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It is a superstition of modern thought that the march of knowledge has in all its parts progressed always in a line of forward progress deviating from it, no doubt, in certain periods of obscuration, but always returning and in the sum constituting everywhere an advance and nowhere a retrogression. Like all superstitions this belief is founded on bad and imperfect observation flowering into a logical fallacy. Our observation is necessarily imperfect because we have at our disposal the historical data and literary records of only a few millenniums and beyond only disjected and insufficient indices which leave gigantic room for the hardly-fettered activity of the mind's two chief helpers and misleaders, inference and conjecture. Our observation is bad because, prepossessed by the fixed idea of a brief and recent emergence from immemorial barbarism, imagining Plato to have blossomed in a few centuries out of a stock only a little more advanced than the South Sea islander, we refuse to seek in the records that still remain of a lost superior knowledge their natural and coherent significance; we twist them rather into the image of our own thoughts or confine them within the still narrow limits of what we ourselves know and understand. The logical fallacy we land in as the goal of our bad observation is the erroneous conception that because we are more advanced than certain ancient peoples in our own especial lines of success, as the physical sciences, therefore necessarily we are also more advanced in other lines where we are still infants and have only recently begun to observe and experiment, as the science of psychology and the knowledge of our subjective existence and of mental forces. Hence we have developed the exact contrary of the old superstition that the movement of man is always backward to retrogression. While our forefathers believed that the more ancient might on the whole be trusted as more authoritative, because nearer to the gods, and the less ancient less authoritative because nearer to man's ultimate degeneracy, we believe on the contrary that the more ancient is always on the whole more untrue because nearer to the unlettered and unenquiring savage, the more modern the more true because held as opinion by the lettered and instructed citizen of Paris or Berlin. Neither position can be accepted. Verification by experience and experiment is the only standard of truth, not antiquity, not modernity. Some of the ideas of the ancients or even of the savage now scouted by us may be lost truths or statements of valid experience from which we have turned or become oblivious; many of the notions of the modern schoolmen will certainly in the future be scouted as erroneous and superstitious. Among the ancient documents held by the ancients to be deep mines of profound and fertile truth but to us forgetful and blind of their meaning the Veda and Upanishads rank among the very highest. Incomplete
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. . . Driven from all other fields by a perception of the slow and aeonic processes of Nature, the mushroom theory of existence took refuge in this ill-explored corner of scientific theory. Thence, although later discoveries have had an enlarging effect, it still hampers the growth of more thoughtful generalisations. The time-limit allowed for the growth of civilisation is still impossibly1 short and in consequence an air of unreality hangs over the application of the evolutionary idea to our human development. Nor is this essential objection cured by any evidence of the modernity of human civilisation. Its great antiquity is denied merely on the absence [of] affirmative data; there are no positive indications to support the denial; but where data are scanty, such a negative basis is in the last degree unsound and precarious. We can no longer argue that no ancient civilisations can have existed of which the traces have entirely perished and that prehistoric means, necessarily, savage and undeveloped. History on the contrary abounds with instances of great societies which were within an ace of disappearing without leaving any visible memorial behind them and recent excavations have shown that such disappearances in ancient times have been not uncommon. Everything tends to show that there must be the remains of other civilisations yet undiscovered. We cannot have exhausted all that the earth contains. There should be the probability that
1 Or, unnaturally. there were yet others which because of the manner of their disappearance or for other causes have left no traces at all whether upon the surface of the earth or under it, and there may well have been.2 Indeed with regard to no object or previous existence [. . .]3 is it safe to argue that because there are no traces or sufficient evidence of it, therefore it never existed. Yet in many fields of generalisation modern scholarship has used substantially this argument with a prodigal freedom. It is at least possible that mighty cities and noble civilisations filled with their rumour the now silent spaces of Time for countless mil-leniums before Egypt and Assyria rose into their historic greatness. Brief lapse of time is not indeed the cardinal point of the savage theory and even if larger time-spaces are allowed, the theory itself need not fall. I have urged the question of time as of primary moment not for the overthrow of the modern explanation but for the re-admission of another and more ancient synthesis. For if once we allow the existence of prehistoric civilisations older, it would seem, than the Egyptian, -such as may be argued from the deep-buried cities of Asia, — and the presence in an unknown antiquity of great national cultures where now the savage or the semi-savage swarm