SRI AUROBINDO AND INDIA'S MISSION

I

OUTLINE OF SRI AUROBINDO'S WORK

'The sun of India's destiny would rise and fill all India with its light and overflow India and overflow m Asia and overflow the world.'' ¹

'Today we see a humanity satiated but not satisfied by victorious analysis of the externalities of Nature preparing to return to its prim val longings. The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its lasts,— God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.'²

COULD there ever be a heart so cold as not to thrill to these truths? 'None' comes the answer from every quarter of the globe. What is it that feels the thrill and gives the answer? The divinity in man. What force is there in the words that sways the divine in man and evokes the response? The force of Truth.

    Anybody who knows anything about Sri Aurobindo must know that whatever he said and wrote and did, in the political field as leader of India's freedom movement,

    ¹Sri Aurobindo: Speeches, p. 89

    Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, Vol. I, D

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or, in the spiritual field as leader of the world's liberation, came from deep within him or from high above him—the Divine within or from above speaking, writing and doing, his brilliant intellect remaining passive and silent, rather, an obedient recorder but no regulator of such inspired utterances. That is why the unalloyed Truth in his words tells so triumphantly everywhere.

    What Sri Aurobindo came to the world for, what the ulterior significance of India's freedom is can be clearly inferred from the above two quotations. Still perhaps a little more could be said to illustrate the points. An interesting fact to note is that at the age of eleven Sri Aurobindo received a strong impression, undoubtedly a mystic intimation, that a period of general upheaval great revolutionary changes was coming in the world and he himself would be called upon to play a part in it. At fourteen, the same intimation repeated itself, this time with a greater force. Those who have followed the course of Sri Aurobindo's life know that the first important event to claim his attention was the Swadeshi movement originating from the anti-partition agitation in Bengal in 1905. Throwing up his appointment m the Baroda State he joined the movement, exposed the hollowness, of the prevailing moderate leadership, released the National Congress from its grip, called up the youth force of the country, breathed into it and into the movement itself the flaming fire of freedom, infused into nationalism a spiritual force, held up before his countrymen the image of India not as a mere geographical unit but

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as the Mother, 'the World-Mother in the garb of Mother India'. Ail this gave to the movement quite another look, a wider meaning, a new impetus, a greater momentum.

    The national consciousness, already awakened by "Moderate leaders,now deepened, dynamised, elevated and reinforced by spiritual power from the speeches and writings of Sri Aurobindo, developed into a mighty force for the whole of India. The inert helplessness and pathetic acquiescence in subjection gave place to a robust and challenging nationalism. The nation regained its soul, had a foretaste of what it had possessed and was destined to possess again—God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.

    The scope of the movement was widened to embrace every form of national activity, Swadeshi, boycott, passive resistance, national education, local arbitration, physical and spiritual culture, even certain revolutionary methods. The whole of India's life, as lived till then, was revolutionised into a new pattern. The author of this revolution, however, as was his way, mostly worked in the silence of his seclusion, away from the limelight.

    Surprised at the unexpected phenomenon of an all India upheaval, but not perplexed, the lynx-eyed Government lost no time in spotting the inspirer of the whole movement and made elaborate preparations to get him out of the way. Charges of sedition under various sections of the law and on various counts were brought against him. Case after case was filed, culminating in the gravest of them all, the famous Alipore Bomb Case, which, if proved, would end his career in capital punish-

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ment or transportation for life. Happily, all these efforts came to nought and the chosen one of God returned, 'unscathed every time, to his chosen field of work.

    This time, however, a vaster field of work was assigned to him, a work of profounder import and of far-reaching effect. During his year-long prison life at Alipore, he was in constant communion with the Supreme Maker of India's destiny and received from Hun an. assurance and a commandment.

    The assurance was that the freedom movement, already initiated, would work its way, under other leaderships, to its inevitable goal—India's complete in. dependence; the commandment that he would have to retire into seclusion and prepare for the truer liberation of India and the world.

    God, Light, Freedom, Immortality, a mere glimpse and foretaste of which had been vouchsafed to the nation. through the first phase of the freedom movement, hack now to be given visible forms, made into real possessions. Then it would be India's portion to extend these divine realities to the wider world. In other words, man had. to be liberated from his human-animal existence into the perfect divine life and put under the Divine law in a divine world. Only thus could the divine meaning of India's independence justify itself.

    True to this command, Sri Aurobindo left Bengal and all his political activities in 1910 and settled down in solitude at Pondicherry to the spiritual life which he had already adopted and to which he now completely

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dedicated himself, the object being to find something more powerful than ordinary spiritual means,—an infallible and irresistible spiritual Force—to raise this. ancient land and the surrounding world from its deplorable abyss to its predestined height.

    After four years of absorbed seeking he started the monthly review Arya through which he continued to give to the world something of the infinite streams of knowledge that were pouring into him from above. This went on for six years when he stopped the publication because what he had already given proved too high for the world. Here we may mention. a signifcant coincidence. The starting-point of the Arya in August I9I4 was also the starting-point of the First World War. While this colossal catastrophe was shaking the world to its foundations, the God-man of the self-same world was laying its new foundations, writing the divine mes- sage of a new life of Peace and Bliss and Power. The Divine destroys to recreate.

    The mass of knowledge, so received and now to be communicated, was seen to have taken a new form, different from the traditional, expressed not in cryptic formulas, suktas, stotras, slokas, sangas or symbols but in closely-reasoned textures, precise, clear and convincing, couched in fine phraseology, shining with poetic gems scattered here and there in the most wide-spread international language. Above all, the rational methods of approach were thoroughly suited to tackle the modern intellectual mind. The intellect, till now sovereignly

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governing the world, stood exposed, thanks to the War, in all its bankruptcy, with no other resource to fall back upon. It was therefore obviously meant by Providence to meet the same intellect on its own ground, convince it of its ineptitude and lead it to the next higher step, now offered, of transcending it, in other words, of subordinating the mind to the Supermind. The solution was found; the Way to it had to be shown. And it was revealed under six heads: The Life divine, Essays on she gild, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, later on, with Savitri superadded. It is significant that all these, except Savitri, were first published in book form during the period of the Second World War—another upheaval in which, according to his early intimations, Sri Aurobindo was to take part. Few people knew and fewer realised how during that tremendous hour of the world-crisis the Mother and Sri Aurobindo used their spiritual force for the safety and freedom of the world which tried tried to enslave and dominate.

