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<b><font size="4">THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION</font></b></p>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 15pt"><I><span style="font-size:16pt;">The
March of Civilisation</span></I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;WE are familiar with the phrase &quot;Augustan Age&quot;:
it is in reference to a particular period in a nation's history when
its creative power is at its highest both in respect of quantity and
quality, especially in the domain of art and literature, for it is
here that the soul of a people finds expression most easily and
spontaneously. Indeed, if we look at the panorama that the course of
human evolution unfolds, we see epochs of high light in various
countries spread out as towering beacons or soaring peaks bathed in
sunlight dominating the flat plains or darksome valleys of the usual
normal periods. Take the Augustan Age itself which has given the
name: it is a very crucial and one of the earlier outflowerings of
the human genius on a considerable scale. We know of the appearance
of individuals on the stage of life each with a special mission and
role in various ages and various countries. They are great men of
action, great men of thought, creative artists or spiritual and
religious teachers. In India we call them Vibhutis (we can include
the Avataras – Divine Incarnations – also in the category). Even
so, there is a collective manifestation too, an upsurge in which a
whole race or nation takes part and is carried and raised to a higher
level of living and achievement. There is a tide in the affairs not
only of men, but of peoples also: and masses, large collectivities
live on the crest of their consciousness, feeling and thinking deeply
and nobly, acting and creating powerfully, with breadth of vision and
intensity of aspiration, spreading all around something that is new
and not too common, a happy guest come from elsewhere.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of European
civilisation – of the world culture reigning today, one can almost
say – </FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 205</FONT><BR>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>found
itself epitomised in the Periclean Age. The light – grace, harmony,
sweet reasonableness – that was Greece, reached its highest and
largest, its most characteristic growth in that period. Earlier, at
the very beginning of her life cycle, there came indeed Homer and no
later creation reached a higher or even as high a status of creative
power: but it was a solitary peak, it was perhaps an announcement,
not the realisation of the national glory. Pericles stood as the
guardian, the representative, the emblem and nucleus of a nation-wide
efflorescence. Not to speak of the great names associated with the
age, even the common people – more than what was normally so
characteristic of Greece – felt the tide that was moving high and
shared in that elevated sweep of life, of thought and creative
activity. Greece withdrew. The stage was made clear for Rome. Julius
Caesar carried the Roman genius to its sublimest summit: but it
remained for his great nephew to consolidate and give expression to
that genius in its most characteristic manner and lent his name to a
characteristic high-water mark of human civilisation.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Greece and Rome may be taken to represent two types of
culture. And accordingly we can distinguish two types of elevation or
crest-formation of human consciousness – one of light, the other of
power. In certain movements one feels the intrusion, the expression
of light, that is to say, the play of intelligence, understanding,
knowledge, a fresh outlook and consideration of the world and things,
a revaluation in other terms and categories of a new consciousness.
The greatest, at least, the most representative movement of this kind
is that of the Renaissance. It was really a New Illumination: a flood
of light poured upon the mind and intellect and understanding of the
period. There was a brightness, a brilliance, a happy agility and
keenness in the movements of the brain. A largeness of vision, a
curious sensibility, a wide and alert consciousness: these are some
of the fundamental characteristics of this remarkable New Birth. It
is the birth of what has been known as the scientific outlook, in
the- broadest sense: it is the threshold of the <I>modern epoch </I>of
humanity. All the modern European languages leaped into maturity, as
it were, each attaining its definitive form and full-blooded
individuality. Art and liter&shy;ature flooded in their magnificent
creativeness all nations </FONT>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 206</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>and peoples of the whole continent. The Romantic
Revival, starting somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth
century, is another outstanding example of a similar phenomenon, of
the descent of light into human consciousness. The light that
descended into human consciousness at the time of the Renaissance
captured the higher mind and intelligence – the Ray touched as it
were the frontal lobe of the brain; the later descent touched the
heart, the feelings and emotive sensibility, it evoked more vibrant,
living and powerful perceptions, created varied and dynamic
sense-complexes, new idealisms and aspirations. The manifestation of
Power, the descent or inrush of force – mighty and terrible – has
been well recognised and experienced in the great French Revolution.
