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<p align="right" style="margin:0; text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b>
<font size="4">On Communism</font></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0">&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>COMMUNISM is the synthesis of collectivism and
individualism. The past ages of society were characterised more or less by a
severe collectivism. In ancient <st1:country-region><st1:place>Greece</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
more so in <st1:City><st1:place>Sparta</st1:place></st1:City> and in <st1:City><st1:place>Rome</st1:place></st1:City>,
the individual had, properly speaking, no separate existence of his own; he was
merged in the State or Nation. The individual was considered only as a limb of
the collective being, had to live and labour for the common weal. The value
attached to each person was strictly in reference to the output that the group
to which he belonged received from him. Apart from this service for the general
unit-the body politic-any personal endeavour and achievement, if not absolutely
discouraged and repressed, was given a very secondary place of merit. The
summum bonum of the individual was to sacrifice at the altar of the <i>res
publica, </i>the <i>bonum publicum. </i>In <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
the position and function of the State or Nation was taken up by the society.
Here too social institutions were so constituted and men were so bred and
brought up that individuality had neither the occasion nor the incentive to
express itself, it was a thing that remained, in the Kalidasian phrase, an
object for the ear <i>only – srutau sthita. </i>Those who sought at all an
individual aim and purpose, as perhaps the Sannyasins, were put outside the
gate of law and society. Within the society, in actual life and action, it was
a sin and a crime or at least a gross imperfection to have any self-regarding
motive or impulse; personal preference was the last thing to be considered,
virtue consisted precisely in sacrificing one's own taste and inclination for
the sake of that which the society exacts and sanctions.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>Against this tyranny of the group, this absolute
rule of the collective will, the&quot; human mind rose in revolt and the result
was Individualism. For whatever may be the truth and necessity</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 25</p>

</div>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;of the Collective, the Individual is no
less true and necessary. The individual has his own law and urge of being and
his own secret godhead. The collective godhead derides the individual godhead
at its peril. The first movement of the reaction, how&shy;ever, was a run to the
other extremity; a stern collectivism gave birth to an intransigent
individualism. The individual is sacred and inviolable, cost what it may. It
does not matter what sort of individuality one seeks, it is enough if the thing
is there. So the doctrine of individualism has come to set a premium on egoism
and on forces that are disruptive of all social bonds. Each and every
individual has the inherent right, which is also a duty, to follow his own
impetus and impulse. Society is nothing but the battle ground for competing
indi&shy;vidualities – the strongest survive and the weakest go to the wall.
Association and co-operation are instruments that the individual may use and
utilise for his own growth and development but in the main they act as
deterrents rather than as aids to the expression and expansion of his
characteristic being. In reality, however, if we probe sufficiently deep into
the matter we find that there is no such thing as corporate life and activity;
what appears as such is only a camouflage for rigorous competition; at the
best, there maybe only an offensive and defensive alliance-humanity fights
against nature, and within humanity itself group fights against group and in
the last analysis, within the group, the individual fights against the
individual. This is the ultimate Law-the <i>Dharma </i>of creation.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>Now, what such an uncompromising individualism
fails to recognise is that individuality and ego are not the same thing, that
the individual may have his individuality intact and entire and yet sacrifice
his ego, that the soul of man is a much greater thing than his vital being. It
is simply ignoring the fact and denying the truth to say that man is only a
fighting animal and not a loving god, that the self within the individual
realises itself only through competition and not co-operation. It is an error
to conceive of society as a mere parallelogram of forces, to suppose that it
has risen simply out of the struggle of individual interests and continues to
remain by that struggle. Struggle is only one aspect of the thing, a particular
form at a particular stage, a temporary manifestation due to a particular
system and a particular habit and training. It would be nearer</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 26</p>