    These six works are the Vedas of our day because they carry in them the authentic Light of knowledge as it had revealed itself to the ancient Rishis and as it revealed itself with a deeper import and a greater insistence to 'the last of the Rishis. It is this is Light of infinite power, says Sri Aurobindo, that has kept the secret soul of India aflame even amid the periods of inky gloom and self-oblivion of ages. It is this Light, now burdened with richer potentials for a new creation, that is illumin-

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ing the dawn of her horizon today, and is destined in due course to illumine the entire earth. It will uplift and spiritualise the present-day civilisation and give to the ailing world the power and joy of an all-round self- fulfillment it has been, groping for but never yet attained fully or sufficiently.

    A fuller study of Sri Aurobindo's life would tell any reader that he has been a thorough-going revolutionary. He has given the Knowledge, show~ the Way, brought the long-looked-for light down on earth. But still he has not considered his mission. fulfilled. His unseen presence with all his power is at work everywhere, speeding up the process of evolution, giving help wherever asked for, wherever needed. And we have his word that he will never leave OK until India and the world have realised its spiritual rebirth and the whole earth has been transformed into the Home of God. A high idealist, at the same time highly practical, he has himself hewn out, traversed and blazed the steep path that he is now inviting others to take, giving them the comfortable assurance that it will be far easier for them now because his help and guidance will always be there with them. lest one should hesitate to take a leap in the dark, he has laid bare his own experiences and achievements not only in the six great books but in several. other smaller volumes and his numerous letters. These are man's royal road to divine life. Forward- looking minds of the West have correctly seen in Sri Aurobindo 'the last of the Rishis' who alone can open

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to man the golden gate of a bright new world.

    Sri Aurobindo's place in India's history is, therefore, the line of the Ancient Fathers of the race—the early founders of her civilisation—whose visions and experiences have ever been a perennial source of inspiration to the leaders of India's spiritual movements sustaining her development in history, and to those missionaries of her culture who defied all obstacles in their noble endeavour to carry the torch of their country's lore to distant lands which, bathed in the new light, woke up to their true selves and wrote many a bright page in their history. This is how India has worked to prepare man with and outside her borders for. his ultimate ascent'." to the unbounded heavens of a divine Perfection.

II

INDIA'S MISSION IN THE WORLD

THE soul of India was born in the Light that came to the vision of the Vedic Seers who were the first in history to declare: janaya daivyam janam, 'Create the Divine race'.¹ The seer in the Upanishad reechoed the vision when he said: srinvantu visve amritasya putrah, 'Hearken unto me, ye children of immortality....'² This dynamic message of India's soul impelled her march into the

    ¹ Rig Veda, X. 53. 6
    ² Svetasgatata Up. III.8

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thick of the outer world with the watchword: krinvantu vishvan aryam, 'Aryanise the whole world.* Aryanising did not mean anything racial or ethnic but sharing with others the best of what is every man's heritage, the supreme culture of self-perfection.

    This expansive movement of Indian culture can be traced in the civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia, Persia in the west, and of China, Japan, Burma almost the whole of south-east Asia. India, as Sri Aurobindo says, is indeed the very heart of Asia, the hoary guardian of the Asian idea and its profound spiritual secrets, which have from time immemorial permeated the mind of the Asian peoples and helped their collective progress and cultural evolution.

    Nor was this movement confined to Asia only. Pour times in history the stream of Indian thought has poured itself out upon Europe.' The first attempt was the altering of Egyptian, Chaldean and Indian wisdom. through the thought of the Greek philosophers from. Pythagoras to Plato an,d the Noe-Platonists; the result was the brilliantly intellectual civilisation of Greece and Rome. But it prepared the way for the second attempt when Buddhism and Vaishnavism filtered through the Semitic temperament and entered Europe in the form of: Christianity. The third was through the Arabs after' the rise of Islam; the result was the reawakening of the

    ¹ Ideals and Progress, p. 49, p. 51

    ² Ibid. p. 57.

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European mind in feudal and Catholic Europe. The fourth and the last time, it was the quiet entry of Indian thought into Europe, first through the veil of German metaphysics which inspired most of the modern developments of European thought, and then. through the open dissemination of ideas of various schools of Indian thought by exponents, both Indian and European; the result is the growing tendency today in Europe and America to acknowledge the superiority of spiritual values. These are the first hopeful signs of a decisive turning- point in the outlook of the higher mind of the West.

    The greatest of these exponents, and the pioneer, par.'excellence, was that mighty prophet of Resurgent India, Swami Vivekananda, who declared that India's spirituality was out again to conquer the world, that India would bring about the spiritual Liberation of the entire human race.

    Sri Aurobindo sums up the vast significance and force of that liberation when he says: 'We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and Liberation are not the whole sense of God's intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in. others'.¹ This perfection,

¹ On Yoga, Vol I, The Synthesis of Yoga, p, 30.

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says he, is attainable quickly and consciously by Yoga. 'The generalisation of Yoga in humanity must be the last victory of Nature over her own delays and concealments. Even as now by the progressive mind in Science she seeks to make all mankind fit for the full development of the mental life, so by Yoga must she inevitably seek to make a11 mankind fit for the higher evolution, the second birth, the spiritual existence'.¹

    The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo is that practical nature-changing spirituality which man has now to develop and thereby cooperate with evolutionary Nature towards the fulfilment of God's purpose in him. And to this cooperation of man and Nature Sri Aurobindo's own spiritual Force, the concentrated result of his life-long tapasya, gives a dynamic impetus. The new truths that came to hen m the course of his sadhana he has revealed to the world as his divinely-ordained contribution to the cause of human evolution. It is the powerful, if invisible, lever, the central factor of the World Liberation Movement. The world has already had his assurance that till this work of liberation is accomplished, a11 his Force will be there in constant operation. Slowly but steadily the teachings of the Master are ending their way into the mind, heart and soul of humanity. In various ways men are feeling the impact of the Force. Signs are already visible of how the elite of the race are waking to the truth he holds up before it.

¹ On Yoga, Vol, I, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 31.