A violence came out from somewhere and seized man and society: man
was thrown out of his gear, society broken to pieces. There came a
change in the very character and even nature of man: and society had
to be built upon other foundations. The past was gone. <I>Divasa
gatah </I>Something very similar has happened again more recently, in
Russia. The French Revolution brought in the bourgeois culture, the
Russian Revolution has rung in the Proletariate.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In modern India, the movement that led her up to
Independence was at a crucial moment a mighty evocation of both Light
and Power. It had not perhaps initially the magnitude, the manifest
scope or scale of either the Renaissance or the Great Revolutions we
mention. But it carried a deeper import, its echo far-reaching into
the future of humanity. For it meant nothing less than the spiritual
awakening of India and therefore the spiritual regeneration of the
whole world: it is the harbinger of the new epoch in human
civilisation.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;These larger human movements are in a sense anonymous.
They are not essentially the creation of a single man as are some of
the well-known religious movements. They throw up great aspiring
souls, strong men of action, indeed, but as part of themselves, in
their various aspects, facets, centres of expression, lines of
expansion. An Augustus, a Pericles, a Leo X, a Louis XIV, or a
Vikramaditya are not more than nuclei, as I have already said,
centres of reference round which their respective epoch crystallises
as a peak culture unit. They are not creators or originators; they
are rather organisers. </FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 207</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A Buddha,
a Christ or a Mohammed or even a Napoleon or Caesar or Alexander are
truly creators: they bring with them something – some truth, some
dynamic revelation – that was not there before. They realise and
embody each a particular principle of being, a unique mode of
consciousness – a new gift to earth and mankind. Movements truly
anonymous, however, have no single nucleus or centre of reference:
they are multi-nuclear. The names that adorn the Renaissance are
many, it had no single head; the men through whom the great French
Revolution unrolled itself were many in number, that is to say, the
chiefs, who represented each a face or phase of the surging movement.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The cosmic spirit works itself out in the world and in
human affairs in either of these forms: (1) as embodied in a single
personality and (2) as an impersonal movement, sometimes through many
personalities, sometimes through a few out&shy;standing personalities
and sometimes even quite anonymously as a mass movement. Either mode
has each its own special purpose, its function in the cosmic labour,
its contribution to the growth and unfoldment of the human
consciousness upon earth as a whole. Generally, we may say, when it
is an intensive work, when it is a new truth that has to be disclosed
and set in man's heart and consciousness, then the individual is
called up and undertakes the work: when, however, the truth already
somehow found or near at hand is to be spread wide and made familiar
to men and established upon earth, then the larger anonymous
movements are born and have sway.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Indeed, these movements, the appearance of great souls
upon earth and the manifestation of larger collective surges in human
society, are not isolated happenings, having no reference or point of
contact with one another. On the con&shy;trary, they are two limbs of
a global evolutionary process. In and through them across countries
and centuries the spirit of humanity moves towards greater and
greater fulfilment. Evolution means the growth of consciousness. In
man in his collective existence the growth continues: it lies in two
directions. First of all, in extension. A sufficiently large physical
body is needed to house the growing life and consciousness: therefore
the unicellular organism has developed into the multicellular. In the
same way, in the earliest stages of human</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 208</FONT><BR>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>society,
the light and power of consciousness, characteristic of that age,
found expression among a few only: it was the age of representative
individuals, leaders – Rishi, Magi, Patriarch, Judge, King. Next a
stage came when the cultural consciousness widened and, instead of
scattered individuals or some families, we have a large group, a
whole class or section of society who become the guardian of the
light: thus arose the Brahmin, the <I>&eacute;lite, </I>the cultured
class, the aristocracy of talents. The light and culture filters down
further and embraces larger masses of people who take living interest
and share in the creative activities of man, in the higher
pre&shy;occupations of mind and thought; this is the age of
enlightened bourgeoisie. In comparatively recent times what is
familiarly known as the &quot;middle class&quot; was the repository
and purveyor of human culture.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The light sinks further down and extends still more its
scope seeking to penetrate and encircle the whole of humanity. The
general mass of mankind, the lowest strata of society have to be
taken in, elevated and illumined. That must be the natural and
inevitable consummation of all progress and evolution. And that is
