\n</span></FONT></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">replacing the other more dangerous one. A hierarchy of\r\nduties was given by him as the pattern of a fulfilled ideal life. In\r\nIndia, in our days the distinction between the two attitudes was very\r\nstrongly insisted upon by the great Viveka&shy;nanda.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Vivekananda said that if human society is to be\r\nremodelled, one must first of all learn not to think and act in terms\r\nof claims and rights but in terms of duties and obligations. Fulfil\r\nyour</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 59</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">duties\r\nconscientiously, the rights will take care of themselves; it is such\r\nan attitude that can give man the right poise, the right impetus, the\r\nright outlook with regard to a collective living. If instead of each\r\none demanding what one considers as one\'s dues and consequently\r\nscrambling and battling for them, and most often not getting them or\r\ngetting at a ruinous price – what made Arjuna cry, &quot;What shall\r\nI do with all this kingdom if in regaining it I lose all my kith and\r\nkin dear to me?&quot; – if, indeed, instead of claiming one\'s\r\nright, one were content to know one\'s duty and do it as it should be\r\ndone, then not only there would be peace and amity upon earth, but\r\nalso each one far from losing anything would find miraculously all\r\nthat one most needs and must have, – the necessary, the right\r\nrights and all.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">It might be objected here however that actually in the\r\nhistory of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less\r\npugnacious than that of Right. In certain ages and among certain\r\npeoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the\r\nfaithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible\r\nbelonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to\r\nburn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of\r\nhigh and solemn duty that perpetrated what has been termed\r\n&quot;purges&quot;-brutalities undertaken, it appears, to purify and\r\npreserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial\r\naggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">duty </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">but\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">fanaticism. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">And there is a considerable difference between the\r\ntwo. Fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but\r\nwhat we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but\r\nduty proper self-poised.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">One might claim also on behalf of the doctrine of Right\r\nthat the right kind of Right brings no harm, it is as already stated\r\nanother name for liberty, for the privilege of living and it includes\r\nthe obligation to let live. One can do what one likes provided one\r\ndoes not infringe on an equal right of others to do the same. The\r\nmeasure of one\'s liberty is equal to the measure of others\' liberty.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Here is the crux of the question. The dictum of\r\nutilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate\r\nbut not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one\'s own\r\nrights and the equal rights of others is so undefinable and</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 60</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">variable\r\nthat a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and\r\nestablishing and even maintaining one\'s rights there is always the\r\npossibility – almost the certainty – of encroaching upon others\'\r\nrights.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">What is required is not therefore an\r\nexternal delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an\r\ninner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be\r\ncultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense\r\nof duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not\r\nenough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberra&shy;tion,\r\nwe must have something else to check and control it, some other\r\nhigher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of\r\nDuty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is\r\nusually more aggressive and militant </span><I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">(rajasic)\r\n</span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and the other\r\ntends to be more tolerant and considerate </span></FONT><I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">(sattwic):\r\n</span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">neither can\r\ngive an absolute certainty of poise, a </span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">clear\r\nguarantee of perfect harmony.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Indian wisdom has found this other, a\r\nfairer term – a </span><I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">tertium\r\n</span></FONT><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">quid, –\r\nthe </span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">mystic factor,\r\nsought for by so many philo&shy;</span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">sophers on so\r\nmany counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar term –\r\nDharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which\r\nto others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law,\r\nthat is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of\r\nour inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our\r\ntruth-conscious nature.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and\r\nDharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Con&shy;sciousness\r\nat Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the\r\nprinciple of inertia </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">(tamas); </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">in that state things have mostly\r\nan undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about\r\nacted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution\r\nbrings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this\r\nmeans consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence\r\nof each and every&shy;one, in other words, self-assertion, the claim,\r\nthe right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself\r\nfirst and foremost. I t is a necessary development; for it signifies\r\nthe growth of self. consciousness in the units out of a mass\r\nunconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is\' the expression of\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">rajas, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">the mope of \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 61</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">dynamism,\r\nof strife and struggle, it is the corrective of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">tamas.</span></I></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In the earliest and primitive society men\r\nlived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind\r\nobedience – obe&shy;</span><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">dience\r\nto the chief – the patriarch or </span></FONT><I><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman,sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">pater</span></FONT><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">\r\n</span></FONT><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">familias\r\n–obedience </span></FONT></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">to the laws and customs of the\r\ncollectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called\r\neven </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">dharma, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior\r\nformulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical\r\nfunctioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and\r\ndeliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The conception of Right had to appear in order to bring\r\nout the principle of individuality, of personal freedom and\r\nfulfilment. For, a true healthy collectivity is the association and\r\norganisation of free and self-determinate units. The growth of\r\nindependent individuality naturally means at first clash and rivalry,\r\nand a violently competitive society is the result. It is only at this\r\nstage that the conception of duty can fruitfully come in and develop\r\nin man and his society the mode of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">sattwa, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">which is that of\r\nlight and wisdom, of toleration and harmony. Then only a society is\r\nsought to be moulded on the principle of co-ordination and\r\nco-operation.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Still, the conception of duty cannot finally and\r\ndefinitively solve the problem. It cannot arrive at a perfect\r\nharmonisation of the conflicting claims of individual units; for,\r\nduty, as I have already said, is a child of mental idealism, and\r\nalthough the mind can exercise some kind of control over life-forces,\r\nit cannot altogether eliminate the seeds of conflict that lie\r\nim&shy;bedded in the very nature of life. It is for this reason that\r\nthere is an element of constraint in duty; it is, as the poet says,\r\nthe &quot;stern daughter of the Voice of God&quot;. One has to compel\r\none&shy;self, one has to use force on oneself to carry out one\'s\r\nduty&shy; – there is a feeling somehow of its being a bitter pill.\r\nThe cult of duty means </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">rajas </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">controlled and coerced by </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">sattwa,\r\n</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">not the transcendence of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">rajas. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">This leads us to the high\r\nand supreme conception of Dharma, which is a transcendence of the\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">gunas. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Dharma is not an ideal, a standard or a rule that one\r\nhas to obey: it is the law of self-nature that one inevitably\r\nfollows, it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is\r\nheroic,</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 62</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">the\r\npath of Dharma is of the gods, godly (cf. </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Virabhava </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and\r\n</span><I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Divyabhava </span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">of\r\nthe Tantras).</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The principle of Dharma then inculcates that each\r\nindividual must, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his\r\ntrue soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely _nd integrally\r\nmerge oneself into that, be identified with it in such a manner that\r\nall acts and feelings and thoughts, in fact all movements, inner and\r\nouter-spontaneously and irrepressibly well out of that fount and\r\norigin. The individual souls, being made of one truth-nature in its\r\nmultiple modalities, when they live, move and have their being in its\r\nessential law and dynamism, there cannot but be absolute harmony and\r\nperfect synthesis between all the units, even as the sun and moon and\r\nstars, as the Veda says, each following its specific orbit according\r\nto its specific nature, never collide or halt – na </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">methate na\r\ntasthatuh – &shy;</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">but weave out a faultless pattern of symphony.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The future society of man is envisaged as\r\nsomething of like nature. When the mortal being will have found his\r\nimmortal soul and divine self, then each one will be able to give\r\nfull and free expression to his self-nature </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">(swabhava); </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">then\r\nindeed the utmost sweep of dynamism in each and all will not cause\r\nclash or conflict; on the contrary, each will increase the other and\r\nthere will be a global increment and </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">fulfilment – para&shy;</span><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">sparam\r\n</span></FONT><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">bhavayantah.\r\n</span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The division and\r\nconflict, the stress and </span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">strain that belong to\r\nthe very nature of the inferior level of being and consciousness will\r\nthen have been transcended. It is only thus that a diviner humanity\r\ncan be born and replace all the other moulds and types that can never\r\nlead to anything final and absolutely satisfactory.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 63</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-12_Three Degress of Social Organisation','','publish','closed','open','','12_three-degress-of-social-organisation','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/12_three-degress-of-social-organisation/',0,'post','',0),(1637,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040108;23231400\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;20324700\">\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-weight:700\"><font size=\"4\">Aspects of Modernism</font></span></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:-0.03cm; margin-right:2.54cm; margin-left:1.98cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>&quot;Unity was the sheet-anchor of Science \'up to now.\r\nBut the latest theories seem to break up the universe into a mass of\r\nindependent constituents each acting for itself No doubt there is one\r\nForce still (if magnetism and electricity can be reduced to one\r\nformula as is sought to be done by Einstein), but it is a\r\ndiscontinuous unity in its manifestation at least. Science seems to\r\nbe coming away from a materialistic Adwaita towards a restatement of\r\nthe Sankhya idea.&quot; –</FONT><FONT SIZE=2> SRI AUROBINDO .</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Every age has claimed to be modern and sought to\r\nestablish its characteristic newness, the hall-mark that separates it\r\nfrom the preceding age.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>How then does the twentieth century propose to mark out\r\nits difference from the past? &quot;Science and the scientific out\r\nlook,&quot; many would answer. But to others that difference itself\r\nmight appear antiquated. For, strictly speaking, science was the\r\nkey-note of the nineteenth century; and although we of the twentieth\r\nare enjoying its fruits, putting it to more practical use than our\r\npredecessors did, yet it is they who embodied its spirit, its special\r\nand proper rule of light and life. We have not discarded the gift,\r\nbut assimilated it and even seem to have outgrown it; we have added\r\nto it or extended and developed it.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Science indeed gave a very decided turn to the slowly\r\nadvancing humanity. It brought with it something that meant in the\r\nmarch of evolution a <I>saltum, </I>a leap wide and clear; it landed\r\nman all of a sudden into a new world, a new state of consciousness.\r\nIt is this state of consciousness, the fundamental way of being,\r\ninculcated by the scientific spirit that is of capital importance and\r\npossesses a survival value. It is not the <I>content </I>of Science,\r\nbut its <I>intent, </I>not its riches, but its secret inspiration,</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 139</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>its\r\nmotive power, that will give us a right understanding of the change\r\nit has effected. The material aspect of the event has lost much of\r\nits value; the mechanical inventions and discoveries, bringing in\r\ntheir train a revolution in the external organization of life, have\r\nbecome a matter of course, and almost a matter of the past. But the\r\nreactions set up in the consciousness itself, the variations brought\r\nabout in the very stuff and constitution of life still maintain a\r\npotency for the future and are to be counted.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The scientific spirit, in one word, is rationalisation –\r\nrationalisation of Mind as well as of Life. With regard to Mind,\r\nrationalisation means to get knowledge exclusively on the data of the\r\nsenses; it is the formulation, in laws and principles, of facts\r\nobserved by the physical organs, these laws and principles being the\r\ncategories of the arranging, classifying, generalising faculty,\r\ncalled reason; its methodology also demands that the laws are to be\r\nas few as possible embracing as many facts as possible.\r\nRationalisation of life means the government of life in accordance\r\nwith these laws, so that the wastage in natural life due to the\r\ndiversity and disparity off acts may be eliminated, at least\r\nminimised, and all movements of life ordered and organised in view of\r\na single and constant purpose (which is perhaps the enhancement of\r\nthe value of life). This rationalisa&shy;tion means further, in\r\neffect, mechanisation or efficiency, as its protagonists would prefer\r\nto call it. However, mechanistic efficiency, whether in the matter of\r\nknowledge or of life-of mind or of morals was the motto of the early\r\nperiod of the gospel of science, the age of Huxley and Haeckel, of\r\nBentham and the Mills. The formula no longer holds good either in the\r\nfield of pure knowledge or in its application to life; it does not\r\nembody the aspiration and outlook of the contemporary mind, in spite\r\nof such inveterate rationalists as Russell and Wells or even Shaw (in\r\n<I>Back to Methuselah, </I>for example), who seem to be already\r\nbecoming an anachronism in the present age.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The contemporary urge is not towards rationalisation,\r\nbut rather towards <I>irrationalisation. </I>Orthodox science itself\r\nis taking greater and greater cognisance today of the irrational\r\nmove&shy;ments of nature, even of physical nature. Intuition and\r\ninstinct are now welcomed as surer and truer instruments of knowledge\r\nand action than reason.</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 140</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Another special feature of the modern consciousness is\r\nits &quot;multiple sightedness&quot;. The world, as it is presented\r\nto us, is no more than an assemblage of view-points; and each point\r\nof observation forms its own world-system. There is no one single\r\nultimate truth; if there is any, there is no possibility of its being\r\nknown or perceived by the mind or the senses. Things exist in\r\nrelation to one another and for us they have no intrinsic existence\r\napart from the relations. The instrument itself that perceives is the\r\nresultant of a system of relations. A truth is only a view-point; and\r\nas the view-point shifts, the truth also varies accordingly. The cult\r\nof Relativity is a significant expression of the modern\r\nconsciousness.