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    Words of tribute from leading thinkers of the world and group-gatherings of devotees and admirers in various countries point to two facts: a world-wide yearning for a nobler order of life, and a growing recognition of Sri Aurobindo's teachings as the Way to that order. Fortunately for man, this recognition is coming at the tremendous hour' of an evolutionary crisis which is in reality the birth-pang of a mighty resurgence of the world' s , soul, when finite man, aware of his identity with: the One and Many, will choose the upward path of transformation. into his real Self, the infinite Superman This is the meaning of the advent of the Mother and the Master, the God-appointed collaborators in the divine task of leading man to his highest destiny, the Mother carrying forward the work to its victorious accomplishment.

    A most hopeful fact to note is that the Influence is spreading in its scope and intensity to the four corners of the globe and this without any propaganda and publicity as such. It is God's Will, His supreme decree, fullfilling itself in His vast creative silence.

III

RESPONSE IN AMERICA

AMERICA, as we know, is the first in modern,tune 'to receive and respond to the call of the Spirit from India. A people, new and fresh, the Americans are ever ready to accept new and inspiring ideas, and when, these

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are from the East, they stir the soul of this receptive people. We have seen it in. the case of Swami Vivekananda; we see it again in the case of Sri Aurobindo.

    Early in I949 the Government of India issued a Press Note to say, among other things, that they had been receiving numerous enquiries from various parts of the world, particularly from America about the aims and activities of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Since then, Ashram sources say, the volume of such enquiries has considerably increased. Apart from individual seekers who today are many times more than before, university teachers in America as well as her other prominent leaders of thought are drawn to Sri Aurobindo for light and guidance in their intellectual pursuits, and through them his teachings are entering the mind of the youths, some of whom are already ardent students of the Master. The future lies with them. There are, besides, groups both in the eastern and western regions who regularly meet and discuss various problems from the standpoint of Sri Aurobindo's thought, It is significant that Sri Aurobindo's message to the Modern World was the first item in the Indian programme of the last bicentennial celebrations, of the Columbia University. Series of lectures of the Aurobindo's Yoga are a regular feature in the activities of the Theosophical Society. Artists of America are equally in quest of knowledge about Sri Aurobindo and his philosophy. Dr. Miss Judith M. Tyberg of California, a devotee of the Ashram, is doing commendable work in spreading the teachings of Sri Aurobindo in the

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States. So is Mrs. Eleanor Montgomery of New Work. In California the Cultural Integration Fellowship is doing very good work for India by interpreting her cultural ideals with particular reference to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. Haridas Choudhury, a Professor from India, an author, and an able exponent of Sri Aurobindo, is its Director. His thesis on Sri Aurobindo brought him a doctorate from the Calcutta University. Frederic Spiegel- berg of Stanford University, California, and Choudhury are associated with the Department of Asian Studies of the same University, in the curriculum of which Sri Aurobindo is a regular item of study. This is largely Spiegelberg's work.

    In the course of his visit to India in 1949 Spiegelberg spent a few days in Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry. Giving his impressions to the press he said : 'In 1947 I read Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine and was completely knocked over. I have never known a philosopher so all none before him had the same vision.... I can foresee the day when the teachings—which are already making headway—of the greatest spiritual voice from India, Sri Aurobindo, will be known all over America and be a vast power of illumination. '¹ Very similar was the impression of Dr. Boswell after his Darshan of Sri Aurobindo in February 1936 when he, one of a party of seven American ladies and gentlemen, visited the Ashram.

    ¹ Mother India, Bombay, September 1949

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    In I948 the Cornell University of New Pork prescribed Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine for its graduate seminar studies in Philosophy. E.A. Burtt, Head of the Department of Philosophy of that University, who visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram in I947, and who was responsible for the introduction of the above-mentioned book in the University, himself conducted the seminar. P.A. Sorokin, the eminent social thinker and Chairman of the Depart- ment of Sociology, Harvard University, has made a special study of Sri Aurobindo to whom he often refers in his works. He says: 'From a scientific and philosophical standpoint, the works of Sri Aurobindo are a sound anti- dote. to the pseudo-scientific psychology, psychiatry, and educational art of the West. Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine and other Yoga treatises are among the most important works of our time in philosophy, ethics and humanities. Sri Aurobindo himself is one of the greatest living sages of our time; the most eminent moral leader.'¹

    Syracuse University has its exponent of Sri Aurobindo in its Professor of Philosophy, R.F. Piper, who says: The greatest gift of Sri Aurobindo to me as a philosopher is his magnificent perspective of existence, in three directions: the dignity and destiny of man; the meaning of long-time evolution, the laboratory of the Divine; and the universal dynamic of Cosmic Intelligence.... I could pick a thousand sentences from his writings and say of

¹ Extract from his message to Sri Aurobindo's birthday anniversary meeting in New York on August t5, 1949.

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any one of them: trace its implications and you will be led into the deep wonderlands of philosophic wisdom. I have never read an author who can compact so much of truth into one sentence as this master. Gandhi is the greatest saint, Tagore the greatest poet of modern India, but Sri Aurobindo is the greatest thinker, indeed has attained incomparable triune greatness, as poet, philosopher, and saint.'¹

    Bernard Philips, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Delaware in U.S.A. personally attended the Sri Aurobindo Memorial Convention held at Pondicherry in April, z95r, in connection with the establishment of the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre. In his speech he stressed the fact that the present systems of education do not allow man to develop his personality to the full and that Sri Aurobindo's Path will lead to the evolution of a new humanity.

    The interest of the United States in Sri Aurobindo is reflected in her gifts of valuable books to the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre, and in many visits to the Ashram of high officers of her Foreign Service in India.

    The publication in 1950 of the American edition of the major works of Sri Aurobindo has been a fresh incentive to the expansion of Sri Aurobindo movement in America.

    ¹ Extract from his message to Sri Aurobindo's birthday anniversary meeting in New York on August 15, 1949.

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    In Mexico there is a group of admirers who often meet and read the works of the Master. Sri Aurobindo was an item on the programme of the International Congress of Philosophy held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in I954. A, devotee of the Ashram who on invitation addressed the Congress was struck by the eagerness of a good number of participants to have a deeper acquaintance with the teachings of 'India's greatest thinker'. Chile's Nobel Laureate, Gabriel Mistral, wrote: 'While Tagore awakened the latent music in me, another Indian, Sri Aurobindo, brought me to religion. He opened the way to my religious consecration. Indeed my debt to India is very great and is due in part to Tagore and in part to Sri Aurobindo."