</div>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;the truth to say that society came into
being with the demand of the individual soul to unite with the individual soul,
with the stress of an Over-soul to express itself in a multitude of forms,
diverse yet linked together and organised in perfect harmony. Only, the stress
for union manifested itself first on the material plane as struggle: but this
is meant to be corrected and transcended and is being continually corrected and
transcended by a secret harmony, a real commonality and brotherhood and unity.
The individual is not so self-centred as the individualists make him to be, his
individuality has a much vaster orbit and fulfils itself only by fulfilling
others. The scientists have begun to discover other instincts in man than those
of struggle and competition; they now place at the origin of social grouping an
instinct which they name the <i>herd-instinct: </i>but this is only a
formulation in lower terms, a translation on the vital plane of a higher truth
and reality-the fundamental oneness and accord of individuals and their
spiritual impulsion to unite.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>However, individualism has given us a truth and a
formula which collectivism ignored. Self-determination is a thing which has
come to stay. Each and every individual is free, absolutely free and shall freely
follow his own line of growth and development and fulfilment. No extraneous
power shall choose and fix what is good or evil for him, nor coerce and exploit
him for its own benefit. But that does not necessarily mean that collectivism
has no truth in it; collectivism also, as much as individualism, has a lesson
for us and we should see whether we can harmonise the two. Collectivism
signifies that the individual should not look to himself alone, should not be
shut up in. his freedom but expand himself and envelop others in a wider
freedom, see other creatures in himself and himself in other creatures, as the
Gita says. Collectivism demands that the individual need not and should not
exhaust. himself entirely in securing and enjoying his personal freedom, but
that he can and should work for the salvation of others; the truth it upholds
is this that the individual is from a certain point of view only a part of the
group and by ignoring the latter it ignores itself in the end.</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>Now, a spiritual communism embraces individualism
and collectivism, fuses them in a higher truth, establishes them in</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 27</p>

</div>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;an intimate and absolute harmony. The
individual is the centre, the group is the circumference and the two form one
whore circle. The individual by fulfilling the truth of his real individuality
fulfils also the truth of a commonality. There are no different laws for the
two. The individuals do not stand apart from and against one another, the <i>dharma
</i>of one does not clash with the dharma of the other. The ripples in the
bosom of the sea, however distinct and discrete in appearance, form but a
single mass, all follow the same law of hydrodynamics that the mother sea
incarnates. Stars and planets and nebulae, each separate heavenly body has its
characteristic form and nature and function and yet all fulfil the same law of
gravitation and beat the measure of the silent symphony of spaces.
Individualities are the freedoms of the collective being and collectivity the
concentration of individual beings. The same soul looking inward appears as the
individual being and looking outward appears as the collective being.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>Communism takes man not as ego or the vital
creature; it turns him upside <i>down –urdhomulo' vaksakhah-and </i>establishes
him upon his soul, his inner godhead. Thus established the individual soul
finds and fulfils the divine law that by increasing itself <i>it </i>increases
others and by increasing others it increases itself and thus by increasing one
another they attain the supreme good. Unless man goes beyond himself and
reaches this self, this godhead above, he will not find any real poise, will
always swing between individualism and collectivism, he will remain always
bound – bound either in his freedom or in his bondage.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>A commune is a group of individuals having a
common self and a common life-intuition. A common self presupposes the
realisation by each individual of his deepest being-the self which is at once
distinct from and instinct with other selves; a common life-intuition
presupposes the awakening of each individual to his inmost creative urge,
which, pure and true and vast as it is, fulfils itself in and through other
creative urges. </p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>A commune, further, is not only a product or
final achievement; it is also a process, an instrument to bring about the
desired end. A group of individuals come to have a common self and a common
life-intuition in and through the commune;</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 28</p>