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Intimately connected with relativity and multiplicity is\r\nthe principle of fragmentation or atomism (perhaps one should now say\r\n“electronismâ€) – that forms another characteristic element of\r\nmodernism. The universe, on a final analysis, is now found to be a\r\nconcourse of vagrant electric charges. Even likewise, human\r\npersonality too has no longer its old-world character and consistency\r\nof being made of one undivided piece – a monolithic structure; it\r\nis a composite of innumerable personalities, big and small, apparent\r\nand hidden, all huddled together in a case called the body, which\r\nitself is not more stable than the shifting desert sands.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>It is this pluralisation which has resulted in a\r\nnecessary polarisation in the human consciousness. We have gained a\r\npower which was not only rare but perhaps totally absent in the old\r\nworld, at least in the general mind; we have reached in a novel way\r\nthat very wideness or wholeness which was at the outset negatived by\r\nthe urge towards separativeness and parcellation. Thus the modern\r\nmind can take in more view-points than one – even contrary ones –\r\nat the same time. The individual has acquired the capacity – to put\r\nit in popular language – to enter into another\'s skin, not to be\r\nconfined to its own outlook, limited within its linear groove, but to\r\nbe able, with ease and grace to look through the eyes of others, even\r\nthough they be on the other side of the arena. A wide and supple,\r\nlarge and subtle perception that goes round the entire contour of the\r\nobserved object, not a perspective but a global view, is a\r\ncharacteristic capacity of the modern mind. We can see the same thing\r\nfrom all angles and distances; we can turn </FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 141</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>our\r\ngaze upon ourselves; we can see ourselves not only with our own way\r\nof looking but also as others see us, with equal detachment and\r\nimpartiality. At least this is the character of the cultured, the\r\nrepresentative man of today. Modern art too has sought in some of its\r\nsignificant expressions to demonstrate this) protean nature of truth\r\nand reality, to bring out the simultaneity of its multiple modes, to\r\ngive a living sense of its tangled dynamism.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>We spoke of the extreme atomism of modern Science that\r\nhas thrown into the background the solid unity of creation and is\r\nlaying emphasis for the moment more upon the division and scattering\r\nof forces than upon the cohesiveness and identity of the substratum;\r\nstill that unity has not been abrogated but has been maintained on\r\nthe whole, even if as an underlying note. Not only so, the reign of\r\nmultiplicity, by a curious detour, is working towards a discovery of\r\nenhanced unity. The plurality of the modern consciousness is moving\r\ntowards a richer and intenser unity; it is not a static, but a\r\ndynamic unity – a unity that does not suppress or merely transcend\r\nthe diversity and disparity of its components but holds them together\r\nas an immanent force, and brings forth out of each its fullness of\r\nindividuality. In the same way the present-day movement towards\r\ninternationalism or supra-nationalism has produced a rebound towards\r\nregionalism or infra-nationalism. And the voice of anarchism tends to\r\nbe as insistent as that of collectivism.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The consciousness of yesterday was a unilateral\r\nmovement. It rose up high and descended deep into the truth of\r\nthings, but mostly along a single line. In the horizontal direction\r\nalso, when it travelled, it effected a linear movement. The\r\nconsciousness of today is complex and composite; it has lost much of\r\nthe vertical movement; it does not very easily soar or dive,\r\nprecisely because it has spread itself out in a multitude of\r\nhorizontal movements. Our modern consciousness is outward gazing and\r\nextensive; it has not the in-gathering and intensive character of the\r\nold-world consciousness; but what it has lost in depth and height, it\r\nhas sought to make up in width.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Simplicity and intensity, sublimity and profundity were\r\nthe most predominant qualities of man\'s achievement in the past; what\r\ncharacterises human endeavour in the present is its wideness,\r\nrichness, complexity. It can also be noted that the </FONT>\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 142</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>corruptions\r\nof these qualities likewise mark out their respective ages.\r\nFanaticism, for example, the corruption of a good and noble thing,\r\nfidelity, means a unilateral mind carried to its extreme; it is a\r\ncharacteristic product of the middle ages in the West as in the East.\r\nThe modern world in its stead has given us dilettantism and cynicism,\r\ncorruption of largeness and catholicity.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Consciousness has two primary movements. In one it\r\npenetrates, enters straight into the heart of things; in the other it\r\nspreads out, goes about and round the object. The combination of the\r\ntwo powers is a rarity; ordinarily man follows the one to the\r\nexclusion of the other. The modern age in its wide curiosity has\r\nneglected the penetrative and intensive movement and is therefore\r\nmarred by superficiality. It is eager to go over the entire panorama\r\nof creation at one glance, if that is possible, to have a telescopic\r\nview of things; but it has been able to take in only the surface, the\r\nskin, the crust. Even the entrance into the world of atoms and cells\r\n– of protons and electrons, of chromosomes and genes – is not\r\nreally a penetrative or intensive movement. It is only another form\r\nof the movement of pervasion or extension: it is still a going\r\nabroad, only on another line, in a different direction, but always\r\nfundamentally on the same horizontal plane. The microscope is only an\r\ninverted telescope. Our instruments are the external mind and senses\r\nand these move laterally and have not the power to leap on to a\r\ndifferent level of vision. The earlier ages of mankind, narrow and\r\ncircumscribed in many respects, possessed nevertheless that intensive\r\nand in-gathering movement, which is a kind of movement in the fourth\r\ndimension; it was a sixth sense leading into the Behind or Beyond of\r\nthings.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=center STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 143</FONT></P>\r\n<hr align=\"justify\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm;\">\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-29_Aspects of Modernism','','publish','closed','open','','29_aspects-of-modernism','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/29_aspects-of-modernism/',0,'post','',0),(1638,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040109;1163500\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;21243400\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b><font size=\"4\">Hamlet\r\n: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">THE consciousness that rules over the tragedy of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Hamlet,\r\n</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">the destiny that works itself out in the play of the forces\r\nportrayed in that great drama, are the consciousness and the destiny\r\nof the human soul at a most fateful crisis, a crucial turning-point\r\nin the course of its evolution. The soul, lodged in the human\r\nembodiment, moves forward and upward, towards a greater and greater\r\nself-expression and self-expansion, a continual heightening and\r\nwidening of its consciousness, a constant subli&shy;mation and\r\ntransfiguration of its mode of being and living. And in the\r\nprogressive gradient so pursued, there are certain stages or\r\nlevel-crossings that can be clearly marked out in view of their\r\nimportance and significance.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Shakespeare himself records, in two other of his major\r\ndramas, the mystery of two such stages preceding the one he deals\r\nwith in </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Hamlet: </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">one in </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Macbeth </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and the other in </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">King\r\nLear. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Indeed these three mighty creations form a triology with\r\nthe Karma of the human soul at different crises as its theme. </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">King\r\nLear </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">represents human consciousness low down in the scale of\r\nevolution, almost at its start – a nature primitive and barbarian.\r\nWe seem to go back into a prehistoric world, a paleolithic age –\r\nthe domain of utter ignorance, of vulgar greed and hunger, where one\r\nsees the rank play of a raw and crude and aboriginal nature. Man is\r\nhere simply the eater, a true brother of the rest of the animal kind,\r\none in blood with the tiger and the wolf. He is the sheer biological\r\nor </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">vital </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">being – &shy;the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Rakshasa – into </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">whom the\r\nlight of the Mind has not yet descended, at least not to the extent\r\nof effecting an appreciable change in his original and primitive\r\ntexture. It is a world ruled by the mode of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">tamas. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">*</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=2>----------</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">*The angelic Cordelia is a ray\r\nthat has strayed down from some higher region,</span></FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">page –\r\n185</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Macbeth </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">we move up one step farther; human consciousness\r\nattains here a higher level. Something of the mental being enters\r\ninto the purely vital creature: instead of the Eater, the man with\r\nthe mere stomach, we have here the Ruler, the Tyrant, the human being\r\nwith its will – and its arms that execute the will: the dominating\r\nmotive is no longer hunger and greed and cruelty for cruelty\'s sake,\r\nbut power and position and lordship, and the driving force, not blind\r\npassion and dark fury – sheer unconsciousness – but deliberate\r\nresolution, foreseeing calculation and steady purposiveness; the\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Rakshasa </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">gives place to the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Asura. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Asura </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">is\r\nthe incarnation of conscious egotism, the will to dominate, to be the\r\nsole master and monarch; he is the self-aggrandising ‘vaulting\r\nambition’. He does not seek to possess things for their own sake,\r\nnot so much to enjoy them as to hold them as symbols of his royalty,\r\nof his personal worth and majesty. In </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Macbeth </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">we have the\r\nworld of the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Asura-a </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">creation of the mode of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">rajas.</span></I></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Hamlet </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">is the third stage; it is a vision of\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">sattva-guna </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and a creation attempted by that vision. The human\r\nconsciousness that was imprisoned in the vital mind, is released here\r\ninto the higher or pure mind. The soul escapes from its sheath of\r\nsheer hunger and desire and egoism and self-aggrandisement – yearns\r\nfor light, more light. Lear is a dark mass of unconsciousness, crude\r\nand violent, even like the naked and raging elements into whose arms\r\nhe is thrown; Macbeth is the beginning of consciousness in which one\r\nis conscious of one\'s own self alone, and keenly and deliberately\r\nattached to it, – here light has dawned, but a lurid light. Hamlet\r\nis consciousness that is seeking to transcend the barrier of the\r\nlittle self and its narrow and vulgar \'appetites and impulses. Man\r\nhere comes into touch with something that is impersonal,\r\nother-regarding, afar; he has grown interests that are not merely\r\nmundane, utilitarian, pragmatic, self-centred, but abstract,\r\nmetaphysical, beyond the individual\'s own and immediate concern: he\r\nhas now ideals and aspirations – he is a seeker of the true, the</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=2>-------------------</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=1 STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\">t</FONT><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">o\r\nevolve hereafter, not for immediate fruition and fulfilment. It is\r\nthe Light that shines always even in this naughty world, a spark of\r\nthe Grace that still relieves the blight that mars an otherwise\r\nsinful earth. She is the symbol of a promise or prophecy that will\r\njustify itself sometime in the future, but for the moment the burden\r\nof the gloom is too much upon her and she is engulfed in it and\r\nsacrificed.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=1 STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\">Page –\r\n186</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">good,\r\nthe beautiful. He has been initiated into the divine – </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">daiva –\r\nnature. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Culture, refinement, sensibility, understanding – all\r\nthe graces of a truly rational being make Hamlet the very flower of\r\nan evolving humanity.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Over against the personality of Hamlet stands another\r\nwhich represents false height, the wrong perfection, the counterfeit\r\nideal. Polonius is humanity arrested in its path of straight\r\ndevelopment and deviated into a </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">cut-de-sac </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">of self-conceit and\r\nsurface urbanity, apparent cleverness and success and pretentious and\r\ncopy-book morality. When one has outgrown the barbarian, one runs the\r\nrisk of becoming a snob or philistine. It is a side table-land, as it\r\nwere, on mid-heights, the standard perhaps of a commoner humanity,\r\nbut which the younger ideal has to transcend or avoid or even to\r\ndestroy, so that it may find itself and live its own life. To the\r\nphilistine too the mere bio&shy;logical man is a taboo, but he seeks\r\nto confine human nature into a scheme of codes and maxims and\r\nlifeless injunctions and prohibitions. He is also the man of Reason\r\nbut without the higher inflatus, the living and creative Something\r\nMore – the poetry, the vision, the dream that would transfigure the\r\nmerely pragmatic, practical, worldly wise – the bourgeois – into\r\nthe princely aristocratic idealist, elevate the drab </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">terre &agrave;\r\nterre </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">To-day into the glory of a soaring To-morrow.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">What is the crisis that confronts the ascending\r\nvisionary soul? What is the obstacle that the Idealist has to face,\r\nthe danger zone that he has to traverse in order to arrive at- the\r\nrealisation of his ideal?</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In Hamlet we have a dreamer, an ardent optimist, a young\r\nenthusiast who has lived so long in his own rosy world, in his </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">tour\r\nd\'ivoire, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and thought that that was the only world, even the\r\nworld as it is outside. Also in the simplicity of his faith he\r\ndedicated all his love and admiration, all his yearning for a sweet\r\nand glorious ideal, to a child of common humanity who appeared to him\r\nto be an emblem and promise of Realisation. Alas, the promise had not\r\nattained the strength and force that would lead inevitably to\r\nmaturity and fruition, the child was yet too loyal to its origin to\r\ncut away from its moorings and soar with him.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n187</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The crisis then is the revelation to the aspiring\r\ndream-lifted soul that the original and aboriginal humanity that\r\nseemed to have been traversed and transcended and left far behind is\r\nnot wholly obliterated; indeed it is still there in its stark\r\nreality. The light and air and space and colour of the high dreamland\r\nare reared upon dark and dingy abysses, &quot;this brave o’erhanging\r\nfirmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire&quot; is\r\nnone other than&quot; a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.â€&sup1;\r\nAll the wisdom and culture and virtue and apparent beauty in human\r\nnature cannot prevent a man from becoming an arrant knave and a woman\r\nfrom being a whore, even if she were one\'s own mother.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">This disillusionment is the crisis at which the soul has\r\narrived-this tearing down of the painted arras that hid the naked\r\nhorror of man\'s beastly nature and the ugly vanity and stagy show\r\nthat the world is. The revelation was so sudden and stunning to the\r\ninnocent and aspiring soul that it lost for the moment all its\r\nbearings, its natural strength and capacity and will, and fell from\r\nits high status into the slough of dark and despondent impotency.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Another person – Laertes – placed in an analogous\r\nsituation but not worried by the promptings of idealism and the sense\r\nof discrepancy between the ideal and the real, takes the world as it\r\nis, considers it all right and moves straight to his purpose; he is\r\nnot a divided being, but in full and integral pos&shy;session of\r\nhimself and of his instruments of action-even though this solid\r\npragmatism does not avail him much in the end.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The crisis in Hamlet reminds us of another somewhat\r\nsimilar one, that is the basis and starting-point of the great\r\nepisode in the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Mahabharata – the Gita. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Arjuna, the ideal\r\nhero and man of action, in absolute self-confidence and certitude,\r\nwith no doubt or hesitation about anything in the world, advances\r\ninto the very thick of the bloody strife – and lo! all is changed\r\nas with a magic wand! What was to him a moment before a clear duty,\r\nan evident act of righteousness, the noblest of deeds, now appears\r\nnothing less than an inglorious slaughter. The bow of victory slips\r\nfrom the hand of the mighty warrior and, all nerve and tremor, he\r\nsinks down in gloom and dejection and complete confusion. \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=2>------------------</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">&sup1;</span><I><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Hamlet, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Act II, Sc.\r\n2.