IV

IN ENGLAND

FROM England come words of light voiced by Rev. E. F. F. Hill: 'Aurobindo is the greatest contemporary philosopher and great in the company of the greatest mystic of all time.... Aurobindo's psychologic insight is so sharp and clear, and the universe it explores is so vast that, in comparison western psychology, even the work of Freud, when one allows in full the measure of its greatness, is like the groping of a child in the dark The work of Aurobindo compels, not comparison, but.

¹ The Aryan Path, February, 1947.

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concordance with the Fourth Gospel. Here are two men, peers in their right in the realm of highest knowledge, and peers in relation to each other. Separated by twenty centuries, drawing their sustenance from different cultures but their inspiration from one spiritual source, 'ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free', is one common aspect of their message....

    'It is not surprising that, while to many of his country- men he is the greatest single influence in the recovery of the great soul and spirit, 'the living embodiment of all the past spiritual achievement of India and also the Master-Leader of her future spiritual destiny', his originality is, at the same time, seen to lie in the way in which he has created a synthesis between her past spiritual achievement and modern European thought, so that the future spiritual destiny of India and the future destiny of Europe are inescapably the same destiny....

    'We are at the turning-point in the spiritual history of man. Aurobindo is the embodiment of a revolution in human life which new knowledge, new powers, new capacities, are creating at this hour.... Because Aurobindo is in this world, the world is becoming able to express progressively Unity and Diversity instead of Division, Love instead of Hatred, Truth-consciousness instead of Falsehood, Freedom instead of Tyranny, Immortality instead of Death; it is becoming progressively that. which it is: a movement of the Spirit in itself."

'¹ world Review, October, 1949.

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There could be no words of deeper insight than these from a soul touched by the light of Truth that is Sri Aurobindo.

    The well-known English thinker and author, Sir Francis Younghusband, knew Sri Aurobindo personally and more intimately than others. In the course of re- viewing The Life Divine, he wrote: 'of all modern Indian writers Aurobindo—successively poet, critic, scholar, thinker, nationalist, humanist—is the most significant and perhaps the most interesting.... He has written, if one may say so, at unconscionable length, on ultimate problems...even his early essays are full of fertile ideas. And he has crystallised the mellow wisdom of a lifetime into a luminous prose in The Life Divine, which, it is not too much to say, is one of the master-works of our age. The book has length, breadth and height. In a real sense, it enriches our experience." In a letter to a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, published in the Indian press, the same writer says: 'I really do quite genuinely consider The Life Divine the greatest book which has been produced in my time.?

    'Since he is a poet as well as a mystic, Sri Aurobindo's vision is both creative and prophetic. I believe there is no greater mystical thinker in the world today." says the noted Irish writer, Morwenna Donnelly, whose book, Pounding the Life Divine, recently published in

    ¹ The Times Literary Spplement July 8, 1944.

    ² The wind and the Rain, Vol. V. No. I.

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England and very favourably reviewed in English periodicals, points to the growing interest of that country in Sri Aurobindo's thought. Introducing that book to the reading public in England, the British Book ıms wrote: 'Aurobindo promises to outshine all the latter-day prophets.' Another book on Sri Aurobindo, well received. by the British press, is G.H. Langley's, published in I949 by the Royal Society of India and Pakistan, with a Foreword by the Marquess of Zetland. Dorothy M. Richardson, the well-known English writer and novelist, says: 'Has there ever existed a more synthetic consciousness than that of Sri Aurobindo P Unifying he is to the limit of the term. ' ²

    A group of Sri Aurobindo's admirers in London meet regularly to study his writings. In the last quarter of I955, A.B. Purani, a member of the Ashram, visited England, invited by the British Council to speak on Sri Aurobindo at the Colloquium of Contemporary British Philosophy held at Oxford. During his three- month stay there Purani addressed a number of meetings on Sri Aurobindo's life, poetry and philosophy. He also gave a B.B.G. broadcast talk on Sri Aurobindo. On his return to the Ashram, he received appreciative letters from English poets, intellectuals and vice- chancellors of Universities. One of them, Sir Charles R. Morris, Vice-Chancellor of the Leeds University, speaks of Sri Aurobindo as 'a great poet and creative writer

² In her letter to Prof. K, S, Shrinivasa Iyengar.

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and at the same time a liberator of the Indian people... whose works send us back to the source of inspiration.' A. Basu, an Indian professor, now Spalding Lecturer in Indian Philosophy and Religion in the University of Durham, is often invited to deliver lectures on Sri Aurobindo in the Universities and public institutions in England. He says, 'the response is always encouraging.' Recently the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, has invited him to deliver a series of lectures on Sri Aurobindo.

V

IN FRANCE, GERMANY, RUSSIA, HOLLAND,
SWITZERLAND, ITALY

'OF all the countries in Europe, it is France that is evincing the most lively interest in Sri Aurobindo and his gospel of the divine life upon earth. Is there a spiritual affinity between India and France, a secret psychic kinship? The future is big with far-reaching possibilities and it would be wilful blindness to overlook this erst flutter of the soul of France at the healing and delivering touch of India's light" In their tributes to Sri Aurobindo eminent thinkers and writers like Romain Rolland, Maurice Magre and others have hailed him as 'The last of the Rishis', 'the Teacher of the World', 'Shiva the Divine'.2

    ¹ Sisirkumar Mitra: The Vision of India, p. 2I9.

    ² Sisirkumar Mitra: The Vision of India p. 3IO, 220.

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    Sri Aurobindo's passing, evoked genuine appreciation of him as a bearer of Light. A conservative journal, Le Monde,¹ least open to new ideas, wrote: 'Sri Aurobindo's insistence on action, on the reality of the world, makes him one of the representatives of modern Hindu- ism who want to create a new world on the ancient foundation.' Andre Siegfried, a member of the French Academy, said: 'The reputation of the great Hindu thinker Sri Aurobindo, a remote successor of the Vedic Rishis, is HHO less as a writer and religious philosopher than as a sage who has realised the liberation from the ties of material nature, which remains the deep ideal of Hindu thought. His passing is therefore a national event, international too, besides, since the Occident also had reasons to be interested in him.'²

    The Sri Aurobindo Study-Center in Paris is increasing in its importance and popularity and through it more and more seekers are having contact with the Mother and the Ashram. Another notable fact is that Sri Aurobindo's works are not longer confined within the small circles of admirers. A number of French thinkers are already attracted to them. Nor are university teachers outside the orbit of Sri Aurobindo's Aurobindo's influence. Many of them quote him along with Plano. The recent (philosophic) 'Noe-finalist' movement in France makes clearly an approach to Sri Aurobindo's vision of the world.

