SRI AUROBINDO

AND THE SYMBOL OF INDIA

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE SYMBOL OF INDIA

Among flowers, which flower would you choose as the symbol of our country? Think a little and say. The symbol of a country is the symbol of its nature and individual characteristics. A country is not the land, nor its people either. A country is an idea. It is the embodiment of an idea. We do not know when was born the idea which is the inmost soul of our country. It was only after the birth of the idea that the self-knowledge of the country was born.

Growth and decay, changes and revolutions may occur in the body of a country, in the outer form, but so long as the idea is kept secure and living and conscious, there is no danger to the country. Those who in their hearts feel and experience this idea will feel the presence of their country, wherever they may go, either to foreign lands or to the ends of the earth. And this idea does not depend upon history which is a process of the march of time. On the contrary a country's history depends upon the idea. This becomes manifest in the history of the country. In the country's institutions and methods of government, literature, art and philosophy, customs and maimers, games and sports, frolic and fun — in all these the idea becomes manifest, and builds their forms. The country's past and future are here in the idea, the one in the form of long-garnered wisdom and the other in the form of potential force. Therefore the symbol of a country is the symbol of this idea. Now ponder and say which flower you would choose as the symbol of our Bharat.

Instead of thinking with the mind to give a decisive answer to this question, it is better and more proper to perceive it in the heart. The living idea in the inner being of Bharat is the attempt to achieve a resolution, a reconciliation, a hormonisation and synthesis of the oppositions, contradictions, riddles, and paradoxes of this world. The seers, who saw oneness in the many ness that we see, began to explore the causes of the apparent multiplicity, how the many are strung invisibly upon the thread of unity, how the one unites the many and how this is the answer to the problem of existence, this the explanation and this the synthesis. It was then that the idea which is the soul of Bharat was born. The consciousness of the country began to increase with the increasing consciousness of the idea. What more

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appropriate symbol could there be for our Bharat than the hundred-petalled lotus?

Rounded fullness, plenitude, supremely beautiful arrangement, harmonious synthesis, richness, sacredness, holiness and purity, that which gathers all these into unity, and causes the hundred-petalled flower of our heart to open in a flush of delight is the lotus — the lotus which is the beloved of our Gods and their Kin. There is some mystic bond between our Gods and the lotus. It looks as though for some inscrutable reason the idea that is the life and soul of Bharat incarnates itself as the lotus among all the species of flowers.

Sri Aurobindo is this hundred-petalled lotus. Let nobody think that because "Aurobindo" means "lotus" we are just letting our imagination run away with us. Harmonious synthesis is the soul of Sri Aurobindo's teaching, thought and Yogic life. Global, integral synthesis is their basis. Such a clear, broad and lucid synthesis of the ancient and the modern, of the East and the West and of the many philosophical views in the world that are pitted against one another has not been reached until now. Sri Aurobindo has offered a spiritual symphony to the world. Our country's tradition of synthesis in spiritual as well as secular life gradually became weakened, and finally was almost lost. Then began the great downfall of our country. This ancient tradition of synthesis our country will again take up through Sri Aurobindo. For the synthesis of the One and the Many, and of the different and yet complementary truths has in Sri Aurobindo's teaching blossomed like the rounded full-blown lotus. Has not the name of this Sadhak of integralism, this MahaYogi, a significance and a meaning? Just as the lotus is in a way the symbolic form of our Bharat, so too Sri Aurobindo is the incarnation in human form of the perfect blossoming of our eternal Wisdom.

The 15th of this month is Sri Aurobindo's birthday. This day was destined to be the day of our freedom from foreign domination. There seems to be some mystic inner connection, some secret significant suggestion in this. The country must learn in all humility and reverence Sri Aurobindo's synthesizing wisdom. Through such a harmonious vision alone can the many differences and conflicts that are now raging in the land dissolve in a grand finale.

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The poem Sri Aurobindo was published in Telugu in 1936 and its English rendering by V. Chidanandam was published in Mother India, August 15, 1968.

Sri Aurobindo's "The Life Divine"— A Brief Study was published in Triverni and issued in book-form by Sri Aurobindo Library, Madras in 1940. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram reissued the tide in 1944 and a slightly revised edition was published in 1961.

Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo and the Veda were published in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual. The Taittiriya Upanishad was published in The Advent in 1946. They were issued in book-form under the title Sri Aurobindo: Three Essays in 1961.

The Sankhya System was written for the All India Radio and broadcast in 1945.

Sri Aurobindo and the Symbol of India is the English rendering by V. Chidanandam of the original in Telugu published on August 15, 1947 in Samata, a monthly journal (now defunct) edited by V. Sadanand.

These last two were published later in Mother India.