</span></FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=1 STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\">Page –\r\n188</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Arjuna tided over the crisis as he could avail himself\r\nof the knowledge of the way out and the necessary help that was given\r\nby the Divine Guide. Hamlet bears the full crash of doom upon his\r\nhead and makes others also share its consequences with him. At one\r\npoint, however, he seemed to make just a move towards the right\r\nsolution of the difficulty. He finds that the avoidance of the Evil\r\nby self-destruction – which is a common and natural temptation in\r\nlike situations-is no solution: it may lead you into a still greater\r\nevil. One has to face the evil, stand and fight it. Once this is\r\ndecided, the right course for the hero (the Aryan fighter, as the\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Gita </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">would say) would be to live<BR>\r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Has ta’en with equal thanks – &sup2;<BR>\r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Hamlet thus seems to fall upon the teaching of </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">samata\r\n– equanimit</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">y – with which the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Gita </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">begins Arjuna\'s\r\ninitiation into the secret of Deliverance. He has had a glimpse of\r\nthe divine portals from a distance; but he did not know how to\r\nproceed &shy;in the straight and narrow path; he is diverted into an\r\nAsuric handling of the forces of lower nature and is himself broken\r\nin the process.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">A poignant vision or experience of evil in God\'s world\r\nwhich otherwise appears so work living in, the perception of the\r\ncanker in the rose, has been the turning-point of many a destiny. It\r\nhas been the occasion of the birth of saints and sages, souls that\r\nhave traversed beyond and found the solution of the enigma. It has\r\nalso hurled back into confusion and ruin souls that faced the Sphinx\r\nbut could not answer her riddle – such, for example, as were Hamlet\r\nand Faust.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In these latter the human consciousness has reached its\r\nhigh water-mark of normal development. They are the finest expression\r\nof man’s capacities and powers in the ordinary nature. Here we have\r\nthe play of the higher, even perhaps the highest ranges of the Mind –\r\nthe mind, that is to say, of the poet and the philosopher. But here\r\nalso stands revealed the counterfoil, the obverse of that high\r\nachievement – the feet</span><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=LEFT style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=2>------------------------</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">&sup2;</span><I><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Hamlet, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Act III, Sc.\r\n2.</span></FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Page –\r\n189</span></FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">of\r\nclay on which is reared the head of gold, the flesh that is tied\r\nirrevocably to the spirit.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The human soul, as represented in Hamlet, has evolved so\r\nfar as to stand on a summit from where it can contemplate the entire\r\ncreation. It has attained a kind of universal consciousness and has\r\nthe vision of a global movement of nature – even as Arjuna had of\r\nthe Lord\'s universal body, and like him is awed and overwhelmed – a\r\nharsh world, in which one draws one\'s breath in pain. But this is a\r\nmental summit, and the contradiction that is revealed here can be\r\nresolved only by passing beyond into a higher domain of\r\nconsciousness.</span><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Page –\r\n190</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-37_Hamlet A Crisis of The Evolving Soul','','publish','closed','open','','37_hamlet-a-crisis-of-the-evolving-soul','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/37_hamlet-a-crisis-of-the-evolving-soul/',0,'post','',0),(1639,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040209;6394800\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040218;1034300\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<P ALIGN=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">A\r\nModernist Mentality</font></b></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>ANDRE\r\nGide, a very well-known name in French letter for the last half a\r\ncentury, is quoted, very appreciatively, in the editorial of the\r\n<I>World Review </I>(July 1950), as saying:</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>&quot;The world can only be saved, if it can be, by the\r\nrebels. Without them there would be an end to our civilisation, our\r\nculture, all that we love and that gave to our presence on earth a\r\nsecret justification. They are, these rebels, the salt of the earth\r\nand the men sent from God. For I am convinced that God does not\r\nexist, and that we have to create him.&quot;</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The truth expressed in these well-chiselled lines\r\n(&quot;purple patches&quot;, I was going to say perhaps somewhat\r\nuncharitably) is, as always happens when we are for a rounded phrase\r\nand a neat thought, only half-truth or even quarter-truth. It all\r\ndepends on the meaning we attach to the words, the shade trailing\r\nbehind the thought. For, first of all, it is true, it is even a\r\ntruism that the rebel is a necessary agent in the economy of human\r\nevolution; but if by rebel we mean the sheer iconoclast, the mere or\r\nin the main destroyer – and the word, especially since it is given\r\npreference, does carry that connotation – then the sentence loses\r\nmost of its truth or value and becomes only a shibboleth or slogan.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The old, fossilised or rotten past has to be destroyed\r\nand ruthlessly eradicated, no doubt: -but, how is it to be done and\r\nwho will do it? By a simple process of sledge-hammering – breaking,\r\nburning? By anybody who cares to do it? It does not require much\r\nsense or intelligence to see that that is not the ideal nor even the\r\nmost effective way of doing the thing. The best way to destroy, the\r\nwise say, is to construct. Look at Nature, how she is going about the\r\nthing. Something is crumbling, precisely because something is growing\r\nwithin or behind. </FONT>\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.4cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 353</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>It\r\nis the drive of a living growth in secret that pushes a limb no\r\nlonger necessary or useful to decay and death. Man too in his work of\r\nreformation or regeneration should learn that lesson, whether in\r\nrespect of his individual or of his \'collective growth and evolution.\r\nDiscover the truth that is to replace the \'old, live it intensely and\r\nwholly – the old past will automatically slip down like old clothes\r\nor drop like yellow sapless leaves.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Further Monsieur Gide says, God is nowhere, he has to be\r\ncreated. If he means that God is not anywhere in the manifest\r\nphysical world, especially, the physical world of today, it is true,\r\nthough here too partially true. God is never truly absent; even in\r\nand through this dismal and distressed age of ours he is ever\r\npresent, a living power of abounding Grace – even if behind the\r\nveil, even if not patent to the sense-bound observer. Still God has\r\nto be made patent, established concretely in the physical world also,\r\nin the everyday normal human affairs. But, again, how to do it? And\r\nwho is to do it? You or I in our complete, at best half-lit hazy\r\nignorance? By running blindly full tilt against any and all atheism\r\nand denial and egoism and arrogance, shouting at them, pointing the\r\nfinger of scorn at them or being physically violent upon them? It\r\nwere best if we moved with as much vigour against our own selves,\r\nagainst the ungodly within us. If one begins seriously at home, in\r\ndealing with oneself one will be best equipped to deal with the\r\nothers and the world, in the process of new-creating in oneself one\r\nwill be in a position to find out exactly what lies in the way of a\r\nnew creation outside.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A deeper sense of truth and rectitude says: you have no\r\nright to break unless you have the power to make. Even an illusion\r\nyou cannot and should not break if you do not know how and what to\r\nreplace; you will only replace it by a greater and more disastrous\r\nillusion, you must yourself have the full vision of the truth, you\r\nmust yourself realise and establish it in yourself, in your inner\r\nbeing as well as your outer personality. Then only you will have\r\nsecured full authority (Ramakrishna\'s chaprash<I>, </I>badge) to make\r\nand unmake. If you have not the needed authority, then you must obey\r\nimplicitly one who possesses the authority.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>This is a counsel of perfection, one might say, and\r\nhuman</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.39cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 354</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>things\r\nare not usually done in this way. But precisely because things are\r\nnot done in this way that human affairs are always in a muddle and\r\ncontinue to be more or less the same eternal merry-go-round. It is\r\nonly when things are done in the ideal way that the ideal can be\r\nestablished fully, the perfect remedy obtained.</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 355</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\"></a></P>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-64_A Modernish Mentality','','publish','closed','open','','64_a-modernish-mentality','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/64_a-modernish-mentality/',0,'post','',0),(1640,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040109;1095400\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;21241900\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin-left: 1.08cm; margin-right: 2.51cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;\">\r\n<b><font size=\"4\">Art and\r\nKatharsis</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">ART, we all know, is concerned with the Beautiful; it is\r\nno less intimately connected with the True; the Good too is in like\r\nmanner part and parcel of the &aelig;esthetic movement. For, Art not\r\nonly delights or illumines, it uplifts also to the same degree. Only\r\nit must be noted that the uplifting aimed at or effected is not a\r\nmere moral or ethical edification – even as the Truth which Art\r\nexperiences or expresses is not primarily the truth of external facts\r\nand figures in the scientific manner, nor the Beauty it envisages or\r\ncreates the merely pleasant and the pretty.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">There is a didactic Art that looks openly and crudely to\r\nmoral hygiene. And because of this, there arose, as a protest and in\r\nopposition, a free-lance art that sought to pursue art for art\'s sake\r\nand truth for truth\'s sake – even if that truth and that art were\r\nunpleasant and repellent to the morality-ridden sophisticated\r\nconsciousness. Or perhaps it may have been the other way round:\r\nbecause of the degeneracy of Art from its high and serious and epic\r\nnobility and sublimity to lesser levels of &aelig;sthetic hedonism\r\nand dilettantism that the didactic took its rise and sought to yoke\r\nart to duty, to moral welfare and social service. Not that there is\r\nan inherent impossibility of moralising art becoming good art in its\r\nown way; but great art is essen&shy;tially a-moral – not in the\r\nsense of being infra-moral, but in the sense of being supra-moral.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Art does not tend towards the Good in the manner of the\r\nmoralist. It does not teach or preach that virtue is to be pursued\r\nand vice to be shunned, that a good deed is rewarded and a wrong one\r\npunished. Poetic justice, of the direct and crude style, is a moral\r\ncode or dogma, and, if imposed upon the &aelig;esthetic movement,\r\nserves only to fetter and curb and \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n181</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">twist\r\nit. Art opens the vision to a higher good than what the conventions\r\nof moral idealism can frame. Great art does not follow the lines laid\r\ndown by the ethical mentality, not only because this mentality cannot\r\nembody the true truth, but also because it does not give us the Good\r\nwhich art should aim at, that is to say, the purest and the highest\r\ngood.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Aristotle speaks of the purifying function of the tragic\r\nart. How is the purification effected? By the evocation of the\r\nfeel&shy;ings of pity and terror. For such feelings widen the\r\nsympathies, pull us out of our small egoistic personal ephemeral\r\npleasures and put us in contact with what is to be shared and enjoyed\r\nin wide commonalty. Tragedy, in this way, initiates the spectator\r\ninto the enjoyment that is born not of desire and gain but of\r\ndetachment and freedom.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The uplifting power of Art is inherent in its nature,\r\nfor Art itself is the outcome of an uplifted nature. Art is the\r\nexpression of a heightened consciousness. The ordinary consciousness\r\nin which man lives and moves is narrow, limited, obscure, falter&shy;ing,\r\nunhappy – it is the abode of all that is evil and ugly; it is\r\ninartistic. The poetic zeal, enthusiasm or frenzy, when it seizes the\r\nconsciousness, at once lifts it high into a state that is\r\ncharacterised by wideness and depth and a new and fresh exhilarating\r\nintensity of perception and experience. We seem to arrive at the very\r\nfountain-head, where things take birth and are full of an unspoilt\r\nlife and power and beauty and light and harmony. A line burdened with\r\nthe whole tragedy of earthly existence such as Shakespeare\'s:</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain...</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">or the Virgilian syllables ringing, as it were, with the\r\ncrash of destiny and the doom of the world:</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><BR>\r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=RIGHT STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">feror ingenti eireumdata noete</span></I></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=RIGHT STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu! non, tua palmas. . .</span></I></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">even if they make us sad do not depress the soul; it is\r\na divine sadness fraught with a profound calm and a strange poignant\r\nsweetness of secret delight. The rhythm and the sound and the\r\nsuggestions so insinuate themselves into our nerve and blood \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n182</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">that\r\nthese seem to be sublimated – as if by a process of oxygenation –\r\nto a finer substance, a purer and more limpid and vibrant valency. A\r\nconsciousness opens in our very flesh and marrow that enables us to\r\npierce the veil of things and pass beyond and understand – see and\r\nexperience – the why and the how and the whither of it all. It is a\r\nconsciousness cosmic in its purview and disposition, which even like\r\nthe Creator could contem&shy;plate all and declare it all as </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">good.\r\n</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Indeed, this is the Good which Art at its highest seeks to\r\nenvisage and embody – the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">summum bonum </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">that accompanies a\r\nsummit consciousness. It is idle to say that all or most poets have\r\nthis revelatory vision of the Seer – Rishi – but a poet is a poet\r\nin so far as he is capable of this vision; otherwise he remains more\r\nor less either a moralist or a mere &aelig;sthete.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Whatever is ugly and gross, all the ills and evils \r\nof life – that is to say, what appears as such to our external mind and senses – \r\nwhen they have passed through the crucible of the poet&#39;s consciousness undergoes \r\na sea-change and puts on an otherworldly beauty and value. We know of the \r\nalchemy of poetic transformation that was so characteristic of Wordsworth\'s manner and\r\nto which the poet was never tired of referring, how the physical and\r\nbrute nature – even a most insignificant and meaningless and\r\nunshapely object in it attains a spiritual sense and beauty when the\r\npoet takes it up and treasures it in his tranquil and luminous and\r\nin-gathered consciousness, his &quot;inward eye&quot;. A crude\r\nfeeling, a raw passion, a tumult of the senses, in the same way,\r\nsifted through the poetic perception, becomes something that opens\r\nmagic casements, glimpses the silence of the farthest Hebrides, wafts\r\nus into the bliss of the invisible and the beyond. \r\n</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The voice of Art is sweetly persuasive – </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">kantasmmita,</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">\r\nas the Sanskrit rhetoricians say-it is the voice of the beloved, not\r\nthat of the school-master. The education of Poetry is like the\r\neducation of Nature: the poet said of the child that “grew in sun\r\nand showerâ€ – \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; margin-left:2.2cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">And beauty born of murmuring sound</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; margin-left:2.2cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Shall pass into her face.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">\r\nEven so the beauty of poetic creation, when we\r\ncontemplate it</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n183</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and\r\nlive in it, automatically and inevitably steals into our\r\nconsciousness, works a subtle change in our nature and by elevating\r\nand refining it makes us, for the moment at least, less crude and\r\nobscure and earthy things that we usually are.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n184</span></FONT></P>\r\n<hr>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\"></a></P>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-36_Art and Katharsis','','publish','closed','open','','36_art-and-katharsis','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/36_art-and-katharsis/',0,'post','',0),(1641,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040108;23154200\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;20300100\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin-left: 1.08cm; margin-right: 2.49cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><B>\r\n<font size=\"4\">THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY</font></B></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><B>\r\n<font size=\"4\">The\r\nMalady of the Century</font></B></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"page-break-after:avoid; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3><B>I</B></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"page-break-after:avoid; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>WHAT is the malady of our age? It is that man has lost\r\ntouch with his soul. There were ages no doubt in the past, dark\r\nperiods, when man\'s soul retired into the background, was obscured or\r\nveiled; but only today there seems to have occurred a definite\r\ncleavage, a clear sundering. Man no longer drags the lengthening\r\nchain that tied him, in spite of everything, to his divine essence;\r\nhe has cut it clean and let himself adrift.