    ¹ Paris, December 8, I950.

    ² ibid.,

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    Sri Aurobindo's name was definitely consecrated by a solemn ceremony held on December 5, 1955, at the University of Sorbonne in Paris, in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of his passing. The celebration was presided over by Jean. FillioZat, Professor of Indology at the College of France and Director of the French Institute in Pondicherry, who said that above the radical philosophies, contemptuous of human nature, Sri Aurobindo wanted to reestablish for India and exalt for the whole world a hope in life. It was no more a question of escaping from the human to the Divine but to rejoin the Divine and infuse Him into life. His great idea that the evolution of beings did not stop with the man as he was, was being worked out in an active and growing institution (Ashram) towards which the eyes of India were turning and of many of those who have faith in the sublimation of life. Different aspects of Sri Aurobindo's life and thought were presented by five renowned scholars, one of whom was F. Challaye, a retired professor, whose book on Indian philosophy includes two chapters on Sri Aurobindo. H.W. Schneider, Head of the Division of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, UNESCO, spoke on the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre which he visited in I954, whose syllabus of History Studies he characterised as 'remarkable and unique. Giving his impressions of the visit he said, A few hours of stay in the Ashram was enough to make me feel that an authentic experiment is being carried out there whose results deserve a close study by

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the educationists of all the countries.' In the course of his speech, C.F. Baron, who was Governor of the French Pondicherry during the forties, said, 'I have very often seen the Mother and had long talks with her.... She is the greatest lady that I have met in this world. I had the privilege of seeing Sri Aurobindo sometimes. I do not know of any person, whatever the intellectual discipline he might claim, who was not moved by his presence. Fervour, like love, cannot be explained.... The essentials of Sri Aurobindo's teaching are based upon the illimitable perfectibility of man. He solemnly announces a new step in the evolution of the human race.... His radiance is demonstrated by your presence here. His light has traversed the silk curtain. happily transparent, that still separates the orient from the occident.' M.F. Rueff, President of the International Council of Philosophy and Humanistic Sciences, speaking about his visit to the Ashram in 1952', said, 'The momory of my visit is marked by three dominant experiences: beauty, fervour intelligence. The ambience of serene beauty that reigns there is indeed unforgettable.... All who work there have in their eyes such joy, such serenity, such devotion. to their work that one feels it springing from their inner life.... For those who try to penetrate into Sri Aurobindo's thought it is impossible not to be struck by certain pro- found consonances with Bergson's thought notably that of creative evolution. I will go so far as to say that certain aspects of Bergson's thought are for me illumined and enriched by the study of Sri Aurobindo's works and by

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the interpretation given to me verbally by his disciples who have so deeply entered into his spirit.... Well, if India is the country where the secrets of the soul are hidden, the Ashram is certainly, in India, the place where one can best approach them and become ready to discover them.... It is said that at a certain age one never revisits the places one has loved. If however I could make a wish, I would want to have the chance of entering more deeply into the discipline of the Ashram, the secret of which gives to the disciples that beautiful look by which I have been so much struck.' In the course of his talk on the life of Sri Aurobindo, J. Masui said, 'I think that the prediction of Tagore that 'India will speak to the world through your (Sri Aurobindo) voice' is on the way to fulfilment.'¹ Masui is the editor of an important cultural monthly of the South of France, Les Cahiers du Sud, Marseilles, through which he spreads Sri Aurobindo's ideas. In a review-article the paper. said: 'If Aurobindo's thought is compared with that of the principal metaphysicians of the West, it can be said that h= soars up where Hegel has come to a stop, or rather, he overtakes and surpasses Hegel.... His The Life Divine is the metaphysics for the times to come. It represents certainly one of the best, if not the best, solution to the dilemma of contemporary thought.' Another paper of Paris, L'Ere spirituelle, called Sri

    ¹This and the extracts preceding quoted from the speeches at the Sorbonne Commemoration meeting are from Seance Commernorative de Sri Anrobindo a la Sorbonne le 5 Decembre 1955.

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Aurobindo's The Mother 'magnificent vision of the inner profundities of Spiritual Life'. To Romain Rolland Sri Aurobindo's commentary of the Isha Upanishad is 'one of the kingly books of the human spirit.' versions of parts of the major works of Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Synthesis of yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Secret of the Veda, and of a number of smaller works, are already in circulation in France. The Ideal of Human Unity and The Human Cycle, rendered into French by the Mother herself, will be published in France in 1957.

    In Germany Sri Anrobindo has been hailed as the fulfiller of the dreams and philosophies of her poets and thinkers. The German idea of Superman is found in his thought purified from distortions and lifted into the light of Truth. Works of Sri Anrobindo form a regular subject m the seminars and departments of Indian studies in a number of Germ. an Universities which are among the pioneers of Indology in Europe. Study-groups in several towns in Germany and eager correspondents from many of them are signs of the growing interest in Sri Aurobindo. Germany translations of Sri Aurobindo's works, so far published from the Ashram press, arc in great demand. The Human Cycle, in which no other nation is more frequently mentioned than Germany, makes a very strong appeal to German readers. A German translation, recently brought out in. Germany, has had ready reception, along with another publication containing chapters from Essays on the Gita. Parts of : The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga will soon be

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published. They have been rendered into German by a devotee who in his lonely villa in the Black Forest of Germany, snowbound for several months of the years, has dedicated himself to the work of translating Sri Aurobindo's writings, 'always aspiring to do it in a way that would make German readers feel as if Sri Aurobindo had written in German.'

    On December 5, 1955 the University of Marburg celebrated the fifth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo's passing in a commemoration meeting addressed by its professors among whom where Ernst Benz, a distinguished scholar, and O. Wolff whose lecture on Sri Aurobindo's message of superman 'created a profound impression.' Wolff's book on the life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo will be published in Germany in 1957. He and his wife, both devoted souls, visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram wife, both devoted souls, visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1955. In the course of a letters to a member of the Ashram, he writes : 'There is nothing in my life that I could compare with the impression the Mother gave me.