uncreative and unreflecting, -— such as may be argued from the ruins of Ma-shonaland or the state of mediaeval Barbary after the ravages of Moor and Vandal or even the fate which overtook for almost a millennium the magnificent structure of Graeco-Roman culture and threatened even to blot out its remnants and ruins, the question then arises, what was the nature of these forgotten civilisations and how was the relapse to barbarism, often of an extreme form, so completely effected. These gigantic spaces of time, this worldwide rise and fall of human society, this swaying to and fro from darkness to light and light to darkness leave the ground open for another explanation which is in some respects the reverse of the savage theory, — for the Hindu explanation. For the Hindu mind has never admitted the principle in Nature of progress in a straight line. Progress in a straight line only appears to occur and so appears only because we concentrate our scrutiny on limited sections of the curve that Nature is following. But if we stand away from this too near and detailed scrutiny and look at the
2 The sequence of some of the phrases in the preceeding three sentences is uncertain. 3 Several illegible words world in its large masses, we perceive that its journeying forward has no straightness in it of any kind but is rather effected in a series of cycles of which the net result is progress. The image of this apparent straight line is that of the ship which seems to its crew to be journeying on the even plain of the waters but is really describing the curve of the earth in a way perceptible only to a more distant and instructed vision. Moreover even the small section of the curve which we are examining and which to our limited vision seems to be a straight line is the result of a series of zigzags and is caused by the conflict of forces arriving by a continual struggle at a continual compromise or working out by their prolonged4 discord a temporary harmony. The image of the actual progress in cycles is the voyaging in Space of the planets which describe always the same curve round their flaming and luminous sun, image of the perfect strength, joy, beauty, beneficence and knowledge towards which our evolution yearns. The cycle is always the same ellipse, yet by the simultaneous movement of the whole system the completed round finds the planet at a more advanced station in Space than its preceding journey. It is in this way, by an ever-swaying battle, a prodigal destruction and construction, a labouring forward in ever-progressing curves and ellipses that Nature advances to her secret consummation. These are the conceptions we find expressed in the Puranic symbols familiar to our imagination. There is the kalpa of a thousand ages with its term of fourteen manvantaras dividing a sub-cycle of a hundred caturyugas; there is the dharma, the well-harmonised law of being, perfect in the golden period of the Satya, impaired progressively in bronze Treta and copper Dwapara, collapsing in the iron Kali only to open the way by its disintegration to the manifestation in the next Satya of a new harmony of the old law, truth or natural principle of existence arranged in a new harmony. There is throughout this zigzag, this rhythm of rise and fall and rise again brought about by the struggle of upward, downward and stationary forces. There are the alternate triumphs of deva and daitya, helping god and opposing or too violently forward-striding Titan; — the dharmasya glani and abhyutthanam adharmasya, when harmony is denied and discord or wrong harmony established, and then the Avatara and the dharmasya
4 Doubtful reading samsthapanam, eternal Light and Force descending, restoring, effecting a new temporary adjustment of the world's ways to the truth of things and of man. Translated into more modern but not necessarily more accurate language these symbols point us to a world history not full of the continual, ideal, straightforward victory of good and truth, not progress conceived as the Europeans conceive it. a continual joyous gallop through new and ever new changes to an increasing perfection, but rather of the alternately triumphant forces of progress and regression, a toiling forward and a sliding backward, — the continual revolution of human nature upon itself which yet undoubtedly has but conceals and seems not to have its secret of definite aim and ultimate exultant victory. In certain respects the old Vedantic thinkers anticipate us; they agree with all that is essential in our modern ideas of evolution. From one side all forms of creatures are developed; some kind of physical evolution from the animal to the human body is admitted in the Aitareya. The Taittiriya suggests the psychological progress of man, and the psychological progress of race cannot be different in principle from the evolution of the individual — a proceeding from the material, the emotionally and mentally inert man upwards [ . . . ]5 the mental to the spiritual fulfilment. The Puranas admit the creation of animal forms before the appearance of man and in the symbol of the Ten Avataras trace the growth of our evolution from the fish, through the animal, the man-animal and the developed human being to the different stages of our present incomplete evolution. But the ancient Hindu, it is clear, envisages this progression as an enormous secular movement covering more ages than we can easily count. He believes that Nature has repeated it over and over again, as indeed it is probable that she has done, resuming briefly and in sum at each start what she had previously accomplished in detail, slowly and with labour. It is this great secular movement in cycles, perpetually self-repealing, yet perpetually progressing, which is imaged and set forth for us in the symbols of the Puranas.