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The Eternal Enemy appeared and spread out before our\r\nenchanted eyes the panorama of earth\'s riches and glories, not merely\r\nriches of comfort and pleasure and well-being, but glories of power\r\nand knowledge; we could not resist this time; we hurled ourselves\r\nheadlong into the valley of temptation, delivering, as the price of\r\nthe bargain, our soul. Indeed, we are masters of many fields, our\r\nknowledge and power extend over an immense variety of regions,\r\nuncharted till now. Even like Vishnu the Dwarf, our consciousness has\r\ncovered with its three strides the entire creation, barring that\r\ndomain alone where the soul resides.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Our mind, our life and our body have become today far\r\nmore conscious and consciously powerful – each has found itself and\r\nis big with its own proper value. But what was familiarly known as\r\nthe mind of the mind, the life of the life, the body of the body has\r\nvanished and all it meant. The pith has been taken out, We are now\r\nplaying with the empty stalk; the secret thread on which the pearls\r\nof life-movements were strung has been removed and they lie about\r\nscattered and disjointed. We have enriched our possessions, we have\r\nmade</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 133</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>ourselves\r\nmore complex and multiple in our becoming: the telescope and\r\nthe microscope in the physical world, and a subtler sense in the mind\r\nalso, have extended the superficies of our consciousness. But with\r\nall that and in our haste to be busy about too many things, we have\r\nforgotten and left out of account the one thing needful.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>We have sought to increase our consciousness, but away\r\nfrom the centre of consciousness; so what we have actually gained is\r\nnot an increase, in the sense of a growth or elevation of\r\nconsciousness, but an accumulation of consciousnesses, that is to\r\nsay, many forms and external powers or applications of consciousness.\r\nA multiplicity of varied and independent movements of consciousness\r\nthat jostle and hurt and limit one another, because they are not\r\norganized round a fundamental unity, forms the personality of the\r\nmodern man, which is therefore tending to become on the whole more\r\nand more ill-balanced and neurasthenic and attitudinizing, in\r\ncomparison with the simpler and less equivocal temperament that\r\nmankind had in the past. And a good part of the catholicity or\r\nliberalism or toleration that appears to be more in evidence in the\r\npresent-day human consciousness is to be attributed not so much to\r\nthe sense of unity or identity, that is the natural and inevitable\r\noutcome of a real growth in consciousness, but rather to the doubt\r\nand indecision and hesitation, to the agnosticism and dilettantism\r\nand cynicism of a pluralistic consciousness.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Cut away from the soul, from the central fount of its\r\nbeing, the human consciousness has been, as it were, desiccated and\r\npulverized; it has been thrown wholly upon its multifarious external\r\nmovements and bears the appearance of a thirsty shifting expanse of\r\ndesert sands.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: 700;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>II</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Indeed a peculiar aridity has invaded the modern\r\nconsciousness; the sap has dried that once made life fresh and green\r\nand glad. It is not that we are turned away from life; on the\r\ncontrary, we are attached to it more than ever, – but the\r\nattachment has come upon us like a morbid hunger. And so </FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 134</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>we\r\nhave the lust for life, but know not the joy of life. We lay an\r\ninordinate stress upon the body, upon what is external and\r\nsuperficial, upon the matter of life, and suffer from a simultaneous\r\nrecoil and disgust for it. Human nature has been rent in twain and\r\nlife has lost its unity of rhythm.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The old-world had no experience of this self-division.\r\nIt had a frank and full joy in things of life, even in their most\r\nmaterial forms. And when it turned away from life, it did so in the\r\nsame spirit, of joy and frankness and wholeness. There was not this\r\nimmixture, this Hamletian &quot;to be or not to be&quot; – an\r\nunregenerate, barbaric life-impulse &quot;sicklied o\'er with the pale\r\ncast 0\' thought&quot; that troubles the modern consciousness.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In old days, while we enjoyed life we were not without\r\nthe taste for life. We were youthful and in full possession of the\r\n<I>dharma<FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"> </FONT></I>of youth.\r\nAnd when we left the world and life we cherished no regret; we did it\r\nwhole-heartedly. We were young; and our movements were whole and\r\nentire. It may be said that that was an age of unthinking innocence;\r\nbut in the attempt to gain the arid richness of an old-age\r\nconsciousness, we have lost the simplicity, the spontaneity and the\r\nintegrality of our non-age. Yes, we have eaten of the fruit of\r\nknowledge and our. youth is the price that we have paid. With our\r\npresent nature we not merely enjoy, but we want to know that we\r\nenjoy; we cannot enjoy a thing, unless in the very act we weigh and\r\ndissect and scrutinize the object and ourselves too, into the\r\nbargain.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>This knowledge, or rather, this curiosity does not arise\r\nfrom any depth of our being; it is the product of the meddlesome\r\nsuperficial brain-mind. We have become self-conscious; a vigilant\r\nself-consciousness is now the invariable coefficient of all our\r\nmovements, but it is a self-consciousness that has deviated into mere\r\nmental introspection and intellectual analysis. It was the soul\'s\r\nconsciousness, although perhaps more often from behind the veil, that\r\nonce inspired and enlivened human nature in its youth; and life was\r\nafter all a thing of beauty and joy – for the soul is the one <I>Rasa\r\n</I>of existence. We have deposed the Divine King; an anarchy now\r\nreigns in human nature which has become the battle-ground of\r\nqualities and forces that are, if not always more crude, at least,\r\ninvariably crooked and perverse. We live and move in the cold and\r\nblighting, and withal shallow, glare of the brain-mind.</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 135</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b>\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>III</FONT></b></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>We of the modern age know many things – perhaps too\r\nmany; and we yearn and strive to know yet more. We are never content\r\nwith the knowledge that we have at the moment; our mind is always\r\nrestive to leap beyond its immediate ken, thinking always that the\r\nsecret of existence is to be found in what escapes its scrutiny, in\r\nwhat lies just outside the limits of what we happen to know. We are\r\nnever sure of our knowledge. We are rich in curiosity, subtle in\r\nguessing; but always there lacks the sense of assurance and\r\nachievement. A certain unrest or <I>malaise </I>pursues our\r\nactivities, something that gives to our most perfect creation, the\r\nimpress of an experiment, of what is tentative, transitional,\r\ntemporary.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The ancients, on the contrary, knew not many things –\r\nnot so many as we know; but what they knew they knew well, they were\r\nsure of their knowledge. Their creations were not perhaps on the\r\nwhole as rich and varied and subtle – even in a certain sense as\r\ndeep as those of modern humanity; but they were finished and\r\ncompleted things, net and clear and full of power. The simple\r\nunambiguous virile line that we find in Kalidasa or in the Ajanta, in\r\nHomer or in the Parthenon, no longer comes out of the hands of a\r\nmodern artist. Our delight is in the complexity and turbidity of the\r\ncomposition; we are not satisfied with richness only, we require a\r\ncertain tortuousness and tangledness in the movement. We love the\r\nintermingling of many tints, the play of light dying away into haze\r\nand mist and obscurity, of shades 11fat blur the sharpness of the\r\ncontour. Our preoccupation, in Art, is how to create the <I><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\">impression\r\n</FONT></I>of the many in its all-round simultaneity of forms and\r\nmovements. The ancients were more simple and modest; they were\r\nsatisfied with <I>expressing </I>one thing at a time and that simply\r\ndone. </FONT>\r\n</P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The ancient Rishis were worshippers of the Sun and the\r\nDay; they were called Finders of the Day, Discoverers of the Solar\r\nWorld. They knew what they were about and they sought to make their\r\nmeaning plain to others who cared to go to them. They were clear in\r\ntheir thought, direct in their perception; their feelings, however\r\ndeep, were never obscure. We .meet in their atmosphere and in their\r\ncreative activity no circum-</FONT></P>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=center STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 136</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>ambulating\r\nchiaroscuro, nothing of the turbid magic that draws us today towards\r\nthe uncertain, the unexpected and the disconcerting. It is a world of\r\ncertitude, of solid reality – even if it be on the highest\r\nspiritual levels of consciousness – presenting a bold and precise\r\nand clear outline. When we hear them speak we feel they are uttering\r\nself-evident truths; there is no need to pause and question. At least\r\nso they were to their contemporaries; but the spokesman of our age\r\nmust needs be a riddle even to ourselves.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>To the moderns truth is merely relative; the absolute is\r\nan ever-receding reality and has only a theoretical existence. The\r\ntrue reality, whatever it is, we can never reach or possess; we may\r\nsay that we are approaching it nearer and nearer, but shall never\r\ncome up to it – there is no end to our pursuit. An eternally\r\nprogressive <I>rapprochement </I>between our knowledge or realization\r\nand the object of it is our destiny and also perhaps our privilege.\r\nIt is this movement without end or finality that is life and all its\r\nzest and beauty. The ancients, on the other hand, aimed and worked at\r\n<I>siddhi, </I>that is to say, definite and final achievement. This\r\ndid not mean, however, that there was a dead stop and they stagnated\r\nafter <I>siddhi. </I>It means that the consciousness having undergone\r\na change in character, takes a different kind of movement altogether:\r\nit proceeds now from truth to truth, from light to light, from <I>siddhi\r\n</I>to <I>siddhi. </I>The modern consciousness moves, on the other\r\nhand, from un&shy;certainty to uncertainty, at best, from the more\r\nobscure to the less obscure.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Ours is an age of hunger – hunger for knowledge, for\r\npower, for enjoyment. But we do not know, nor care to know, the\r\nconditions under which alone such hunger can really be appeased.\r\nFirst of all, we think that to satisfy our hunger we have simply to\r\ngo straight and pounce upon the object; we do not consider it at all\r\nnecessary to look beforehand to our assimilative nature and capacity.\r\nOur hunger serves only to multiply the objects of hunger; and the\r\nobjects of hunger again multiply our hunger; this is the vicious\r\ncircle in which we are entrapped. We hungered for progress, but what\r\nwe have succeeded in getting is change and movement, speed and\r\nrestlessness; we yearned for light, we have found only information;\r\nwe looked for power, we have mastered</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 137</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>a\r\nfew tricks or clever manipulations; we aspired for happiness, we have\r\nstopped with stray pleasures and hence with dissatisfaction.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>To relieve life of this mingled strain and tension, to\r\nlift it out of this ambiguity and uncertainty, to free it from this\r\ngravitational force that drives it towards what is superficial and\r\nexternal – to endow it with its real worth, we must find and\r\npossess life at a higher level, at its unspoilt source; we must first\r\ndraw back and re-establish, this time consciously and integrally, the\r\nlost connection with our soul, the Divine in our being.</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 138</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-28_The Malady of The Century','','publish','closed','open','','28_the-malady-of-the-century','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/28_the-malady-of-the-century/',0,'post','',0),(1642,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040209;9281400\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040218;1211500\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<P ALIGN=center style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">The\r\nSoul in Anguish</font></b></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>IT\r\nis very interesting to observe how in the modern epoch depths of\r\nconsciousness. are being dug up and laid bare to the common gaze,\r\neven like the archaeological finds of great antiquity and of immense\r\nvalue that are springing surprise after surprise upon our present-day\r\ncivilisation. In our inner explorations too we have often come to\r\nstrike psychological veins of unusual importance and significance. It\r\nis natural to the Yogin to do so; for it is the business of his life.\r\nBut even thinkers and philosophers who do not ostensibly lead the\r\nmystic life are arriving at judgments and conclusions that are not\r\nnormally warranted or covered by the unaided activities of the human\r\nreason. That proves once more that man is not reason alone, that he\r\nhas other faculties to go by even in the field of ordinary knowledge.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A range of mystics and philosophers or\r\nphilosopher-mystics from Kierkegaard to Sartre have made much of the\r\nsentiment of &quot;anguish&quot;. Naturally, it is not the usual\r\nfeeling of grief or sorrow due to disappointment or frustration that\r\nthey refer to, nor is it the &quot;repentance&quot; which is a\r\ncardinal virtue in the Christian spiritual discipline. Repentance or\r\ngrief is for something amiss, for some wrong done, for some good not\r\ndone. It has a definite cause that gives rise to it and determinate\r\nconditions that maintain and foster it: and therefore it has also an\r\nend, at least the possibility of an ending. It is not eternal and can\r\nbe mastered and got over: it is of the category of the Sankhyan or\r\nBuddhistic <I>dukhatrayabhighata – for </I>that matter even the\r\n<I>lacrimae rerum </I>(tears inherent in things) of Virgil* are not\r\neternal.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>But\r\nthe new Anguish spoken of is a strange phenomenon: it is causeless\r\nand it is eternal. It has sprung unbidden with no</FONT><BR>------------------------\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">*</span><I><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">Sunt\r\nlacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt [Aeneid, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:10pt;\">1. 462]</span><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 375</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>antecedent cause or condition: it is woven into the\r\nstuff of the being, part and parcel of the consciousness itself.\r\nIndeed it seems to be the veritable original sin, pertaining to the\r\nvery nature. Kierkegaard makes of it an absolute necessity in the\r\nspiritual constituent and growth of the human soul – something akin\r\nto, but deeper, because ineradicable, than the Socratic &quot;divine\r\ndiscontent&quot;. Sartre puts it in more philosophical and rational\r\nterms, in a secular atmosphere as a kind of inevitable accompaniment\r\nto the sense of freedom and responsibility and loneliness that besets\r\nthe individual being and consciousness at its inmost core, its\r\ndeepest depth.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>I was speaking of the depth, of the sounding of\r\nconsciousness in present-day inquiries into human nature. Sartre\'s\r\ninvestigation links itself up with the eternal inquiry graphically\r\nand beautifully described in the famous parable of the Taittiriya\r\nUpanishad (III).</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>In his quest for Brahman, Bhrigu came in contact first\r\nof all with the material existence and so took Matter to be the\r\nultimate Reality. He was asked to move on and at the next step he met\r\nLife and considered that as Brahman. He was asked to move farther on\r\nand at the third stage he found Mind which then appeared to him as\r\nthe Reality. He had to proceed farther and enter and pass through\r\nother higher formulations till finally he entered the highest expanse\r\n<I>(parame vyoman). </I>Now applying the parable to the situation\r\ntoday and the modern quest we can say that Science like Bhrigu is at\r\nthe first step – and, for some, stuck there contented like the\r\nAsura Virochana of another Upanishadic parable, although it has\r\nbecome fidgety and somewhat uncertain in recent times: some others –\r\nthe &quot;vitalist&quot; scientists and philosophers – are in the\r\nsecond stage. And yet there is a third category, the idealist\r\nphilosophers generally, who are emerging from the second into the\r\nthird.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>It seems that the School of Anguish is on the borderland\r\nbetween the second and the third stage, that is to say, the vital\r\nrising into the mental or the mental still carrying an impress of the\r\nvital consciousness. It is the emergence of the Purusha\r\nconsciousness, the individual being in its heart of hearts, in its\r\npure status: for it is that that truly evolves, progresses from level\r\nto level, deploying and marshalling according to its stress and\r\nscheme the play of its outward nature. Now the Purusha</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.41cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 376</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>consciousness, as separate from the outward nature, has\r\ncertain marked characteristics which have been fairly observed and\r\ncomprehended by the exponents of the school we are dealing with.