the secret sense and justification of the Proletarian Revolution of
today. Although, the many names and forms given to it by its violent
partisans do not bring out or sufficiently honour the soul and spirit
that informs it.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This then is the pattern of cultural development as it
pro&shy;ceeds in extension and largeness. It moves in ever widening
concentric circles. Individuals, small centres few and far between,
then larger groups and sections, finally vast masses are touched and
moved (and will be moulded one day) by the infiltrating light. That
is how in modern times all movements are practically world-wide,
encompassing all nations and peoples: there seems to be nothing left
that is merely local or parochial. It is a single wave, as it were,
that heaves up the whole of humanity. Political, social, economic and
even spiritual movements, although not exactly of the same type or
pattern, all are interrelated, interlocked, inspired by a common
breath and move from one end of the earth to the other. They seem to
be but modulations of the same world-theme. A pulse-beat in Korea or
Japan is felt across the Pacific in America and across that
continent, traversing again,</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 209</FONT><BR>
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Atlantic it reaches England, sways the old continent in its turn and
once more leaps forward through the Asiatic vastnesses back again to
its place of origin. The wheel comes indeed full circle: it is one
movement girdling the earth. What one thinks or acts in one corner of
the globe is thought, and acted simultaneously by others at the
farthest corner. Very evidently it is the age of radiography and
electronics.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In the early stages of humanity its history consists of
the isolated histories of various peoples and lands:
intercommunication was difficult, therefore all communion was of the
nature of infiltration and indirect influence. The difference between
countries far distant from each other were well marked and very
considerable in respect of their cultures and civilisations. To put
it in a somewhat scholarly yet graphic manner, we can say, the
isometric chart of the tides of civilisation in various countries
over the globe in those days presents a very unequal and tortuous
figure. On the other hand, a graph depicting the situation in modern
times would be formed by lines that are more even, uniform and
straight. In other words, the world has become one, homogeneous: a
consciousness has grown same or similar on the whole in outlook and
life-impulse embracing all peoples and races in a tight embrace. The
benefit of the descending or manifesting Light is now open equally
and freely to each and every member of the human kind.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Not only in extension but the growth or evolution has
progressed in another direction. There has not only been a
quantitative but also a qualitative development. Culture movements
have grown in intent, in depth or elevation, in the meaning and
significance of the consciousness involved. And they have converged
towards a single aim and purpose. That purpose is not only the
establishment of the global consciousness, but the expression and
embodiment of the highest, the supreme consciousness. The process
here too, as in the domain of extension, is one of graduation,
advance by stages. The light, the light of awakening consciousness
first touches the more easily accessible parts of human nature, the
higher domains that are not too much involved in the gross material
or animal nature. It is the realm of thoughts and ideas, of idealism,
imagination and aspiration: it is man's mind, which</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 210</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>is
the least heavily weighted or ballasted by a downward gravitational
pull and the most buoyant and supple – the Ariel in him. It is his
head that first receives the glow of the morning sun.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If we look at Europe once again and cast a glance at its
origins, we find at the source the Gr&aelig;co-Roman culture. It was
pre-eminently a culture based upon the powers of mind and reason: it
included a strong and balanced body (both body natural and body
politic) under the aegis of <I>mens sana </I>(a sound mind). The
light that was Greece was at its zenith a power of the higher mind
and intelligence, intuitively dyna&shy;mic in one – the earlier
–phase through Plato, Pythagoras, Heraclitus and the mystic
philosophers, and discursively and scientifically rational through
the Aristotelian tradition. The practical and robust Roman did not
indulge in the loftier and subtler activities of the higher or
intuitive mind; his was applied intelligence and its characteristic
turn found expres&shy;sion in law and order and governance. Virgil
was a representa&shy;tive poet of the race; finely sensitive and yet
very self-conscious – earth-bound and mind-bound – as a creative
artist: a clear and careful intelligence with an idealistic
imagination that is yet sober and fancy-free is the very hall mark of
his poetic genius. In the post-Roman age this bias for mental
con&shy;sciousness or the play of reason and intellectual
understand&shy;ing moved towards the superficial and more formal
faculties of the brain ending in what is called scholasticism: it
meant stagnation and decadence. It is out of this slough that the
Renaissance raised the mind of Europe and bathed it with a new light.