5 One or two illegible words
A letter from you dated July 25th of this year duly reached Sri Aurobindo, but at the time he was not in a position to give any definite answer. Latterly, he has read your letter again and instructs me to write the following reply. First, as regards your question about your married life. The sound principle in these matters is that so long as you feel the sense of duty, it is better to follow it out until you are liberated; you must not carry a scruple or a remorse or any kind of backward pull or attraction into the spiritual life. Equally, if you have any strong attraction towards the usual human active life, towards earning, bright prospects, the use of your capacities for the ordinary motives or on the ordinary plane of human consciousness, you ought not to leave everything behind you for what may after all be only a mental attraction towards spiritual ideals and Yoga. The spiritual consciousness and spiritual life are exceedingly difficult to attain; it needs a deep and strong call and the turning of all the energies towards the one object to arrive at any kind of full success (siddhi). Even those who have cut off all other ties, find it difficult not to live in a double consciousness, one inward and turned towards the spiritual change and the other which is still chained to the ordinary movements and pulls them down from their spiritual experience into the persistent and unchanged course of the lower nature. If you have not the entire and undivided call, it is better not to take the plunge, unless you are prepared for very bitter inner struggles, great difficulties and relapses and a hampered and doubtful progress. It is better in that case to prepare yourself by meditation and concentration while still living in the family and the usual human life, until the spiritual attraction is strong enough to overshadow and destroy all others. Next, you speak of leading a higher life in order to fit yourself for service to others. But leading a higher life is a vague mental phrase and the object of Yoga is not service to others. The object of Yoga is to enter into an entirely new consciousness in which you live no longer in the mind and the ego but in the divine consciousness and grow into the true inmost truth of your being above mind and life and body. The aim in most ways of Yoga is to draw back altogether from life into this greater existence. In Sri Aurobindo's Yoga the aim is to transform mind, life and body into an expression of this divine Truth and to make the outward as well as the inward life embody it — a much more difficult endeavour. To act out of this greater consciousness becomes the only rule of life, abandoning all other dharmas. Not to serve either one's own ego or others, but to serve the Divine Shakti and be the instrument of her works is the law of this life. Your other question, — about the Ashram, arises only when you have found your call and your true way, — if that leads you here. In all cases Sri Aurobindo prefers to be assured of the call and the capacity before he admits anyone to his Ashram.
Born 1872. Sent to England for education 1879. Studied at St Paul's School. London, and King's College. Cambridge. Returned to India February, 1893. Life of preparation at Baroda 1893-1906. Political life - 1902-1910 The "Swadeshi" movement prepared from 1902-5 and started definitely by Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Lajpatrai and others in 1905. A movement for Indian independence, by non-cooperation and passive resistance and the organisation (under a National Council or Executive, but this did not materialise.) of arbitration, national education, economic independence, (especially handloom industry including the spinning-wheel, but also the opening of mills, factories and Swadeshi business concerns under Indian management and with Indian capital.) boycott of British goods, British law-courts, and all Government institutions, offices, honours etc. Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement was a repetition of the "Swadeshi", but with an exclusive emphasis on the spinning-wheel and the transformation of passive resistance ("Satyagraha") from a political means into a moral and religious dogma of soul-force and conquest by suffering. The running of the daily paper, "Bande Mataram", was only one of Sri Aurobindo's political activities. Imprisonment — Thrice prosecuted; first for sedition and acquitted then in 1908 along with his brother Barindra (one of the chief leaders of the revolutionary movement) on a charge of conspiracy to wage war against the established Government. Acquitted after a year's detention as an undertrial prisoner, mostly in a solitary cell last, in his absence in 1910, for sedition. This case also failed on appeal. After 1909 carried on the political (Swadeshi) movement alone (the other leaders being in prison or in exile) for one year. Afterwards on receiving an inner intimation left politics for spiritual lifework. The intimation was that the Swadeshi movement must now end and would be followed later on by a Home Rule movement and a Non-cooperation movement of the Gandhi type, under other leaders. Came to Pondicherry 1910. Started the "Arya" 1914.