\r\nSartre, for example, characterises this <I>being – <FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\">&ecirc;</FONT>tre\r\nen soi, </I>as distinguished from <I><FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\">&ecirc;</FONT>tre\r\npour soi </I>which is something like dynamic purusha or purusha\r\nidentified or associated with <I>prakrti – as </I>composed of the\r\nsense of absolute freedom, of full responsibility, of unhindered\r\nchoice and initiation. Indeed, Purusha is freedom, for in its own\r\nstatus it means liberation from all obligations to Prakriti. But such\r\nfreedom brings in its train, not necessarily always but under certain\r\nconditions, a terrible sense of being all alone, of infinite\r\nloneliness. One is oneself, naked and face to face with one\'s\r\nsingleness and unbreakable, unsharable individual unity. The <I>others\r\n</I>come as a product or corollary to this original <I>sui generis\r\n</I>entity. Along with the sense of freedom and choice or\r\nresponsibility and loneness, there is added and gets ingrained into\r\nit the sense of fear and anxiety – the anguish <I>(Angst). </I>The\r\nburden that freedom and loneliness brings seems to be too great. The\r\nPurusha that has risen completely into the mental zone becomes wholly\r\na witness, as the Sankhyans discovered, and all the movements of his\r\nnature appear outside, as if foreign: an absolute calm and\r\nunperturbed tranquillity or indifference is his character. But it is\r\nnot so with regard to the being that has still one foot imbedded in\r\nthe lower region of the vital consciousness; for that indeed is the\r\nproper region of anguish, of fear and apprehension, and it is there\r\nthat the soul becoming conscious of itself and separate from others\r\nfeels lone, lonely, companionless, without support, as it were. The\r\nmentalised vital Purusha suffers from this peculiar night of the\r\nsoul. Sartre\'s outlook is shot through with very many experiences of\r\nthis intermediary zone of consciousness.</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The being immersed in Prakriti, as normally it is, in\r\nrelation and communion with others, may entertain as a pleasure and\r\nluxury, the illusion of its separateness and freedom: it can do so at\r\nease, because it feels it has the secret support of its environment,\r\nit is courageous because it feels itself in good company. But once it\r\nrises out of the environmental level and stands truly apart and\r\noutside it – it is the mental being which can do so more or less\r\nsuccessfully – the first feeling is that of freedom, no</FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.37cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 377</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>doubt,\r\nbut along with it there is also the uncanny sense of isolation, of\r\nheavy responsibility, also a certain impotence, a loss of bearings.\r\nThe normal Cartesian Co-ordinates, as it were, are gone and the being\r\ndoes not know where to look for the higher multi-dimensional\r\nco-ordinates. That is the real meaning of the Anguish which suddenly\r\ninvades a being at a certain stage of his ascending consciousness. </FONT>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The solution, the issue out is, of course, to go ahead.\r\nInstead of making the intermediary poise, however necessary it may\r\nbe, a permanent character of the being and its destiny, as these\r\nphilosophers tend to do, one should take another bold step, a jump\r\nupward. For the next stage, the stage when the true equilibrium, the\r\ninherent reconciliation is realised between oneself and others,\r\nbetween the inner soul and its outer nature is what the Upanishad\r\ndescribes as Vijnana, the Vast Knowledge.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"center\" STYLE=\"text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 378</FONT></P>\r\n<hr style=\"text-indent:0.41cm;\">\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-74_The Soul in Anguish','','publish','closed','open','','74_the-soul-in-anguish','','','2021-11-23 17:57:58','2021-11-23 17:57:58','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/74_the-soul-in-anguish/',0,'post','',0),(1643,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040107;18172300\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040216;22122500\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin-left: 1.06cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">Federated Humanity</font></b><font size=\"4\"><BR>\r\n</font></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">THE last great war, out of its bloody welter, threw up a\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">mantra </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">for the human consciousness to contemplate and seize\r\nand realise: it was </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">self-determination. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The present world-war\r\nhas likewise cast up a </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">mantra </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">that is complementary. The\r\nproblem of the unification of the whole human race has engaged the\r\nattention of seers and sages, idealists and men of action, since time\r\nimmemorial; but only recently its demand has become categorically\r\nimperative for a solution in the field of practical politics. Viewed\r\nfrom another angle, one can say that it is also a problem Nature has\r\nset before herself, has been dealing with through the ages,\r\nelaborating and leading to a final issue.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The original unit of the human aggregate is the family;\r\nit is like the original cell which lies at the back of the entire\r\nsystem that is called the human body or, for that matter, any organic\r\nbody. A living and stable nucleus is needed round which a\r\ncrystallisation and growth can occur. The family furnished such a\r\nnucleus in the early epochs of humanity. But with the growth of human\r\nlife there came a time when, for a better and more efficient\r\norganization in collective life, larger units were needed. The\r\noriginal unit had to be enlarged in order to meet the demands of a\r\nwider and more complex growth. Also it is to be noted that the living\r\nbody is not merely a conglomeration of cells, all more or less equal\r\nand autonomous – something like a democratic or an anarchic\r\norganization; but it consists of a grouping of such cells in spheres\r\nor regions or systems according to differing functions. And as we\r\nrise in the scale of evolution the grouping becomes more and more\r\ncomplex, well-defined and hierarchical. Human collectivity also shows\r\na similar development in organization. The original, the primitive\r\nunit – the family – was first taken up into a larger \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 84</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">unit,\r\nthe clan; the clan, in its turn, gave place to the tribe and finally\r\nthe tribe merged into the nation. A similar widening of the unit can\r\nalso be noticed in man\'s habitat, in his geographical environment.\r\nThe primitive man was confined to the village; the village gradually\r\ngrew into the township and the city state. Then came the regional\r\nunit and last of all we arrived at the country.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Until the last great war it seemed that the nation (and\r\ncountry) was the largest living unit that human collectivity could\r\nadmit without the risk of a break-up. Now it was at this momentous\r\nepoch that the first concept or shape of a larger federation-typified\r\nin the League of Nations-stirred into life and began to demand its\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">lebensraum. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">It could not however come to fruition and\r\nstability, because the age of isolated nationhood had not yet passed\r\nand the principle of self&shy;-determination yet needed its absolute\r\njustification.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The present war puts the problem in the most acute way.\r\nShall it be still a nation or shall it be a &quot;commonwealth&quot;\r\nthat must henceforth be the dynamic unit? Today it is evident, it is\r\na fact established by the sheer force of circumstances that isolated,\r\nself-sufficient nations are a thing of the past, even like the tribes\r\nof the Hebrews or the clans of the Hittites. A super-nation, that is\r\nto say, a commonwealth of nations is the larger unit that Nature is\r\nin travail to bring forth and establish. That is the inner meaning of\r\nthe mighty convulsions shaking and tearing humanity today. The empire\r\nof the past – an empire of the Roman type and pattern – was\r\nindeed in its own way an attempt in the direction of a closely\r\nunified larger humanity; but it was a crude and abortive attempt, as\r\nNature\'s first attempts mostly are. For the term that was omitted in\r\nthat greater synthesis was self-determination. Centralisation is\r\ncertainly the secret of a large organic unity, but not\r\nover-centralisation; for this means the submission and sacrifice of\r\nall other parts of at! organism to the undue demands and interests of\r\nonly one organ which is considered as the centre, the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">metropolis</span><FONT FACE=\"Arial Narrow, sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">.\r\n</span></FONT></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Such a system dries up in the end the vitality of the\r\norganism: the centre, sucking in all nourishment from the outlying\r\nmembers suffers from oedema and the whole eventually decays and\r\ndisintegrates. That is the lesson the Roman Empire teaches us. \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 85</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The autocratic empire is dead and gone: we need not fear\r\nits shadow or ghostly regeneration. But the ideal which inspired it\r\nin secret and justified its advent and reign is a truth that has\r\nstill its day. The drive of Nature, of the inner consciousness of\r\nhumanity was always to find a greater and larger unit for the\r\ncollective life of mankind. That unit today has to be a federation of\r\nfree peoples and nations. In the place of nations, several such\r\ncommonwealths must now form the broad systems of the body politic of\r\nhuman collectivity. That must give the pattern of its texture, the\r\noutline of its configura&shy;tion – the shape of things to come.\r\nSuch unit is no longer a hypothetical proposition, a nebula, a matter\r\nof dream and imagination. It has become a practical necessity; first\r\nof all, because of the virtual impossibility of any single nation,\r\nbig or small, standing all by itself alone – military and political\r\nand economic exigencies demand inescapable collaboration with others,\r\nand secondly, because of the still stricter geo&shy;graphical\r\ncompulsion – the speed and ease of communication has made the globe\r\nso small and all its parts so interdependent that none can possibly\r\nafford to be exclusive and self-centred.</span></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The organization of this greater and larger unit is the\r\norder of the day. It does not seem possible at this stage to go\r\nstraight to the whole of humanity at large and make of it one single\r\nindivisible entity, obliterating all barriers of race and nation. An\r\nintermediate step is still necessary even if that remains the final\r\nend. Nationhood has been a helper in that direction; it is now a bar.\r\nAnd yet an indiscriminate internationalism cannot meet the situation\r\ntoday, it overshoots the mark. The march of events and circumstances\r\nprescribe that nations should combine to form groups or, as they say\r\nin French, societies of nations. The combination, however, must be\r\nfreely determined, as voluntary partnership in a common labour\r\norganisation for common profit and achievement. This problem has to\r\nbe solved first, then only can the question of nationalism or other\r\nallied knots be unravelled. Nature the Sphinx has set the problem\r\nbefore us and we have to answer it here and now, if humanity is to be\r\nsaved and welded together into a harmonious whole for a divine\r\npurpose. \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 86</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-17_Federated Humanity','','publish','closed','open','','17_federated-humanity','','','2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/17_federated-humanity/',0,'post','',0),(1644,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040109;1371400\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;21252000\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b><font size=\"4\">Tagore\r\n– Poet and Seer</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">A GREAT literature seems to have almost invariably a\r\ngreat name attached to it, one name by which it is known and\r\nrecognised as great. It is the name of the man who releases the\r\ninmost potency of that literature, and who marks at the same time the\r\nheight to which its creative genius has attained or perhaps can ever\r\nattain. Homer and Virgil, Dante and Shakespeare, Goethe and Camoens,\r\nFirdausi in Persian and Kalidasa in classical Sanskrit, are such\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">names – numina, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">each being the presiding deity, the godhead\r\nborn full-armed out of the poetic consciousness of the race to which\r\nhe belongs. Even in the case of France whose language and literature\r\nare more a democratic and collective and less an individualistic\r\ncreation, even there one single Name can be pointed out as the life\r\nand soul, the very cream of the characteristic poetic genius of the\r\nnation. I am, of course, referring to Racine, Racine who, in spite of\r\nMoliere and Corneille and Hugo, stands as the most representative\r\nFrench poet, the embodiment of French resthesis </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">par excellence.</span></I></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Such a great name is Rabindranath Tagore in Bengali\r\nliterature. We need not forget Bankim Chandra, nor even Madhusudan:\r\nstill one can safely declare that if Bengali language and literature\r\nbelonged to any single person as its supreme liberator and </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">fosterer\r\nsavita </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"> pusa – it </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">is Rabindra&shy;nath. It was he who\r\nlifted that language and literature from what had been after all a\r\nprovincial and parochial status into the domain of the international\r\nand universal. Through him a thing of local value was metamorphosed\r\ndefinitively into a thing of world value.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The miracle that Tagore has done is this: he has brought\r\nout the very soul of the race –its soul of lyric fervour and</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n197</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">grace,\r\nof intuitive luminosity and poignant sensibility, of beauty and\r\nharmony and delicacy. It is this that he has made living and vibrant,\r\nraised almost to the highest pitch and amplitude in various modes in\r\nthe utterance of his nation. What he always expresses, in all his\r\ncreations, is one aspect or another, a rhythm or a note of the soul\r\nmovement. It is always a cry of the soul, a profound experience in\r\nthe inner heart that wells out in the multifarious cadences of his\r\npoems. It is the same </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">motif </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">that finds a local habitation and\r\na name in his short stories, perfect gems, masterpieces among world\'s\r\nmasterpieces of art. In his dramas and novels it is the same element\r\nthat has found a wider canvas for a more detailed and graphic\r\nnotation of its play and movement. I would even include his essays\r\n(and certainly his memoirs) within the sweep of the same master-note.\r\nAn essay by Rabindranath is as characteristic of the poet as any\r\nlyric poem of his. This is not to say that the essays are devoid of a\r\nsolid intellectual content, a close-knit logical argument, an acute\r\nand penetrating thought movement, nor is it that his novels or dramas\r\nare mere lyrics drawn out arid thinned, lacking in the essential\r\nelements of a plot and action and character. What I mean is that over\r\nand above these factors which Tagore’s art possesses to a\r\nconsiderable degree, there is an imponderable element, a flavour, a\r\nbreath from elsewhere that suffuses the entire creation, something\r\nthat can be characterised only as the soul&shy;-element. It is this\r\npresence that makes whatever the poet touches not only living and\r\ngraceful but instinct with some&shy;thing that belongs to the world\r\nof gods, something celestial and divine, something that meets and\r\nsatisfies man\'s deepest longing and aspiration.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">I have been laying special stress upon this aspect of\r\nTag ore\'s genius, because humanity is in great need of it \'today,\r\nbecause all has gone wrong with the modern world since it lost touch\r\nwith its soul and was beguiled into a path lighted by false glimmers\r\nand will-o\'-the-wisps, hires of a superficial and infra-human\r\nconsciousness, or into the by-ways and backwashes and aberrations of\r\na sophisticated intellectualism.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Tagore is modern, as modern as reasonably and sensibly\r\none can be; he is a modern, but not a modernist. One is modern when\r\none is inspired and moved by the spirit of the Time, one \r\n</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n198</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">is\r\nmodernist when one is bound to the letter, to the external formulas\r\nof the law of the </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Zeit-Geist. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">You remain modern if the new\r\nconsciousness enters and dwells in your nature and character, you\r\nbecome modernist as soon as it degenerates into a </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">tic </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">and a\r\nmannerism.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The passage of mediaevalism to modernism can be defined\r\nas the passage from the local and parochial to the general and\r\nuniversal. The mediaeval consciousness is a segmented or linear\r\nconsciousness: it is the view, at a time, from one particular angle\r\nof vision. The modern consciousness, on the other hand, is or tends\r\nto be a global view-point, a circular consciousness. The unilateral\r\nmentality proper to mediaevalism may be deep and penetrating and\r\nfar-reaching, extending to the hidden and high realities, even to the\r\nhighest and the most secret – to God and Soul and Immortality; it\r\nwould still be a one-sided vision and achievement. It is the\r\ncharacteristic function of-the modern consciousness to survey things\r\nnot from a single point of view, but from all points of view, even\r\nthe most disparate and incommensurable. The relativity of all\r\nexperiences – not necessarily their illusoriness – is the great\r\nmodern discovery; it is the parent of modern (scientific) scepticism\r\nand agnosti&shy;cism; it is also the basis of a large, a global\r\nsynthesis, which was never possible till now and which is the promise\r\nof to-morrow.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Modernism implies a natural broadening of the mind and\r\nlife, a greater capacity to understand and endorse and ap&shy;preciate\r\ndivergent and even contrary and contradictory ex&shy;periences and\r\nstand-points. Thus, brotherhood to the mediaeval man meant bringing\r\ntogether mankind under the dominion of one cult or creed – it is\r\nthe extension of a tribal feeling. Brotherhood in a modern\r\nconsciousness would mean an inner union and commensurability that can\r\nsubsist even in the midst of a great diversity of taste and feeling\r\nand experience.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Tagore is modern in respect of all these higher\r\naptitudes that man has gained today. He has the brilliance and\r\ncuriosity of an alert and strong intelligence, the refined\r\nsensibility of a pagan and scientific intellect, he has an infinite\r\nsense of irony and humour and, above all, he has that in him, – a\r\ngenial plasticity and sympathy and a warm sense of “wide\r\ncom&shy;monaltyâ€, – which makes him easily a citizen of the\r\nworld, feeling absolutely at home all over the world.