That movement gave to the mind a wider scope, an alert curiosity, a
keener understanding; it is, as I have said, the beginning of that
modern mentality which is known as the scientific outlook, that is to
say, study of facts and induction from given data, observation and
experience and experiment instead of the other scholastic standpoint
which goes by <I>a priori </I>theorising and abstraction and
deduction and dog&shy;matism.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We may follow a little more closely the march of the
centuries in their undulating movement. The creative intelligence of
the Renaissance too belonged to a region of the higher mind, a kind
of inspirational mind. It had not the altitude or even the </FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 211</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>depth
of the Greek mind nor its subtler resonances : but it regained and
re-established and carried to a new degree the spirit of inquiry and
curiosity, an appreciation of human motives and preoccupations, a
rational understanding of man and the mechanism of the world. The
original intuitive fiat, the imaginative brilliance, the spirit of
adventure (in the mental as well as the physical world) that inspired
the epoch gradually dwindled: it gave place to an age of
consolidation, organisation, stabilisation – the classical age. The
seventeenth century Europe marked another peak of Europe's
civilisation. That is the Augustan Age to which we have referred. The
following century marked a further decline of the Intuition and
higher imagination and we come to the eighteenth century <I>terre &egrave;
terre </I>rationalism. Great figures still adorned that age&shy; –
stalwarts that either stuck to the prevailing norm and gave it a kind
of stagnant nobility or already leaned towards the new light that was
dawning once more. Pope and Johnson, Montes-&shy;quieu and Voltaire
are its high-lights. The nineteenth century brought in another crest
wave with a special gift to mankind; apparently it was a reaction to
the rigid classicism and dry rationalism of the preceding age, but it
came burdened with a more positive mission. Its magic name was
Romanticism. Man opened his heart, his higher feeling and nobler
emo&shy;tional surge, his subtler sensibility and a general sweep of
his vital being to the truths and realities of his own nature and of
the cosmic nature. Not the clear white and transparent almost glaring
light of reason and logic, of the brain mind, but the rosy or rainbow
tint of the emotive and aspiring personality that seeks in and
through the cosmic panorama and dreams of</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A light that was ne'er on sea or land. . .</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A glory that hath passed away from earth.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Romantic Revival was a veritable source movement: it
was, one can say, a kind of watershed from where various streams of
new creation and fresh adventure flowed down in all directions. Its
echoes and repurcussions are met with even today and continue. The
next stage that followed naturally and inevitably was man's
preoccupation with his sense being,</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 212</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>his
external, his physical and material personality. It<B> </B>is the age
of Naturalism, Realism, Pragmatism, Scientism: it proclaims the birth
of the economic man. From the heart and emotions we drop down into
the field of the nervous and sensuous existence, from the vital
sphere into the sphere of the body. And that is where we are today.
It<B> </B>means that we have been made mare than ever self-conscious
on this plane and of this personality of ours. We have been given and
are being given greater knowledge of its mechanism; we are
intensively (and extensively too) getting familiar with all the
drawbacks and lacunae that are there so that we can remedy them –
and discover new latent forces too, – and re-create and possess a
truly &quot;brave new world&quot;.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That is how the spirit of progress and evolution has
worked and advanced in the European world. And one can take it as the
pattern of human growth generally; but in the scheme described above
we have left out one particular phase and purposely. I refer to the
great event of Christ and Christianity. For without that European
civilisation loses more than half of its import and value. After the
Roman Decline began the ebbtide, the trough, the dark shadow of the
deepening abyss of the Middle Ages. But even as the Night fell and
darkness closed around, a new light glimmered, a star was born. A
hope and a help shone &quot;in a naughty world&quot;. It was a ray of
consciousness that came from a secret cave, from a domain hidden
behind and deep within in the human being. Christ brought a leaven
into the normal manifest mode of consciousness, an other&shy;worldly
mode into the worldly life. He established a living and dynamic
contact with the soul, the inner person in man, the person that is
behind but still rules the external personality made of mind and life
and body consciousness. The Christ revelation was also characteristic
in the sense that it came as a large, almost a mass movement – this
approach of the soul personality to earthly life. The movement faded
or got adulterated, deformed like all human things; but something
remained as a permanent possession of man's heritage.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This episode links up with the inner story of mankind,
its spiritual history. The growing or evolving consciousness of man
was not only an outgoing and widening movement: it was also a
heightening, an ascent into ranges that are not normally </FONT>
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; 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">
<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 213</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>perceived,
towards summits of our true reality. We have spoken of the
Gr&aelig;co-Roman culture as the source and foundation of European
civilisation; but apart from that there was a secret vein of life
that truly vivified it, led it by an occult but constant influence
along channels and achievements that are meant to serve the final
goal and purpose. The Mysteries prevalent and practised in Greece
itself and Crete and the occult rites of Egyptian priests, the
tradition of a secret knowledge and discipline found in the Kabbalah,
the legendary worship of gods and goddesses – sometimes confused,
sometimes identi&shy;fied with Nature forces – all point to the
existence of a line of culture which is known in India as Yoga. If
all other culture means knowledge, Yoga is the knowledge of
knowledge. As the Upanishad says, there are two categories of
knowledge, the superior and-the inferior. The development of the mind
and life and body belongs to the domain of Inferior Knowledge: the
development of the soul, the discovery of the Spirit means the
Superior Knowledge.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This knowledge remained at the outset scattered, hidden,
confined to a few, a company of adepts: it had almost no direct
contact with the main current of life. Its religious aspect too was
so altered and popularised as to represent and serve the secular
life. The systematisation and propagation of that knowledge – at
least the aspiration for that knowledge – was attempted on an
effective scale in the Hebrew Old Testament. But then a good amount
of externalities, of the Inferior Knowledge was mixed up with the
inner urge and the soul perception. The Christ with his New Testament
came precisely with the mission of cleaning the Augean stables, in
place of the dross and coverings, the false and deformed godheads, to
instal something of the purest ray of the inner consciousness, the
unalloyed urge of the soul, the demand of our spiritual perso&shy;nality.