The Morality of Boycott. Sri Aurobindo wrote this article sometime (probably not long) before 2 May 1908, when it was seized by the police during a search of his house in connection with the Alipore Bomb Case. The article, transcribed by the court, was introduced as evidence at the trial, and in the same form was subsequently published. The court transcription contains some errors and omissions which are rectified in the present text. From the manuscript it is apparent that the last paragraph is not the end of The Morality of Boycott, but the fragmentary begin-ing of a separate piece.
Ravana Vanquished. Sri Aurobindo seems to have written this Bengali poem during the early part of his stay in Pondicherry (1910-14). The translation is by Nolini Kanta Gupta.
The Defeat of Dhoomraksha. This passage from the Ramayana (Yuddha Kanda, Sarga 52. 1 ff) was translated by Sri Aurobindo during the early years in Pondicherry. A shorter draft has been published in SABCL Volume 8, page 24.
One. The handwritten manuscript of this poem, found in one of Sri Aurobindo's notebooks, is dated 14 March 1936.
New Ways in English Literature (Review). James Cousins's book New Ways in English Literature was published by Ganesh and Co., Madras, in November 1917. Sri Aurobindo must have begun the piece reproduced here immediately after receiving his review copy, but he left it unfinished. Instead, his comments on Cousins's book became the starting-point for his own book The Future Poetry, the first instalment of which appeared in the Arya in December 1917. This explains certain similarities between this piece and the first chapter of The Future Poetry.
The Mantra. If the preceding piece was the first work done in connection with The Future Poetry, this fragment is among the last. It is part of a proposed revision of the book undertaken sometime after 1945, very likely in 1950, but proceeded on very little. Only two other new passages were written, one on Browning and another on Arnold. These passages have been incorporated in the text of The Future Poetry, but this one. which was intended to be the opening of "Part I. Chapter I." of the revised work, has never before been published.
Hymns of the Atris (series concluded). These translations of the last nine Suktas of Mandala 5 of the Rig-veda were done, like the hymns to the Ashwins which precede them (A & R. December 1978), during the time that the Arya was being published (i.e. after 1914). But only Suktas 79-81 and 85 were revised and published in that journal as part of Hymns of the Atris (September-December 1917; reproduced in SABCL Vol. 10. pp 524-35). Hymn 82 was published in the Arya as the seventh of the Selected Hymns in January 1915; see SABCL Vol 10. pp. 287-93 It is interesting to note that the publication of Hymn 81, which marked the end of the serial publication of Vedic translations or commentary in the Arya. coincided with the beginning of the serialisation of The Future Poetry (see above). Although five of the nine hymns have been published in revised versions, the entire set is reproduced here, since the drafts form a group done together at the same time.
Hymns to the Mystic Fire. These two hymns to Agni were translated around 1916.
The First Hymn of the Rig-veda (series continued). These three translations were done within a short time of one another (not necessarily in the sequence given here) not long after the pieces on the hymn reproduced in our last two issues, therefore in 1912 or thereabouts.
Aryan Origins: An Roots. This part of Sri Aurobindo's research work on the origins of Aryan speech was done on 10 August 1914. The discursive presentation given here is preceded in the manuscript by lexicographical data on the roots concerned, much of ft copied directly from Apte's dictionary.
The Life Divine. We explained in Notes on the Texts in our last issue something of the antecedents of this commentary. It dates, as noted there, from the period 1912-14. The chapters reproduced here are the first three of "Part II/The First Movement". Part I, which was to deal with "The Upanishad" in general (according to a note found in the manuscript notebook which contains the present chapters), has not been traced. A relationship between this commentary and Sri Aurobindo's book The Life Divine will be suggested in our next issue.
A Theory of the Human Being. These two separate pieces are parts of work done by Sri Aurobindo on the origins and development of man. The first, which bears the title used here, is a fragment written in 1914 or thereabouts. The second, of which the opening page or pages of manuscript (and so also the title) are missing, must have been written around the same time or a little before.
A Letter to an Aspirant. This incomplete letter was written by Sri Aurobindo probably during the late 1920s. He used the third person in referring to himself since the letter was intended to be typed and signed by his secretary.
Sri Aurobindo on Himself. These biographical data, which clarify especially Sri Aurobindo's part in the freedom movement between 1902 and 1910, were written probably during the 1920s. Words already listed in the Glossary to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library> have not been included. As in that glossary, proper names, words occurring in poems or as philological examples, and words written in the text in Devanagari script have been omitted. Words are Sanskrit unless otherwise indicated. Sources of citations are given in square brackets after the definitions.
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