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"center\" STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n199</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The breath of modernism that Tagore has brought into the\r\nlife and letters of the Bengali race is, I repeat, suffused with a\r\nsoul-feeling – a sense of refinement and dignity, wideness and\r\ncatholicity and urbanity in the inner make-up of life-attitude and\r\nconsciousness, a feeling that one no longer lives in his village,\r\nconfined to its insular limits, but that one lives a life coterminous\r\nwith human life at large and at its best; one is cosmopolitan in the\r\nnoblest sense of the word and one has to move and act and speak in a\r\nmanner becoming such a position. A high sense of all the aristocratic\r\nvirtues, plus a certain sun&shy;shine of wit and playful intelligence\r\nthat prevents the serious and the lofty from becoming grim and\r\nDantesque are part of the gifts that Tagore has brought us and made a\r\nliving element of our literary and even social character.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Tagore is modern, because his modernism is based upon a\r\ntruth not local and temporal, but eternal and universal, some&shy;thing\r\nthat is the very bed-rock of human culture and civilisa&shy;tion.\r\nIndeed, Tagore is also ancient, as ancient as the Upani&shy;shads.\r\nThe great truths, the basic realities experienced and formulated by\r\nthe ancients ring clear and distinct in the core of all his artistic\r\ncreation. Tagore\'s intellectual make-up may be as rationalistic and\r\nscientific as that of any typical modern man. Nor does he discard the\r\ngood things </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">(preya) </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">that earth and life offer to man for his\r\nbanquet; and he does not say like the bare ascetic: </span><I><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman Baltic, serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">anyÄ\r\nvÄco vimuncatha, </span></FONT></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">&quot;abandon every&shy;thing else&quot;.\r\nBut even like one of the Upanishadic Rishis, the great Yajnavalkya,\r\nhe would possess and enjoy his share of terrestrial as well as of\r\nspiritual </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">wealth – ubhayameva. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In a world of modernism,\r\nalthough he acknowledges and appre&shy;ciates mental and vital and\r\nphysical values, he does not give them the place demanded for them.\r\nHe has never forgotten the one thing needful. He has not lost the\r\nmoorings of the soul. He has continued to nestle close to the eternal\r\nverities that sustain earth and creation and give a high value and\r\npurpose to man\'s life and creative activity.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In these iconoclastic times, we are liable, both in art\r\nand in life, to despise and even to deny certain basic factors which\r\nwere held to be almost indispensable in the old world. The great\r\ntriads – the True, the Beautiful and the Good, or God, Soul and\r\nImmortality – are of no consequence to a modernist</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:-0.03cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n200</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:-0.03cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">mind: these mighty words evoke no echo in the heart of a\r\ncontemporary human being. Art and Life meant in the old world\r\nsomething decent, if not great. They were perhaps, as I have already\r\nsaid, framed within narrow limits, certain rigid principles that\r\ncribbed and cabined the human spirit in many ways; but they were not\r\n</span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">anarchic, </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">they obeyed a law, a dharma, which they considered\r\nas an ideal, a standard to look up to and even live up to. The\r\nmodernist is an anarchic being in all ways. He does not care for\r\nold-world verities which seem to him mere convention or superstition.\r\nTruth and Beauty and Harmony are non-existent for him: if at all they\r\nexist they bear a totally different connotation, the very opposite of\r\nthat which is normally accepted.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The modernist does not ask: is it good? is it beautiful?\r\nHe asks: is it effective? is it expressive? And by effectivity and\r\nex&shy;pressiveness he means something nervous and physical.\r\nEx&shy;pressiveness to him would mean the capacity to tear off the.\r\nveil over what once was considered not worth the while or decent to\r\nuncover. A strange recklessness and shamelessness, an unhealthy and\r\nperverse curiosity, characteristic of the Asura and the Pisacha, of\r\nthe beings of the underworld, mark the movement of the modernist. But\r\nI forget. The Modernist is not always an anarchist, for he too seeks\r\nto establish a New Order; indeed he arrogates to himself that mission\r\nand de&shy;clares it to be his and his alone. Obviously it is not the\r\norder of the higher gods of Olympus: these have been ousted and\r\ndethroned. We are being led back to the mysteries of an earlier race,\r\nreverting to an infra-evolutionary status, into the arcana of Thor\r\nand Odin, godlings of an elemental Nature.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In such a world Tagore is a voice and a beacon from over\r\nthe heights of the old world declaring and revealing the verities\r\nthat are eternal and never die. They who seek to kill them do so at\r\ntheir peril. Tagore is a great poet: as such he is close to the heart\r\nof Bengal. He is a great Seer: as such humanity will claim him as its\r\nown.</span></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n201</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-39_Tagore Poet and Seer','','publish','closed','open','','39_tagore-poet-and-seer','','','2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/39_tagore-poet-and-seer/',0,'post','',0),(1645,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040107;19061400\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;4120000\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { size: 21.59cm 27.94cm; margin-left: 1.08cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en-US\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<b><font size=\"4\">The Ideals of Human Unity</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>THE unification of humanity is also a thing decreed. For\r\nit is the goal towards which Nature is proceeding slowly but\r\ninevitably, bringing into play factors and forces that work out that\r\nconsummation.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Man is a gregarious animal, a social being. He forms\r\ngroups and collectivities and lives as a member among others with\r\nwhom he is related and connected in various ways. These groupings are\r\nthe units round which man\'s life crystallises and develops, the\r\nnuclei of a growing, an increasingly com&shy;plex and unified\r\norganism.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The earliest and the most persistent unit is the family:\r\nit may be called the atomic unit of the social body, ultimate and\r\nunbreakable, considered as such at least till now. Larger units were\r\nformed in course of time or simultaneously out of this original unit.\r\nClan, tribe are extensions of the family. For the movement of\r\nextension, of continual enlargement is natural to a living organism,\r\nand the urge of the social life in man, his gregarious instinct, his\r\nsense of solidarity with his kind is so strong and irrepressible that\r\nhe cannot rest content with the family alone, but extend its\r\nboundaries or make new adhesions to it for the formation of a still\r\nlarger and more composite unit. The village was such a unit in the\r\nearly days. It was a collective organization on a territorial basis:\r\noriginally, however, the village too seems to have been if not\r\nwholly, at least in its major portion, an extended family. It\r\ngradually grew into a hetero&shy;geneous body, yet strongly unified,\r\nnot consisting merely of blood-relations but others needed for the\r\nsocial economy.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Various other regional and parochial units also\r\ndeveloped: baronies, kingdoms and princedoms, city states, all\r\nseeking to further extend and enrich the denotation of the social\r\nunit. A </FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 108</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>critical\r\nstage was reached when, out of the welter of all these various types\r\nof social unities, yet another type, of momentous consequences,\r\nemerged, called the nation. The nation absorbed all other lesser\r\nunities and soon grew into an extremely com&shy;posite and yet living\r\nunity: its strong cohesiveness, in spite of a diversity of the\r\ncomponent elements, no less than its ardent aggressiveness, is a\r\nremarkable characteristic attending the phenomenon. It looks as\r\nthough – at least it looked so till the other day – all the other\r\nprevious attempts at a larger unity, since the formation of the\r\noriginal family unit, had one purpose in view, <I>viz., </I>the\r\nbringing forth of the national unit. Next to the family, the nation\r\nseems to be the stable unit, the other intervening ones were unstable\r\ncomparatively and had only a temporary and contributory function.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Nationhood, however, developed into such a firm, solid,\r\nself-conscious and selfishly aggressive entity that it has now become\r\nalmost a barrier to a further enlargement of the unit towards a still\r\ngreater and wider unification of mankind. But nature cannot be\r\nbaulked, its straight urge hampered; it takes to by-ways and indirect\r\nroutes and roundabout channels for its fulfilment. On three different\r\nlines a greater and larger unification of mankind has been attempted\r\nthat goes beyond the unification brought about by the ideal of the\r\ncountry or people or nation. First, the political, that leads to the\r\nformation of Empires. But the faults and errors in this type of\r\nlarger unit have been made very evident. It acts as a steam-roller,\r\nno doubt, crushing out and levelling parochial differences and local\r\nnarrownesses; but it also means the overgrowth of a central organism\r\n– called the metropolis-at the expense of other member organisms\r\nforming part of the larger collectivity, <I>viz., </I>colonies and\r\ndependencies and subject races, which must in the end bring about a\r\ncollapse and disruption of the whole structure. The Roman Empire was\r\nthe typical example of this experiment. Next, there was what can be\r\ncalled the racial line. Many attempts have been made in this\r\ndirection, but nothing very successful has taken shape. Pan-Slavism,\r\nPan-Arabism, Pan-Jewry are some of the expressions of this movement.\r\nIt has the fatal fault of a basis that is uncertain and doubtful: for\r\na pure race is a myth and in modern conditions the cry must\r\nnecessarily be a cry in the wilderness. Many races and peoples </FONT>\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 109</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>have\r\nin the course of human history been thrown together, they have to\r\nlive together, are compelled to lead a common social, political,\r\neconomic and cultural life. That indeed was the genesis of\r\nnationhood. The hegemony of a so-called Nordic race over the world\r\nwas one of the monsters produced by this attempt, a <I>reductio ad\r\nabsurdum </I>of the principle.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The third is the religious principle. Religion, that is\r\nto say, institutional religion has also sought to unify mankind on a\r\nlarger basis, as large indeed as the world itself. The aim of\r\nChristendom, of Islam was frankly a conquest of the whole human race\r\nfor the one jealous Lord. Buddhism and Hinduism did not overtly or\r\nwith a set purpose attempt any such world&shy;wide proselytism, but\r\ntheir influence and actual working had almost a similar effect: at\r\nleast in the case of the former, it was like a flood throwing down\r\nmany local boundaries, over-&shy;flooding distant countries, and\r\npeoples, giving them all one unified religious life and culture. But\r\nhere too we meet the same objectionable feature as there is in the\r\nattempt at unity through the racial principle. For religious\r\nimperialism cannot succeed in unifying humanity, as amply\r\ndemonstrated by the Roman Catholic Church; and like political\r\nimperialism it was more or less an experiment in the line, effecting\r\nnothing beyond a moral atmosphere. Even a federation of religions,\r\ncontemplated by some idealists, seems hardly a practicable\r\nproposition; for it is only a mental conception and has no compelling\r\nvital force in it. At best it is only a sign-post, a pointer to the\r\ngoal Nature and humanity have been endeavouring to evolve and\r\nrealise.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A new type of imperialism – for imperialism it is in\r\nessence has been developing in recent times; and it seems it shall\r\nhave its day and contribute its share of experimentation towards the\r\ngoal we are speaking of. I am of course referring to what has been\r\nfrankly and aptly termed as the <I>Dictatorship of the Proletariate.\r\n</I>It is an attempt to cut across all other boundaries and unities\r\nof human groupings – racial, national, religious, even familial. It\r\nseeks to unify and consolidate one whole stratum of humanity in a\r\nsingle stream-lined steel-frame organisation. At least that was the\r\nideal till yesterday; there seems to be growing here too a movement\r\ntowards decentralisation. Naturally, even as an organisation that is\r\ntop-heavy is bound</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 110</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>to\r\ntopple down in the end, likewise an organisation that is\r\nb<I>ottom-heavy, </I>that is to say, restricts to that portion only\r\nof its <FONT FACE=\"Arial, sans-serif\">body </FONT>all sap and\r\ndynamism, is also bound to deteriorate and disintegrate. A tree does\r\nnot live by its branches and leaves and flowers alone, no doubt, nor\r\ndoes it live by its roots alone.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A different type of wider grouping is also being\r\nexperimented upon nowadays, a federal grouping of national units. The\r\nnation is taken in this system as the stable indivisible funda&shy;mental\r\nunit, and what is attempted is a free association of independent\r\nnations that choose to be linked together because of identity of\r\ninterests or mutual sympathy in respect of ideal and culture. The\r\nBritish Empire is a remarkable experiment on this line: it is\r\nextremely interesting to see how an old-world Empire is. really being\r\nliquidated (in spite of a Churchill) and transformed into a\r\ncommonwealth of free and equal nations. America too has been\r\nattempting a Pan-American federation. And in continental Europe, a\r\nWestern and an Eastern Block of nations seem to be developing, not on\r\nideal lines perhaps at present because of their being based upon the\r\nold faulty principle of balance of power hiding behind it a\r\ndangerously egoistic and exclusive national consciousness; but that\r\nmay change when it is seen and experienced that the procedure does\r\nnot pay, and a more natural and healthier approach may be adopted.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Now out of this complex of forces and ideals, what seems\r\nto stand out clearly is this: (i) the family unit remains for\r\npractical purposes, – whatever breaking or modification affects its\r\noutward forms, the thing seems to be a permanent feature of life\r\norganization; (ii) the nation too has attained a firm stability and\r\ninviolability; it refuses to be broken or dissolved and in any larger\r\naggregate that is formed this one has to be integrated intact as a\r\nliving unit. The other types of aggregates seem to be more in the\r\nnature of experiments and temporary necessities; when they have\r\nserved their purpose they fade and disappear or are thrown into the\r\nbackground and persist as vestigial remains. It seems to us that the\r\nclan, the tribe, the race are such formations. Regionalism,\r\nImperialism (political, economic or religious) are also not stable\r\naggregates.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Still it is difficult to say as yet what would be the\r\nexact form of the intermediate grouping between the nation and</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 111</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>humanity\r\nat large, even if a grouping of nations appear to be a necessity as\r\nan intermediate stage, whether such groupings or commonwealths are\r\ngoing to be a permanent feature or whether the nation will finally\r\nremain the ultimate unit and humanity will consist of such free equal\r\nnations, independent units, all together forming a unified whole.</FONT></P>\r\n			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Anarchism-a certain school of philosophical or spiritual\r\nanarchism-presages, however, an agglutinative type of humanity. That\r\nis to say, there will be no hierarchy of groupings, in fact there\r\nwill be no aggregates at all, the individual will be the sole, the\r\nfirst and the last unit. The individual, it is said, will have so\r\ndeveloped and perfected its self-nature that by following the law of\r\nthat nature, it will automatically and spontaneously live and move\r\nharmoniously with all the rest; each will be a self-contained unit\r\nand there will be a kind of pre-established harmony among all. Even\r\nif it be so, however, a hierarchical form of groupings in human\r\norganisation need not necessarily be barred out.</FONT><BR>\r\n			</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 112</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-24_The Ideals of Human Unity','','publish','closed','open','','24_the-ideals-of-human-unity','','','2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/24_the-ideals-of-human-unity/',0,'post','',0),(1646,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040110;4323900\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040217;21520000\">\r\n	<STYLE>\r\n	<!--\r\n		@page { margin-left: 1.08cm; margin-right: 1.9cm; margin-top: 2.54cm; margin-bottom: 2.54cm }\r\n		P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }\r\n	-->\r\n	</STYLE>\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"text-indent:0.34cm; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;line-height:150%\">\r\n<b><font size=\"4\">A\r\nGlobal Humanity</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%\">\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">A GLOBAL view of humanity is\r\nbecoming more and more insistent, unavoidable and inevitable. It is\r\nbeing forced upon the normal consciousness of mankind so that the\r\nordinary life itself has to be conducted and lived according to the\r\ndemands of that view. It is this that humanity is one, that mankind\r\nas a whole is a single organism. Even like an individual being, the\r\ncollective being too is a unit, a close knit living unit. As the\r\nindividual has different parts and limbs, organs and systems, so is\r\nhumanity composed of nations and races, cultures and religions. And\r\nas the parts of the &quot;body natural&quot; do not exist by\r\nthemselves, independently of one another, each for its own sake\r\nwithout regard for others, so do the various human aggregates that\r\nform the &quot;body politic&quot; live and move intimately together,\r\nfor a common purpose in a united functioning.