    The University of Gottngen holds regular seminars and lectures on Sri Aurobindo. These are attended by both professors and students. Some of Sri Aurobindo's major works including The Human Cycle have been already studied and discussed there.

    The famous German thinker Count H. Keyserling characterised Sri Aurobindo's The Synthesis of Yoga As 'the most important contribution to see the light of day up till now on the synthesis between the spirits of the West and the East.

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    Russia's interest in Sri Aurobindo shows itself in a recent offer of her Government regularly to exchange their publications with those of the Ashram. A further evidence of this interest was the visit to the Ashram of a team of Russian world-champion gymnasts in April, 1956, then touring India at the invitation of the Indian Government. In the course of her message of welcome to them the Mother stated: 'We feel sure that today one step more is taken towards the unity of the great human family.' The gymnasts presented to Mother the emblem of Russian womanhood. There is a view that this may be the beginning of larger possibilities in the future.

    In Holland there has been of late a steady growth of interest in Indian philosophy and religious thought. In several towns there are groups which regularly meet .and study the culture and thought of contemporary Asia, particularly those of India and often in their discussions Sri Aurobindo figures prominently, Sri Aurobindo is the favourite theme of Guy M. de Gelder, a Dutch lecturer on philosophical subjects, head of an institution for spiritual development, In a letter to an Ashram member he says that Sri Aurobindo's thought evokes good response from his audiences in Holland. At the eleventh session of the International Congress of Philosophy, held in Brussels in ?953, Sri Aurobindo .was a subject of exposition, and lectures delivered by a disciple of the Master who attended on invitation, roused seeking souls 'o a sense of the new approach to

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life's problems suggested in his philosophy. In the course of reviewing Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita, Brussels' paper La Lanterne wrote: 'No one was more qualified for commenting on the Bhagavad Gita than Sri Aurobindo whose effort consisted precisely in establishing a renewed connection with this ancient spiritual tradition.' In his mountain retreat in Switzerland, du Marchis, a Swiss admirer, expounds the teachings of Sri Aurobindo to those who gather round him from various parts of the country. Recently the University of Geneva has admittted a thesis on Sri Aurobindo for the doctorate.

    In May I954, a special commemoration meeting was held in Rome under the auspices of the Italian Institute for the Middle and the Far East in which distinguished Italian and French scholars spoke on Sri Aurobindo's life and thought, G. Tucci, the famous Orientalist, presiding. The speakers made appreciative references to Sri Aurobindo's vision of the spiritual society of the future. Fillipe Belloni, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florence, is an admirer and exponent of Sri Aurobindo whose philosophy is included in the syllabus of that University. In Tuscane, one of the big districts of Italy, there is a study-center where people interested in Sri Aurobindo regularly meet. In Sicily there are a number of people including the Professor of Philosophy at the University there who are eager to know of the Master and his teachings.

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VI

IN AFRICA, ISRAEL, CHINA

THROHGH the efforts of some of Sri Aurobindo's Indian devotees living in East Africa, Sri Aurobindo centres have been started during the last six years in Nairobi, Mombasa, Miwani, Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam, Bikoba and at Livingstone in Northern Rhodesia. Readings from and exposition of Sri Aurobindo's writings are among the regular activities of these centres which are attended. by Indians, and some of them also by quite a number of Europeans. Sri Aurobindo movement in Africa received an impetus from the lecture tour of A. B. Purani, who was invited in 1953 by the Gandhi-Tagore Lectureship Society of Nairobi to visit the country and speak on contemporary Indian. culture. Purani spent about seven months touring and addressing large numbers of meetings and giving talks to groups in East Africa, Northern and Southern Rhodesia. Most of these were organised by Sri Aurobindo centres and Sri Aurobindo was his subject all through. The Livingstone group is formed by young men only—an interesting feature in itself. Many of the Indian devotees of the Ashram in East Africa are in direct contact with the Mother and the way in which they express their devotion shows the depth of their sincerity.

    Sri Aurobindo's ideas have entered Israel. Hugo Bergmann, Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University,

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Jerusalem, delivers lectures on Sri Aurobindo at the University. He is a regular contributor to the University Journal and Sri Aurobindo is often the subject of his articles. The article on Sri Aurobindo in the, Hebrew Encyclopaedia is from his pen as also the one on Integral Education which is mainly based on the writings: of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Several years ago, on invitation, Bergmann visited Sweden and delivered there a series of lectures, one of his subjects having been Sri Aurobindo. 'In the course of the last generation', he says, *our messianic hope and message have lost their attraction and originality. They have even been on the verge of being deformed m order to serve narrow political ends. Sri Aurobindo has infused a new life into the messianic idea and hope in all their cosmic significance and their implications. He had identified the Kingdom of Heaven with the Indian Satya Yuga and has considered it not as a dream or a far-off vision but as an entirely practical "idea and a programme of action.' A young Jew of Jerusalem, a genius m music, has in an inspired moment set to tune lines from Savitri. The result is an exquisite. piece of music which seeks to convey the spirit of that epic of Sri Aurobindo. His father, T. Olsvanger, Rector of the Hebrew University, is at present engaged in translating Savitri into Hebrew.

    Conditions in some parts of Asia have not in recent times been favourable enough to the growth of Sri Aurobindo movement which had begun before the Second World War. Tan-Yun-Shan, the eminent Chinese scholar 5

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and Director of Chinese studies at the Visva-Bharati University, was then China's cultural ambassador to India and Founder-Director of the Sino-Indian Cultural Society, when in I939 he visited Sri Aurobindo Ashram. After having the Darshan of Sri Aurobindo, he said in a press interview that as in the past China was spiritually conquered by a great Indian, so in the future too she would be conquered by another great Indian, Sri Aurobindo, the Maha-Yogi who, as he said, 'is the bringer of that Light which will chase away the darkness that envelops the world today." Tan had Darshan of the Mother and also an interview with her. About this he writes: 'As I was talking to her, I felt as if I was talking to one who is nearest to me in spirit. She is indeed the Mother of all and everything in the Ashram is taking shape under her direct guidance." Tan wrote a number of articles which appeared in leading Chinese journals.