The Church sought to build up society on that basis, attempting a
fusion of the spiritual and the temporal power, so that instead of a
profane secular world, a mundane or worldly world, there maybe
established God's own world, the City of God. </FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The drive towards the building of Heaven upon earth and
with earth, the materialisation of the Spirit on a cosmic scale, the
remodelling of the whole human society in spiritual terms</FONT><BR>
			</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; 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">
<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 214</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>was
the secret inspiring the other Semitic Revelation, that of Mohammed.
The Arab Master sought to bring down and establish and express in
life-force what the Rabi of Bethlehem saw and felt in the inner
heart--one was a lover, the other a servant warrior of God.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Turning to India we find a fuller and completer – if
not a global-picture of the whole movement. India, we may say, is the
spiritual world itself: and she epitomised the curve of human
progress in a clearer and more significant manner. Indian history,
not its political but its cultural and spiritual history, divides
itself naturally into great movements with corresponding epochs each
dwelling upon and dealing with one domain in the hierarchy of man's
consciousness. The stages and epochs are well known: they are – (l)
Vedic, (2) Upanishadic, (3) Darshanas – roughly from Buddha to
Shankara, (4) Puranic, (5) <I>Bhagavata </I>or the Age of Bhakti, and
finally (6) the Tantric. The last does not mean that it is the latest
revelation, the nearest to us in time, but that it represents a kind
of complementary movement, it was there all along, for long at least,
and in which the others find their fruition and consummation. We
shall explain presently. The force of consciousness that came and
moved and moulded the first and the earliest epoch was Revelation. It
was a power of direct vision and occult will and cosmic perception.
Its physical seat is somewhere behind and or just beyond the crown of
the head: the peak of man's manifest being that received the first
touch of Surya Savitri (the supreme Creative Consciousness) to whom
it bowed down uttering the invocation <I>mantra </I>of Gayatri. The
Ray then entered the head at the crown and illumined it: the force of
consciousness that ruled there is Intuition, the immediate perception
of truth and reality, the cosmic consciousness gathered and
concentrated at that peak. That is Upanishadic knowledge. If the
source and foundation of the Vedic initiation was occult vision, the
Upanishad meant a pure and direct Ideation. The next stage in the
coming down or propagation of the Light was when it reached further
down into the brain and the philosophical outlook grew with rational
understanding and discursive argumentation as the channel for
expression, the power to be cultivated and the limb to be developed.