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">There is an aim, a goal to\r\nwhich\' humanity moves in obedience to a cosmic purpose, in accordance\r\nwith a cosmic law. The principle of evolution has given an expression\r\nof formula to this cosmic law and purpose, although it is more or\r\nless an outward expression and in reference to an outward phenomenon.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The different limbs of an\r\norganism are held together and they work together harmoniously. The\r\nwhole world, as we are finding it today, is indissolubly one. There\r\nis an inter. relation and interaction that compel them all to stand\r\ntogether or fall together. This is, however, a static unity and\r\nharmony, a harmony that is in the being, in essence. For in the\r\noutward working there is always a play of discord – quarrels and\r\nrivalries, competition and conflict, struggle and</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; border-top: medium none; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; padding-bottom: 0.07cm; padding-left: 0cm; padding-right: 0cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page –\r\n232</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">battle.\r\nIndeed this seems to be the rule, the other seems more an ideal than\r\na fact. The unity that is found actually is rather the unity of a\r\nlocked fight. Within the individual the same thing is there. There is\r\na maladjustment among the organs and limbs, not only physically but\r\nalso psychologically. But all the same beyond and beside this play of\r\ndiscord there is an inherent and overruling unity and harmony which\r\ncreates the personality or individuality of the human person. The\r\ncharacteristic of the human person is his forward-looking gaze-he has\r\na purpose in life. This is exactly the dynamic element, the something\r\nmore that is needed for the fulfilment of the organic unity. This\r\nelement is what we know as the principle of progress which is the\r\npsychological name for evolution. In other words, there is in man and\r\nin the world not only a static unity and harmony in essence, but a\r\nprogressive unity and harmony in manifestation. The individual moves\r\ntowards the health and growth of the body and mind and the spirit. If\r\none life is not sufficient for the purpose, as some seers declare,\r\nseveral lives are at the disposal of the individual to achieve it. In\r\nwhat sense can the same or something similar be said of the\r\ncollective or group life?</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">There is the view, an old-world\r\nview, of eternal recurrence. That is to say, creation is ever the\r\nsame; it goes through a cycle of changes, but the cycles repeat </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">ad\r\ninfinitum. </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">There is no progress, no forward movement towards a\r\nmore and more perfection. Indeed, the cycle of creation is a closed\r\ncircle. The idea of progress was very much in vogue at one time. It\r\nwas born under the auspices of Romantic Idealism; it was fostered and\r\nstrengthened by youthful, Science in the first enthusiasm of her\r\nearly discoveries, especially that of the fact of biological\r\nevolution. There has, however, been a setback since, when it was\r\nfound that the original picture of evolution – the emergence and\r\ngrowth of species in the course of a few thousand years is far from\r\nbeing true, that evolution means not thousands but millions of years.\r\nAnd when archaeologists discovered that men could build hygienic\r\ncities, run democratic states, discuss and argue acutely on recondite\r\nproblems of life and philosophy, women knew the use of ornaments and\r\njewels of consummate beauty and craftsmanship in epochs when they\r\nwere expected to be no more than wild denizens of the cave </span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; border-top: medium none; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; padding-bottom: 0.07cm; padding-left: 0cm; padding-right: 0cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"> \r\n  <FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page \r\n  -233</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">or\r\nthe forest, the belief in human progress, at least along a steady\r\nstraight line, was very much shaken.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Yet an imperious necessity of\r\nthe idea, almost as an inevitable ingredient of human consciousness,\r\nalways exists and constantly makes its presence felt. If recurrence\r\nis the law of creation, this idea with its will to fruition is also a\r\nrecurrent phenomenon. A modern form of it has been given a very\r\ndynamic drive in the Marxian gospel. A socio-economic progress,\r\nhowever, is and can be only a part, in fact, a result of a wider and\r\ndeeper progress.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">We say then that the fraternity\r\nand unity of mankind has been a constant dream and aspiration, a\r\nsettled ideal. And in the circumstances of today it is becoming more\r\nand mace evident that the idea is a secret fact of existence and that\r\nthere is an overwhelming urge in Nature to bring it out and establish\r\nit as a manifest and concrete reality. If we review the history of\r\nmankind once again, not measuring it by its centuries but by its\r\nmillenniums, not by its apparent habits and outward forms but by\r\ninner forces and attitudes, we shall discover that it is the story of\r\nthe unfoldment of a collective fulfilment, of an ascension in grades\r\nof consciousness towards an ever higher and vaster truth and reality.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Viewed as a progressive growth\r\nof consciousness and transformation of nature, man\'s advance has been\r\nmarked out in a few very definite stages. The first was the purely\r\nanimal man – Pasu – when man lived merely as a physical being,\r\nconcerned solely about his body. Then came the Pisacha, the man of\r\nvital urges in their crudest form, the man of ignorant passions and\r\ndark instincts who has been imaged in the popular mind as the ghoul.\r\nAt the next stage, with a further release of the consciousness, when\r\nthe larger vital impulses come into play man becomes the Rakshasa,\r\nthe demon. Egoistic hunger for possession, enjoyment, enlarged and\r\nincreased appetite are his characteristics. Next came the Asura, the\r\nTitan, the egoistic mental man in his earlier avatar seeking to\r\nemerge out of the purely vital nature. Ambition and pride are his\r\nguiding spirit. Prometheus is his prototype. There are still two\r\nhigher types which have been established in the human consciousness\r\nand in the world atmosphere as dynamic ideals, if not as common\r\nconcrete facts of the material</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; border-top: medium none; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; padding-bottom: 0.07cm; padding-left: 0cm; padding-right: 0cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"> \r\n  <FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page \r\n  -234</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">world.\r\nThe first is the ethical man, who seeks to govern his life according\r\nto some principles of light and purity, such, for example, as\r\nunselfishness, altruism, chivalry, self-abnegation, rectitude,\r\ntruthfulness etc. He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is\r\nalso a still higher category, where consciousness endeavours to go\r\nbeyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we\r\nhave the spiritual man, the saint and the sage. Beyond lie the\r\nsupra-mental domains formed of the consciousness of the gods.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Man, individually and\r\ncollectively, has passed and is passing through these steps of\r\nevolution. The last one is his goal at the present stage. To be a\r\nsaint, seer or sage is not enough for man. He must be a god. Indeed\r\nwhen he has succeeded to be a god then only would it be possible for\r\nhim to become what a saint or a seer or sage has to be in order to\r\nfulfil him&shy;self totally and integrally. The human race as a whole\r\nis progressing along the same line towards the same consummation.\r\nThat is the secret purpose and end of Nature, to evolve a growing\r\ndeveloping material form housing, embodying higher and wider ranges\r\nof consciousness, integrating all elements into a more and more\r\nintimate and inviolable unity and harmony. \'</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">This progress towards ever\r\nhigher and wider consciousness means also in man\'s social or\r\ncollective life the formation of larger and larger aggregates,\r\nunification of mankind in ever widening groups. From man the solitary\r\nanimal, through the family, the clan, the tribe to the nation the\r\nrace has been increasing the circle of its sympathy and kinship. The\r\nbirth of the modern nation out of regional and local groupings is a\r\ntriumph of the emerging consciousness in humanity pointing to another\r\nsignal and supreme triumph, the emergence of the global sense hi man\r\nthat is to bind humanity as a single indissoluble indivisible unity\r\nin actual life.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">The aggregates are meant to\r\nexpress, apart from the growing unity, a diversity of achievements in\r\nthe collective consciousness marking and enriching that unity. The\r\nhighest, the largest aggregate attained at the present moment is as I\r\nhave said, that of the nation, the lower and lesser aggregates have\r\nbeen subsumed under it. The principle of integration in its. graded\r\ncourse is precisely this that the new unity absorbs the</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; border-top: medium none; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; padding-bottom: 0.07cm; padding-left: 0cm; padding-right: 0cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"> \r\n  <FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page \r\n  -235</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">previous\r\nlesser units as its components, some find their place in it in a\r\ntransmuted form and function – those that are of use in the new\r\ndisposition – others that had truth only for the past disappear or\r\nremain as vestiges of an extinct reality. The clan and the tribe have\r\npractically disappeared as living realities; the family has been\r\nmaintaining itself still as a functioning unit, but it has\r\nconsiderably changed its features and in recent times it has been\r\nundergoing revolutionary transmutations. The rigours of the system\r\nprevailing in the old world have all but gone, they have been reduced\r\nto the minimum; the system has become more or less a mere outline,\r\nthe substance and the details have become very vague and fluid. It\r\nmay come out with quite a new connotation in the not very distant\r\nfuture. The nation, then, as the living unit of aggregation today, is\r\non the move again towards a yet more enlarged aggregate. Empire was a\r\nblind and violent attempt at this greater aggregation. The\r\nCommonwealth of more recent times was a conscious, deliberate and\r\nhealthier endeavour towards the same goal. The various trials with\r\nregard to a league of nations is also a conscious and deliberate,\r\nalthough somewhat groping experiment in the same line.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Man\'s attempt to surpass himself\r\nand establish a superhuman race is a conscious and deliberate process\r\nand the attempt can be successful only through such an willed\r\ndiscipline, </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">s</span><FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Ä</span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">dhan</span><FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Ä</span></FONT><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">.\r\n</span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">In the same way, a supranational human unity will be possible as\r\na parallel eventuality to the same process of individual discipline.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Humanity is evolving and\r\ndeveloping the various groupings to manifest fundamental aspects of\r\nits cosmic person. Ancient Egypt, for example, brought us in contact\r\nwith an occult world and a subliminal consciousness. We know also of\r\nthe nature of the Hebraic genius, the moral fervour, the serious,\r\nalmost grim spirit of Righteousness that formed and even now forms a\r\nmajor strain in the European or Christian culture and civilisation.\r\nThe famous &quot;sweetness and light&quot; of the Hellenic mind\r\nsupplied the other strain. The Roman genius for law and government is\r\na well-known commonplace of history. Well-known also India\'s\r\nspirituality. All these modes of consciousness are elements –\r\nforces, energies and personalities – that build up the godhead of\r\nhumanity. Peoples and races in </span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; border-top: medium none; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; padding-bottom: 0.07cm; padding-left: 0cm; padding-right: 0cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"> \r\n  <FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page \r\n  -236</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"><FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">the\r\npast were the scattered limbs of the godhead-scattered and isolated\r\nfrom one another, because of the original uncon&shy;sciousness and\r\nsharp egocentricity out of which Nature started its course of\r\nevolution. The </span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">disjecta membra </span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">are being collected together by\r\na growing consciousness.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Such then is the destiny of man\r\nand mankind-man to rise to higher heights of consciousness beyond\r\nmental reason that are not governed by the principle of division,\r\nseparation, antithesis but by the principle of unity, identity,\r\nmutuality and totality. In other words, he will take his seat in the\r\nstatus of his soul, his inner and inmost being, his divine\r\npersonality where he is one with all beings and with the world. This\r\nis a rare and difficult realisation for man as he is today, but\r\ntomorrow it will be his normal nature. The individual will live in\r\nhis total being and therefore in and through other individuals; as a\r\nconsequence the nature too in each will undergo a divine\r\ntransmutation, a marvellous sea-change.</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\">\r\n<FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 11pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Humanity as a race will then\r\npresent the figure of a homogeneous unit – it will be a unity of\r\nmany diversified elements, not simply, however, a composition of\r\ndiscrete individuals, but of varied aggregations of individuals –\r\neven as the body is not merely composed of cells, but also these\r\ncells are collected in aggregates forming various limbs and systems,\r\neach again with its own identity and function. Indeed, the cosmic or\r\nglobal humanity is very likely to be pyramidal in structure-not a\r\nflat and level construction. There will be an overall harmony and\r\nintegration containing a rich variety of gradations – gradations of\r\nconsciousness, as even now there are: only the whole will be more\r\nluminous, that is to say, more. conscious and more concordant; for at\r\nthe top, on the higher levels, new lights will show themselves and\r\nmen embodying those lights. They will radiate and spread out,\r\ninfiltrate into the lower ranges something of their enlightenment and\r\nharmony and happiness which will bring about a global purification\r\nand a new dispensation; even the material world, the vegetable and\r\nmineral domains too may be taken up into this luminous consummation\r\nand earth become the Garden of Eden that it once was, suffused with a\r\nnew glory. </span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"text-indent: 0.34cm; margin-bottom: 0; border-top: medium none; border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; padding-top: 0cm; padding-bottom: 0.07cm; padding-left: 0cm; padding-right: 0cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0\"> \r\n  <FONT STYLE=\"font-size: 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page-237</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\"></a></P>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-43_A Global Humanity','','publish','closed','open','','43_a-global-humanity','','','2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/43_a-global-humanity/',0,'post','',0),(1647,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040210;18190600\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040218;1244800\">\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><b>\r\n<font size=\"4\">Light,\r\nmore Light</font></b></p>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>LIGHT\r\nis its own authenticity. Modern knowledge has reduced the material\r\nuniverse to light particles: that is the ultimate reality which is\r\ncognisable to the human sense, beyond which there is no means to go.\r\nAll other objects are reflections, measures or derivations of this\r\nsingle primordial substance-at least all have to reach our perception\r\nthrough this intermediary. And its movement, its velocity too is the\r\nstandard of measure for all movements: the velocity is constant and\r\nnothing can exceed it (that is Einstein).</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>There is an inner light too. The virtues of the outer\r\nlight only translate something of the nature of the inner light. You\r\ncannot prove the existence of light, inner or outer; it exists in its\r\nown light and itself serves to prove things that exist. Not only\r\nthat. Light is not only a power of knowledge, it is also a power of\r\naction: it not only illumines, but also purifies. It clears up and as\r\nwell cleans up.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>But where is to be found this inner light? How is it to\r\nbe recognised? \'Does it truly require no introduction like the outer\r\nlight? What are its characters and attributes, its signs and signals?\r\nThe light is in one\'s own consciousness, one has simply to become\r\naware of it. It is mixed p with darkness, imbedded in obscurity, as\r\ndiamond or gold lies concealed in its ore. But, as I have said, light\r\ncarries its own authenticity. One cannot fail to recognise it,\r\nprovided – and that is the sole arid sufficient provision – one\r\nis genuinely willing to recognise. A sincere good-will is all that is\r\nrequired in this apparently arduous labour.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.4cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Here is a significant mystery and of capital importance.\r\nWe refer to an activity of the consciousness which is not completely\r\n.hidden or behind the veil: it appears covered, because we do not\r\ncare to look at it, because it is likely to be of an uncomfortable </FONT>\r\n<BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.4cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 397</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>kind and that because we feel safe and cosy at the lowest level of\r\nour consciousness and to mount and rise or to be vigilant and\r\nstraight means effort and trouble.