    And his prophecy has begun to come true: in June I954 there came into being in Hong Kong the Sri Aurobindo Philosophical Circle. A large number of Chinese attended the opening function which was blessed by the Mother with her Message: 'Let the eternal Light dawn on the eastern horizon.' The chief organisers of the Circle were Yu Yun-Shan and an Indian resident, both devotees of the Ashram. Miss Yu is a noted artist

    ¹ Sisirkumar Mitra: The Vision of India, p. are
    ¹ Sisirkumar Mitra: Sri Aurobindo: A Homage, p. 2

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of China. She and the Indian devotee expound Sri Aurobindo to those who assemble at the Circle. Besides being generally Chinese, these gatherings often attract German, English and American residents too of Hong Kong. The Circle has already brought out a book in Chinese on the life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo. A Chinese artist and scholar who is a member of the Ashram, has translated into Chinese some of Sri Aurobindo's major works including The Life Divine and is now working on The Synthesis of Yoga. The printing of these will soon be taken up by the Ashram press. Through the cooperation of the Hong Kong Circle a Chinese periodical called Yun Chen is being published, of which Miss Yu is one of the editors, in charge of its Sri Aurobindo section which regularly brings out Chinese translations of the writings of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

    The Japanese members of the Ashram represent their country's link with the Sri Aurobindo movement.

    Large numbers of the Chinese in Singapore and Penang have already had contact with the Sri Aurobindo movement through the Hong Kong Circle and their wish to have study-centres in those regions will soon take shape. R. K. Tandon, Government of India's Representative in the Federated Malay States, who was in touch with the Ashram when he was Consul- General for India in Pondicherry, has extended his support to the movement. Swami Satyananda, founder of the Pure Life Society in Kuala Lumpur, always speaks of

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Sri Aurobindo in his lectures on the spiritual movements in modern India. He celebrates the birthday of Sri Aurobindo in his Society whose journal, called Dharma, he edits reprinting in every issue long extracts from Sri Aurobindo's writings.

    Besides all these, there are, we are told, individuals and groups in various places in Europe and America, who are pursuing the path of Sri Aurobindo.

VII

INDIA : BEGINNINGS OF A WORLD MOVEMENT

WE have spoken nothing of India because the Ashram itself is the radiating centre of Sri Aurobindo's light at work all over the land. The Ashram is already a miniature India drawing members from every part of the country, It has members too from various parts of Europe'.and' America, who form a growing international community. Its International University Centre is the ideal of human unity in practice.

    Seeing minds in India have spoken of Sri Aurobindo in words of their soul. Here is what Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya, the then Editor of the Bengali revolutionary paper Sandhya, said of Sri Aurobindo as early as 1 9O6: 'Have you ever seen the spotless all-white lotus) The hundred-petalled lotus in full bloom in India's Manas- sarovar! No lily or daffodil this growing in odd and obscure corners of a European dwelling,' scentless, mere play

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and display of colours Of no use in worship of gods, of no need in sacrificial celebration, sheer pomp and vanity in the western way. Our Aurobindo is a rare phenomenon in the world. In him resides the sattwic divine beauty, snow-white, resplendent. Great and vast. Vast in the vastness of his heart. Great in the glory of his own self, his swadharma as a Hindu. A man pure and complete—a fire-charged thunder, yet tender and delicate as the lotus-leaf. A man rich in knowledge, self-lost in meditation; you can nowhere find his like in the three worlds....' In 1907 Poet Tagore hailed Sri Aurobindo as 'the voice incarnate, free, of India's soul.' Again in 1928, after his interview with Sri Aurobindo, the Poet said to him, 'You have the Word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice, Hearken unto me.' In. I95O, K. M. Munshi had an interview with Sri Aurobindo. Writing about it he said: 'A deep light of knowledge and wisdom shone in his eyes. The whole calm of the 'Spirit appeared to have converted the whole personality into the radiant Presence of one who shone with the light of Consciousness.* A most glowing tribute is from C.R.Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University, who in his Convocation Address, I948, said: 'In ail humility of devotion, I hail Sri Aurobindo as the sole sufficing genius of the age. He is more than the hero of a nation. He is amongst the Saviours of humanity, who belong to all ages and all nations, the Sanatanas, who leaven our existence with their eternal presence, whether we are aware of it or not.'

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    Some of the universities in India have prescribed Sri Aurobindo's works for post-graduate courses. Banaras Hindu University and Osmania University and a few others admit theses on Sri Aurobindo for the doctorate. Apart from the published works of his disciples in the Ashram, articles and essays on Sri Aurobindo's poetry and philosophy by competent writers and professors often appear in well-known periodicals. Some of them are available in book foll. Papers on different aspects of his thought are a feature of the sessions of the Indian philosophical Congress. S.K. Maitra, for many years Head. of the Department of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Arts of the Banaras Hindu University, has been teaching Sri Aurobindo's philosophy at that University for the last twelve years. Even after his retirement he continues as an honorary professor there, simply for his love and, mastery of the subject. Maitra's writing on Sri Aurobindo, published in book form, were invariably appreciated by the Master who once remarked that his presentation would appeal to the Western mind.¹ His lecture tour of America in I949 evoked a ready response, and Sri Aurobindo was the main subject of his talks there.

    Now the question may arise: Are these stray and isolated instances enough? Is not the world replete with religious and spiritual truths and their wide recognition? Have they helped the world out of the impasse it has been in? Where is the mighty dynamism of the truths

¹From Nirodbaran

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they profess and seek? Has not human nature proved, time and again, an invincible resistance to change? Will not Sri Aurobindo's effort too, however soul-satisfying, share the same fate?

    Sri Aurobindo's work, now as always, carried on by the Mother, is the complete answer to these pertinent questions. No one is more poignantly conscious of man' s nature and like him, no one has risked even the total failure of his efforts on the conquest of this bedrock of resistance. That is why he has not chosen the easier and spectacular side of the efforts or its results. Possessed of the supernal knowledge of the higher heavens and the power of its self-effectuation, he plunged into the deepest abyss of this inconscient Nature, all hell about him, and concentrated his force on its regeneration. Convinced that nothing but the irresistible Supramental Force can accomplish this, he has brought it down and applied it to the task. The result so far? Slow, hard-won victory, inch-by-inch progress, then more and more, and now, on the word of one who knows, the last formidable paroxysm of resistance is beaten down and overcome. This is the logical conclusion of the Mother' s New Year Message, I956: The greatest victories are the least noisy. The manifestation of a new world is not proclaimed by beat of drum.' read in the context of her last year's Message: 'No human will can anally prevail against the Divine's Will. Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine, and the Victory is ultimately certain.'