</div>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;and in and through the commune does each
individual progress to the realisation of his deepest self and the awakening of
his inmost life-intuition.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>The individual must find himself and establish
his secret god-head, and then only, when such free and integral individualities
meet and reciprocate and coalesce, can the community they form have a living
reality and a permanent potency. On the other hand, unless individuals come
together and through the interchange of each other's soul and substance'
enhance the communal Godhead, the separate individual godheads also will not
manifest in their supreme and sovereign powers.</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>If society, that is to say, community, be the <i>field
– kshetra – </i>for the individual to live, move and have its being, then we
must begin at the very outset with the community itself, at least, with a
nucleus that will go to form such a thing. The fear that the untimely grouping
together of immature souls may crush out individuality and dig its own grave
has, no doubt, sufficient justification behind it to deter one from the
attempt; but neither can we be certain that souls nursed and nourished in
solitary cells, absolutely apart from any mellowing and broadening influence of
the outside world will ever reach to that stage of perfect maturity when they
will suddenly and spontaneously break open their cells and recognise in one
another the com&shy;munal brother-self.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>As a matter of fact, the individual is not and
cannot be such an isolated thing as our egoistic sense would like to have it.
The sharp angularities of the individual are being, at every moment, chastened
by the very primary conditions of life; and to fail to recognise this is the
blindest form of ignorance. It is no easy task to draw exactly the line of
distinction between our indi&shy;vidual being and our social or communal being. In
actual life they are so blended together that in trying to extricate them from
each other, we but tear and lacerate them both. The highest wisdom is to take
the two together as they are, and by a gradual purifying process – both
internal and external, internal in thought and knowledge and will, external in
life and action – restore them to their respective truth and <i>law – Satyam </i>and
<i>Ritam.</i></p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0; text-indent:0.34cm">The individual who leads a severely individual life from the</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 29</p>

</div>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;very beginning, whose outlook of the world
has been fashioned by that conception, can hardly, if at all, enter at the end
the communal life. He must perforce be either a vagabond or a recluse: But the
recluse is not an integral man, nor the vagabond an ideal personality. The
individual need not be too chaste and shy to associate with others and to give
and take as freely and fully as he can. Individuality is not necessarily
curtailed or mutilated in this process, but there is this other greater
possibility of its getting enlarged and enhanced. Rather it is when you shut
yourself up in your own self, that you stick to only one line of your personality,
to a single phase of your self and thus limit and diminish yourself; the
breadth and height and depth of your self, the cubic completeness of your
personality you can attain only through a multiple and variegated stress by
which you come in contact with the world and things.</p>
<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%'>&nbsp;</p>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>So first the individual and then the commune is
not the natural nor the ideal principle. On the other hand, first the commune
and then the individual would appear to be an equally defective principle. For
first a commune means an organisation, its laws and rules and regulations, its
injunctions and prohibitions; all which signifies or comes to signify that
every individual is not free to enter its fold and that whoever enters must
know how to dovetail himself therein and thus crush down the very life-power
whose enhancement and efflorescence is sought. First a commune means
necessarily a creed, a dogma, a set form of being and living indelibly marked
out from beforehand. The individual has there no choice of finding and developing
the particular creed or dogma or mode of being and living, from out of his own
self, along his particular line of natural growth; all that is imposed upon him
and he has to accept and make it his own by trial and effort and self-torture.
Even if the commune be a contractual association, the members having joined
together in a common cause to a common end, by voluntarily sacrificing a
portion of their personal choice and freedom, even then it is not the ideal
thing; the collective soul will be diminished in exact proportion as each
individual soul has had to be diminished, be that voluntary or otherwise. That
commune is plenary and entire which ensures plenitude and entirety to each of
its individuals. </p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 30</p>

</div>

<p style='margin:0; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; text-indent:0.34cm'>&nbsp;Now how to escape the dilemma? Only if we
take the commune and the individual together – en <i>bloc<span style='font-family:
"Arial Narrow"'>, </span></i>as has already been suggested. This means that
the commune should be at the beginning a subtle and supple thing, without form
and even without name, it should be no more than the circumambient aura–the <i>sukshma
deha – that </i>plays around a group of individuals who meet and unite and move
together by a secret affinity, along a common path towards a common goal. As
each individual develops and defines himself, the commune also takes a more and
more concrete shape; and when at the last stage the individual rises to the
full height of his godhead, takes possession of his integral divinity, the
commune also establishes its solid empire, vivid and vibrant in form and name.</p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p align=center style='margin:0; text-align:center;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid black 1.0pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%'>Page – 31</p>

</div>

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