The Age of the Darshanas or Systems </FONT>
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; 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">
<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 215</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>of
Philosophy started with the Buddha and continued till it reached its
peak in Shankaracharya. The age sought to give a bright and strong
mental, even an intellectual body to the spiritual light, the
consciousness of the highest truth and reality. In the Puranic Age
the vital being was touched by the light of the spirit and
principally on the highest, the mental level of that domain. It meant
the advent of the element of feeling and emotiveness and imagination
into the play of the Light, the beginning of their reclamation. This
was rendered more concrete and more vibrant and intense in the next
stage of the movement. The whole emotional being was taken up into
the travailing crucible of consciousness. We may name it also as the
age of the Bhagavatas, god-lovers, Bhaktas. It reached its climax in
Chaitanya whose physical passion for God denoted that the lower
ranges of the vital being (its physical foundations) were now stirred
in man to awake and to receive the Light. Finally remains the
physical, the most material to be worked upon and made conscious and
illumined. That was the task of the Tantras. Viewed in that light one
can easily under&shy;stand why especial stress was laid. in that
system upon the esoteric discipline of the five <I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">m's
(pancha makÄra), </FONT></I>all preoccupied with the handling and
harnessing of the grossest physical instincts and the most material
instruments. The Tantric discipline bases itself upon Nature Power
coiled up in Matter: the release of that all-conquering force through
a purification and opening into the consciousness of the Divine
Mother, the transcendent creatrix of the universe. The dynamic
materialis&shy;ing aspect of consciousness was what inspired the
Tantras: the others forming the Vedantic line, on the whole, were
based on the primacy of the static being, the Purusha, aloof and
withdrawing.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Indian consciousness, we say, presented the movement
as an intensive and inner, a spiritual process: it dealt with the
substance itself, man's very nature and sought to know it from within
and shape it consciously. In Europe where the frontal consciousness
is more stressed and valued, the more charac&shy;teristic feature of
its history is the unfoldment and meta&shy;morphosis of the forms and
expressions, the residuary powers, as it -were, of man's evolving
personality, individual and social.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To sum up then. Man progresses through cycles of crest</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; 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">
<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 216</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>movements. They mark an ever-widening circle of the
descent of Light, the growth of consciousness. Thus there is at first
a small circle of <I>elite, </I>a few chosen people at the top, then
gradually the limited aristocracy is widened out into a larger and
larger democracy. One may describe the phenomenon in the Indian terms
of the Four Orders. In the beginning there is the Brahminic culture,
culture confined only to the highest and the fewest possible select
representatives. Then came the wave of Kshatriya culture which found
a broader scope among a larger community. In India, after the age of
the Veda and the Upanishad, came the age of the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata which was pre-eminently an age of Kshatriya&shy;-hood. In
Europe too it was the bards and minstrels, sages and soothsayers who
originally created, preserved and propagated the cultural movement:
next came the epoch of the Arthurian legends, the age of chivalry, of
knights and templars with their heroic code of conduct and high
living. In the epoch that followed, culture was still further
broad-based and spread to the Vaishya order. It is the culture of the
bourgeoisie: it was brought about, developed and maintained by that
class in society preoccupied with the production or earning of
wealth. The economic bias of the literature of the period has often
been pointed out. Lastly the fourth dimension of culture has made its
appearance today when it seeks to be coterminous with the
proletariate. With the arrival of the Sudra, culture has extended to
the very base of the social pyramid in its widest commonalty.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This movement of extension, looked at from the
standpoint of intensiveness, is also a movement of devolution, of
reclama&shy;tion. The Brahminic stage represents culture that is
knowledge; it touches the mind, it is the brain that is the recipient
and instrument of the Light. The Kshatriya comes into the field when
the light, the vibration of awakening, from the mind comes down into
the vital energies, from the brain to the heart region. The Vaishya
spirit has taken up man still at a lower region, the lower vital:
the' economic man that has his gaze fixed upon his stomach and
entrails. Lastly, the final stage is reached when physical work,
bodily labour, material service have attained supreme importance and
are considered almost as the only values worth the name for a human
being. To walk </FONT>
<BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; 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">
<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 217</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><FONT SIZE=3>and
work firmly upon Earth the Light needs a strong pair of feet.
Therefore, the Veda says, <I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman Baltic, serif">PadbhyÄm
sudro ajÄyata, </FONT></I>out of the feet of the Cosmic Godhead the
Sudra was born.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That is how man has become and is becoming integrally
conscious – conscious in and of all parts of his being. He is
awakening and opening to the light that descends from above: indeed
the true light, the light of truth is something transcendent and it
is that that comes down and slowly inhabits the world and possesses
humanity. Its progress marks the steps of evolution. It<B> </B>means
the gradual enlightening and illumining of the various layers of our
being, the different strands of consciousness from the higher to the
lower, from the less dense to the more dense, from mind to the body.
It<B> </B>means also in the same process a canalisation,
materialisation and fixing upon earth and in the physical being of
the increasing powers of the Light.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Light as it descends from its own home above to the
lower levels of our being expresses itself no doubt in one way, but
also gets diminished, modified, even deformed in another respect. The
work of purification certainly goes 'on and until that is complete
and there comes the fullest expression, it will continue. The action
of light on the physical plane, for example, on the body of the
Cosmic Being is so blurred and confusing apparently that it looks
almost like the action of Darkness. And yet the Dark Night of the
soul is not simply the obscurity of Ignorance. It<B> </B>is only the
mud that lay diffused or settled in the being which has come up in
its gathered mass in the process of churning and cleaning and appears
like an obscure screen.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="center" STYLE="text-indent:0pt; margin-left:0; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 218</FONT></P>
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