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    The stray and isolated facts, given above, certainly do not, by themselves, make a world movement. But then we have to take into account the fact that it is the cultured elite of different lands that accept the truth straightaway, some with their developed intellects and philosophic minds, others with their soul, all independently, at the same time and without reserve; a unique fact in human history. That is the most solid foundation for an abiding world movement. Another fact of note is the stirring of thought everywhere as a consequence of the impact thereon of Sri Aurobindo's word and action. To observant minds it is all plain. Besides, seekers from distant corners of the world are making their approach to the Mother through letters, communications meditative or otherwise, and personal visits. Propaganda and demonstration forming no part of her work, it is the dynamic silence of the Divine Will that rules, the Will whose action, ever-expanding action, is for the discerning eye to see. 'A constant action', says the Mother, 'is going on in the world. It is spreading and it is effective everywhere. Everywhere it gives new pushes, new turns, new ideas, new will-formations." 'Through this apparent chaos a new and better order is being formed. But to see it one must have faith in the Divine Grace." The broadening of outlook and cooperative effort in matters of human concern beyond national limits to the international, even

    ¹ Mother India, January 1956, p. 4
    ² Mother's reply to s disciple's letter in October 1956

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    The very fact that individuals and groups of different faiths and persuasions are turning to Sri Aurobindo's way is a happy start for a world movement that is born to culminate in a divinised humanity, a new race. The tiny dots here and there of today will present the spectacle of chain reactions coalescing, multiplying and covering up the known and unknown spaces of the inhabited earth. Here we may recall Mother's words:

    'The solid foundations of Thy work upon the earth are made ready, the basements of the immense edifice are constructed; in every corner of the world one of Thy divine stones is laid by the power of the conscious and formative thought; and in. the hour of realisation, the earth thus prepared will. be ready to receive the sublime temple of Thy new and completer manifestation.'¹

    But it is possible there will still be doubting Thomases whose 'belief shell be not till the work is done'. Even these will one day accept the conversion. For the light will brook no obstacle,no self-contradiction, however obstinate. The scientifically elevated wonderful world of ours, swaying still between godly and bestial impulses, will be liberated into the Light of a Super-science, and ushered

    ¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother p. 207

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into a Home of Oneness, Power and Bliss, the soul of the earth discovering itself in the infinities of a heavenlier existence. That will be the glorious consummation of the highest spiritual destiny assigned to man. That is how the prophetic Dawn of Sri Aurobindo's life and vision will become 'the Everlasting Day'. Then will the Sun of Truth make earth His permanent abode, and man liberated from Ignorance and Falsehood, live in the Truth and Light of a destined divine perfection.

'Arise, O Soul, arise ! Strength has come,

Darkness has passed away—the Light is arriving!'¹

VIII

MANIFESTATION

THE greatest event m the spiritual history of man has happened The Supramental Light has descended upon earth and has become the dynamic Principle of its evolution into that over which the Light will reign for ever The Mother of the gods embodying the Light kindles now the celestial Game in the aspiring soul of man so that the impure clay of earth that he is may change into the pure gold of heaven and earth itself into a new paradise The movement of world-liberation

    ¹ Rigveda, I, 113, 16

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is now the movement of world-transformation. Man. now enters upon a new cycle, his history from, now will be an ever-unrolling scroll of a new life divinising itself'- more and more into the transcendent glory of a new creation, India being the centre and the whole world.. the vast field of its growth and expansion.. Therefore does the Mother prepare the coming of the New Man, the New Society, the New Civilisation, the New World and thus fulfil the Master's Vision of the Future.¹

    'The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.

    'It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.'

    This historic declaration the Mother made on April 24, 1956, the occasion being the thirtysixth anniversary of her final arrival at Pondicherry. The other Message: from the Mother was:

    'A New Light breaks upon the earth,

    A New World is born.

    All that were promised are fulfilled.'

It may be recalled that the Mother's first meeting with
Sri Aurobindo took place on March 29, I9I4.2 Since

    ¹ This paragraph was written in March, 1956.

    ² This is the year, be it repeated, in which Mother had her prevision of India's independence as a divinely settled fact in the occult world. It is remarkable also that while the world was feverishly preparing to plunge itself into the First World War, these two mighty souls were divinely led to join their spiritual forces to save it from self-destruction and evolve out of it a New World.

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then she has been. in close collaboration with the Master, in' fact, as occult knowledge should testify, for ages without number. On September 25, 1914, a few months after that meeting, she recorded in her Prayers and Meditations the assurance;

    'A new light shall break upon the earth,

    A new world shall be born,

    And the things that were announced shall be fulfilled.'

    of this assurance the declarations are the positive and complete fulfilment. They mark the consummation of their joint and ageless work. Man is saved, saved from himself, saved for the Divine. 'All that were promised are fulfilled.'

    How will the Ne;v Light affect the life of humanity? Says the Master: "...the presence of the liberated and now" sovereign supramental light and force at the head of evolutionary Nature might be expected to have its consequences in the whole evolution. An incidence, a. decisive stress would affect the life of the lower evolutionary stages; something of the light, something of the force would penetrate downwards and awaken into a greater action the hidden Truth-Power everywhere in Nature.

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A dominant principle of harmony would impose itself on the life of the Ignorance; the discord, the blind seeking, the clash of struggle, the abnormal vicissitudes of. exaggeration and depression and unsteady balance of the unseeing forces at work in their mixture and conflict would feel the influence and yield place to a more orderly pace and harmonic steps of the development of being, a more revealing arrangement of progressing life and consciousness, a better life-order. A freer play of intuition and sympathy and understanding would enter- into human life, a clearer sense of the truth of self and, things and a more enlightened dealing with the opportunities and dif6culties of existence....'"¹

    This is the dawn of the New World towards which. the present is moving. As the Light grows the world also will grow into its noontide glory2. That will be the crowning fulfilment of Sri Aurobindo's — India's— divine mission on earth.

¹ Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, Vol. II, pp. 1030-31

² A vivid picture is given by Sri Aurobindo in his epic Savitri (Book Eleven - The Everlasting Day).

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