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Let us explain. Man is not as ignorant and helpless as\r\nhe seems to be, as he would himself consider to be. There is in him\r\nalways a spark, under the ashes, as it were, a perfect freedom behind\r\nthe fa<FONT FACE=\"Luxi Serif\">&ccedil;</FONT>ade of a network of\r\nbondages, not dead or dormant but biding the time, to come out and be\r\nactive on the surface. The spark is the light that directs to the\r\nright and warns against the wrong; the freedom is the choice to do th\r\ne right and avoid the wrong. It is just a point of perception, just a\r\nflash of awareness, but net and clear: it is there, you have only to\r\nnotice it. It does not give the why or the whither of the rightness:\r\nit is a simple declaration presented to you, for you to do what you\r\nlike with it: to ignore or to profit by. Usually we do not pay\r\nattention to it: our attention is diverted towards another direction\r\nand other things. Our environment, our education, our domestic and\r\nsocial influences, even a good part of our own nature demand of us\r\nother ways of living and inhibit the spontaneous inherent light of\r\nthe consciousness. Even so, if we care to look at it, if we sincerely\r\nturn round and ask for it, we will find it still there – the flame\r\nbehind the smoke, the queen in the harem, the deity in the sanctum.\r\nWhat is required is just a straight look and not the crooked wink we\r\nare accustomed to. The first attempts will necessarily mean a little\r\nfumbling, but if you mean what you do, you will find your vision\r\ngetting clearer. It is our own disinclination that weaves the cobweb\r\nof ignorance around the trutl1. Otherwise, an unsophisticated\r\nconsciousness, a consciousness which is not vitiated – more often\r\nby nurture than by nature – can always feel the presence of the\r\ntruth and is directly aware of it.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.39cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>A blinded misdirected mind, if it wakes up at any time\r\nand looks about for the truth <I>sincerely – we </I>insist upon the\r\ncondition – can recognise it, learn to trace it by certain\r\nindications it always leaves behind in the consciousness. A touch of\r\nthe truth, a step towards it will be always accompanied by a sense of\r\nrelief, of peace, of a serene happiness and unconditional freedom.\r\nThese things are felt not as something gross and superficial\r\naffecting your outer life and situation, but pertaining to the depth\r\nof your being, concerning your inmost fibre – it</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.39cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 398</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"><FONT SIZE=3>is\r\nnothing else but just the sense of light, as if you are at last out\r\nof the dark. A right movement brings you that feeling; and whenever\r\nyou have that feeling you know that there has been the right\r\nmovement. On the contrary, with a wrong movement you are ill at ease.\r\nYou may say that a hardened criminal is never ill at ease; perhaps,\r\nbut only after a great deal of hardening. The criminal was not always\r\na criminal – I am speaking of a human being, not a born <I>hostile\r\n– he </I>must have started some-where the downward incline. The\r\ndistinction of the right and the wrong must have been presented to\r\nhis consciousness and the choice was freely his. Afterwards one gets\r\nbound to one\'s Karma and its chain.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.42cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Anyway, we are concerned particularly with one who asks\r\nfor the truth and reality, the aspirant who is ready for the\r\ndiscipline. To the aspiring soul, to one who sincerely wishes to see\r\nthe truth, it has been said, the truth unveils its body. The\r\nunveiling is gradual: the perception of the reality grows, the\r\nsensibility becomes refined, the vision clearer and clearer. The\r\nfirst step, as in all things, is the most decisive. For once all on a\r\nsudden, probably when you are off your guard, you know, in a flash,\r\nas it were, here is the right thing to do or the right thing you have\r\ndone or even the wrong you have not done. You have thus secured the\r\nclue: and it is up to you now to pursue the clue.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.37cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>The question of false light or of wrong perception need\r\nnot trouble you too much. If you are sincere, if you have the correct\r\nattitude, things will come always right to you. The trouble is for\r\nhim who is not himself true or does not propose to be true.</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.38cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>This spontaneous recognition of the light in you is also\r\ncalled, in the Yogic language, <I>openness. </I>It means you are\r\nready, at least, something in you is ready, to accept and admit the\r\nlight when it presents itself before you. If you have any hesitation\r\nto receive it for its own sake, if you wish to corroborate your\r\ninitial perception you can look for its sign manual: the peace, the\r\nfreedom, the elevation, the quiet certitude, the exquisite sweetness\r\nor gladness it brings, its own luminosity which is found neither here\r\nnor elsewhere but in its own body of self.</FONT><BR>\r\n</P>\r\n<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.38cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 399</FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"/Nolini/Volume-1/_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-82_Light, More Light','','publish','closed','open','','82_light-more-light','','','2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/82_light-more-light/',0,'post','',0),(1648,1,'2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN\">\r\n<HTML>\r\n<HEAD>\r\n	<META HTTP-EQUIV=\"CONTENT-TYPE\" CONTENT=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\">\r\n	<TITLE></TITLE>\r\n	<META NAME=\"GENERATOR\" CONTENT=\"Namo WebEditor v4.0\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CREATED\" CONTENT=\"20040216;21085100\">\r\n	<META NAME=\"CHANGED\" CONTENT=\"20040216;21093700\">\r\n	\r\n</HEAD>\r\n<BODY LANG=\"en\">\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n	<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\">\r\n		<tr>\r\n			<td>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=\"center\" STYLE=\"font-weight: 700;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\"> \r\n<font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\"><img src=\"     \" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"><img src=\"     \" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"> \r\n  Principle \r\n  </font><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman,sans-serif\" size=\"4\">and \r\n  Personality</FONT><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"4\">\r\n</font></P><BR>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">IT is asked of us why do we preach a man and not purely\r\nand solely a principle. Our ideal being avowedly the establishment\r\nand reign of a new principle of world-order and not gathering\r\nrecruits for the camp of a sectarian teacher, it seems all the more\r\ninconsistent, if not thoroughly ruinous for our cause, that we should\r\nlay stress upon a particular individual and incur the danger of\r\novershadowing the universal truths upon which we seek to build human\r\nsociety. Now, it is not that we are unconscious or oblivious of the\r\nmany evils attendant upon the system of preaching a man – the\r\nhistory of the rise and decay of many sects and societies is there to\r\ngive us sufficient warning; and yet if we cannot entirely give the\r\ngo-by to personalities and stick to mere and bare principles, it is\r\nbecause we have clear reasons for it, because we are not unconscious\r\nor oblivious either of the evils that beset the system of preaching\r\nthe principle alone.</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">Religious bodies that are formed through the </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">bhakti\r\n</font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">and </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">puja </font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">for one man, social reconstructions forced by the\r\nwill and power of a single individual, have already in the inception\r\nthis grain of incapacity and disease and death that they are not an\r\nintegrally self-conscious creation, they are not, as a whole,\r\nintelligent and wide awake and therefore constantly responsive to the\r\ntruths and ideals and realities for which they exist, for which at\r\nleast, their founder intended them to exist. The light at the apex is\r\nthe only light and the entire structure is but the shadow of that\r\nlight; the whole thing has the aspect of a dark mass galvanised into\r\nred-hot activity by the passing touch of a dynamo. Immediately\r\nhowever the solitary light fails and the dynamo stops, there is\r\nnothing but the original darkness and inertia – toma </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">asit tamasa\r\ngudham agre.</font></span></I></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 46</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">Ma</font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">n, however great and puissant he may be, is a\r\nperishable thing. People who gather or are gathered round a man and\r\nding to him through the tie of a personal relation must fall off and\r\nscatter when the man passes away and the personal tie loses its hold.\r\nWhat remains is a memory, a gradually fading memory. But memory is\r\nhardly a creative force, it is a dead, at best, a moribund thing; the\r\nreal creative power is Presence\'. So when the great man\'s presence,\r\nthe power that crystallises is gone, the whole edifice crumbles and\r\nvanishes into air or remains a mere name.</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">Love and admiration for a </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">mahapurusha </font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">is not\r\nenough, even faith in his gospel is of little avail, nor can actual\r\nparticipation, consecrated work and labour in his cause save the\r\nsituation; it is only when the principles, the bare realities for\r\nwhich the </font></span><I><FONT FACE=\"Times New Roman,sans-serif\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">mahapurusha </span></FONT></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">stands\r\nare in the open forum and men have the full and free opportunity of\r\ntesting and assimilating them, it is only when individuals thus\r\nbecome living embodiments of those principles and realities that we\r\ndo create a thing universal and permanent, as universal and permanent\r\nas earthly things may be. Principles only can embrace and unify the\r\nwhole of humanity; a particular personality shall always create\r\ndivision and limitation. By placing the man in front, we erect a wall\r\nbetween the Principle and men at large. It is the principles, on the\r\ncontrary, that should be given the place of honour: our attempt\r\nshould be to keep back personalities and make as little use of them\r\nas possible. Let the principles work and create in their freedom and\r\npower, untrammelled by the limitations of any mere human vessel. \r\n</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">We are quite familiar with this cry so rampant in our\r\ndemocratic age – principles and no personalities! And although\r\nwe admit the justice of it, yet we cannot ignore the trenchant onesidedness which it involves. It is perhaps only a reaction, a\r\nswing to the opposite extreme of a mentality given too much to\r\npersonalities, as the case generally has been in the past. It may be\r\nnecessary, as a corrective, but it belongs only to a temporary stage.\r\nSince, however, we are after a universal iqeal, we must also have an\r\nintegral method. We shall have to curb many of our susceptibilities,\r\ndiminish many of our apprehensions and soberly strike a balance\r\nbetween opposite extremes.</font></span></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 47</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">We do not speak like politicians or </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">banias; </font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">but\r\nthe very truth of the matter demands such a policy or line of action.\r\nIt is very well to talk of principles and principles alone, but what\r\nare principles unless they take life and form in a particular\r\nindividual? They are airy nothings, notions in the brain of logicians\r\nand metaphysicians, fit subjects for discussion in the academy, but\r\nthey are devoid of that vital urge which makes them creative\r\nagencies. We have long lines of philosophers, especially European,\r\nwho most scrupulously avoided all touch of personalities, whose\r\nutmost care was to keep principles pure and unsullied; and the upshot\r\nwas that those principles remained principles only, barren and\r\ninfructuous, some thing like, in the strong and puissant phrase of\r\nBaudelaire –</font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">La</font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"> </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">froide majeste de la femme sterile. </font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">And\r\non the contrary, we have had other. peoples, much addicted to\r\npersonalities – especially in Asia – who did not care so much for\r\nabstract principles as for concrete embodiments; and what has been\r\nthe result here? None can say that they did not produce anything or\r\nproduced only still-born things. They produced living creatures\r\n– ephemeral, some might say, but creatures that lived and moved and\r\nhad their days.</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">But, it may be asked, what is the necessity, what is the\r\npurpose in making it all a one man show? Granting that principles\r\nrequire personalities for their fructuation and vital functioning,\r\nwhat remains to be envisaged is not one personality but a plural\r\npersonality, the people at large, as many individuals of the\r\nhuman race as can be consciously imbued with those principles. When\r\nprinciples are made part and parcel of, are concentrated in a single\r\nsolitary personality, they get &quot;cribbed and cabined,&quot; they\r\nare vitiated by the idiosyncrasies of the man, they come to have a\r\nnarrower field of application; they are emptied of the general\r\nverities they contain and finally cease to have any effect.</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">The thing, however, is that what you call principles do\r\nnot drop from heaven in their virgin purity and all at once lay hold\r\nof mankind </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">en masse. </font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">It is always through a particular\r\nindividual that a great principle manifests itself. Principles do not\r\nlive in the general mind of man and even if they live, they live\r\nsecreted and unconscious; it is only a puissant personality, who has\r\nlived the principle, that can bring it forward into life</font></span></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 48</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">and action, can awaken, like the Vedic Dawn, what was\r\ndead in </font></span><I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">all – mritam kanchana bodhayanti. </font></span></I><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">Men in general are\r\nby themselves \'inert and indifferent; they have little leisure\r\nor inclination to seek, from any inner urge of their own, for\r\nprinciples and primal truths; they become conscious of these only\r\nwhen expressed and embodied in some great and rare soul. An Avatar, a\r\nMessiah or a Prophet is the centre, the focus through which a Truth\r\nand Law first dawns and then radiates and spreads abroad. The little\r\nlamps are all lighted by the sparks that the great torch scatters.</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">And yet we yield to none in our demand for holding forth\r\nthe principles always and ever before the wide open gaze of all. The\r\nprinciple is there to make people self-knowing and self-guiding; and\r\nthe man is also there to illustrate that principle, to serve as the\r\nhope and prophecy of achievement. The living soul is there to touch\r\nyour soul, if you require the touch; and the principle is there by\r\nwhich to test and testify. For, we do not ask anybody to be a mere\r\nautomaton, a blind devotee, a soul without individual choice and\r\ninitiative. On the contrary, we insist on each and every individual\r\nto find his own soul and stand on his own Truth – this is the\r\nfundamental principle we declare, the only creed – if creed it\r\nbe that we ask people to note and freely follow. We ask all people to\r\nbe fully self-dependent and self-illumined, for only thus can a real\r\nand solid reconstruction of human nature and society be possible; we\r\ndo not wish that they should bow down ungrudgingly to anything, be it\r\na principle or a personality. In this respect we claim the very first\r\nrank of iconoclasts and anarchists. And along with that, if we still\r\nchoose to remain an idol-lover and a hero-worshipper, it is because\r\nwe recognise that our mind, human as it is, being not a simple\r\nequation but a complex paradox, the idol or the hero symbolises for\r\nus and for those who so will, the very iconoclasm and anarchism-and\r\nperhaps other more positive things as well – which we behold within\r\nand seek to manifest.</font></span></P>\r\n			<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n&nbsp;</P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"text-indent:0.34cm; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">The world is full of ikons and archons; we cannot escape\r\nthem, even if we try – the world itself being a great ikon and as\r\ngreat an archon. Those who swear by principles, swear always by some\r\npersonality or other, if not by a living creature then by a lifeless\r\nbook, if not by Religion then by Science, if \r\n</font></span></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 49</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE=\"font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<span style=\"font-size:12pt;\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\">not by the East then by the West, if not by Buddha or\r\nChrist then by Bentham or Voltaire. Only they do it unwittingly –\r\nthey change one set of personalities for another and believe they\r\nhave rejected them all. The veils of Maya are a thousand-fold\r\ntangle and you think you have entirely escaped her when you have only\r\nrun away from one fold to fall into another. The wise do not attempt\r\nto reject and negate Maya, but consciously accept her-freedom lies in\r\na knowing affirmation. So we too have accepted and affirmed an icon,\r\nbut we have done it : consciously and knowingly; we are not bound by\r\nour idol, we see the truth of it, and we serve and utilise it as best\r\nas we may.\r\n</font></span></P>\r\n<P LANG=\"en-US\" CLASS=\"western\" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE=\"border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; font-weight: medium; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0\">\r\n<FONT face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt;\">Page – 50</span></FONT></P>\r\n<P ALIGN=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\">\r\n<a title=\"Home\" href=\"-00_-Content\"><img src=\"_Gif_Image/house01_green.gif\" width=\"28\" height=\"23\" border=\"0\" alt=\"house06_white.gif\"></a></P>\r\n<div align=\"right\"> \r\n	<p style=\"line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0\"> </div>\r\n			</td>\r\n		</tr>\r\n	</table>\r\n</div>\r\n</BODY>\r\n</HTML>','-10_Principle _ Personality','','publish','closed','open','','10_principle-_-personality','','','2021-11-23 17:57:59','2021-11-23 17:57:59','',0,'http://collectedworksofnolinikantagupta.com/index.php/2021/11/23/10_principle-_-personality/',0,'post','',0);
