It is the heart that has wings, not the head.
THE MOTHER
To approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment.
SRI AUROBINDO
Vol. XXII. No. 3
August, 1965
The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda. - Sri Aurobindo.
NOTES
IGNORANCE is usually equated with innocence. A child is ignorant, therefore he is innocent. Although it is said that ignorance of law is no excuse. Spiritually however, ignorance does not mean innocence. Ignorance or unconsciousness or inconscience —different degrees of the same thing—that is to say lack of consciousness, mean, at bottom, falsehood. It is through the ignorance that Maya, the great illusion, was born. Ignorance is false apprehension, it begins with the sense of separation, "I am other than the Divine." That is how Jiva is born in or through the ignorance. The world is separate from the Divine. That is how Matter is born as or in inconscience. And the creation appears as evil. This sense of separation is a falsehood for in reality nothing is separate from the supreme Consciousness, all is That.
To regain the Truth-sense, to move upward in the cycle of ignorance and falsehood towards this Truth-sense is the world-labour and also human labour.
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Even in the state of separation under conditions of the inconscience and falsehood, in spite of all appearances the Unity, the Truth-consciousness remains intact behind. It is never effaced or obliterated.
The sense of earthly evolution is the gradual un, biding of the Divine, the Supreme Consciousness in and through the gradations of consciousness from the inconscience through unconsciousness and consciousness to supra conscious ness—Matter wholly transmuted into Light.
God is not only above or beyond the creation. He is also here within the creation. He is not only over our head looking down upon us. He is within our heart inspiring us, enhghtening us, loving us. This is the dynamic Divine, the Supreme Consciousness concealed within the apparent inconscience of the material existence. It is that which pushes creation upward in its evolutionary course. It is that which lies behind man's ignorance purifying his obscurity leading him to a more and more luminous revelation.
In the Vedic image above shines Surya, here below burns Agni. Both are aspects of the same Truth.
The body is composed of cells, living cells. These cells from the standpoint of consciousness are desire-cells, that is to say particles of desire, concrete and consolidated packets of hunger and thirst. A string of such innumerable packets of hunger and thirst is life— the Buddha said. The cells are to be emptied completely. Emptiness of cells is Nirvana.
Not necessarily. For one may empty the cells of their obscure contents but replenish them with something of a purer order. This is a possibility we envisage which we are working for. The Divine life empties the cells of desire but fills it with the energy of solar Light.
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Education is organisation. Mind's education means organisation of mental faculties. Organisation naturally involves development. The faculties in the normal and natural state are an undeveloped disorganized lot) a confused mass,—unformed ill-formed ideas, notions, thoughts forth a jumble. They have no purpose, no direction, no common impulse or end, each runs in its own way. The mind's faculties such for example as attention, memory, discrimination, reasoning, cogent thinking have to be clear and efficient and learn how to work harmoniously for a common objective. In the process and for that purpose they have to be developed, that is to say each of them has to be strong, able, ample, concentrated. They have to present a united front and function towards an ever-increasing consciousness and knowledge.
As for the mental faculties so for the faculties of the vital. The normal vital being in man is in a greater and perhaps more dangerous chaos. The impulsions, emotions, upsurges that belong to this domain have not so much to be developed or increased as to be purified, made conscious, yoked together in a common drive towards a harmonious dynamic realisation in life and life's achievements. And lastly the organisation in the physical body. The limbs of the body have not even growth, they do not move together in a balanced and rhythmic way. Some are unhealthy, some do not work, some others are overworked. These too have to be coordinated, each set in its place and made to function in unison with others. That is physical education and that too means perfect organisation.
We have said that organisation means working for a common end and common purpose. That comes from an opening into a deeper and higher level of being. We name it the soul. The soul's purpose, the soul's destiny has to be achieved and fulfilled. An organised and educated mind and life and body means to be the best and the most perfect vehicle for the expression upon earth of the soul's consciousness.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
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EDUCATION
XV
PSYCHIC AND SPIRITUAL EDUCATION
THE psychic or soul being the immortal reality in us, it behoves us to learn what the Mother means by the term. Her- description of it conveys, as far as human language can convey such subtle truths, something more than the sense usually attached to the word. In Vedanta, it is the jivatman or antaratman that is meant by it, and its individuality is taken to be illusory. It is Brahman itself envisaged in the separative ignorance of the human mind as an individual jiva. And, it is affirmed, when the mind is hushed and transcended, the illusion of separate individuality vanishes and with it all ideas of bondage and liberation:, the Brahman consciousness shines out in its immaculate purity. According to Samkhya, the jiva is the Purusha, individual and immortal, suffering a reflection of the tangled play of Prakriti or inert Nature upon its consciousness, and passively identifying itself with that reflection and its constant reactions. When it awakes to its own unconditioned freedom and purity, it withdraws its sanction from the play of Prakriti and breaks the false identification through reflection. This crucial step releases it from the thrall of Prakriti—it is its kaivalya or moksha. It is only in the diverse forms of Vaishnavism that some kind of persistence of the individual soul and its eternal relation with the Divine is envisaged, and personal liberation is not aimed at, at least in theory, as the highest attainment. The highest attainment is for them an eternity of nearness to and intimacy of the relation of love with the Divine Beloved. This relation is one which the human mind cannot comprehend—it is an ineffable simultaneity of union and difference, achintya bhedabheda. But even the Vaishnavic conception is not wide and flexible enough to embrace all the significance and potentialities of
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the soul and the purpose of its descent into terrestrial birth. That is why, in spite of regarding the world not as Maya, but as Lila of the Divine, the orthodox Vaishnava turns his back upon the world and prefers to lf\fe the life of a recluse. Even Chaitanya donned the garb of a Sannyasi and was ascetically stern with some of his disciples on certain occasions of social intercourse. The Vaishnava shrinks from free participation in the thrilling delight of the diversity of his Lord's Lila, ih all the multiplying interests and activities of earthly life. Me longs to remain absorbed in the inner union and communion. The less his contact with the outer world and the less the world's impact upon him, the more, he thinks, will be the depth and intensity of the inner .union. Life with all its evolutionary purpose and flowering possibilities is rigorously renounced, so that it may not distract him from the unutterable ecstasy of Rasa1 in his heart's Brindavan. Tantra, too, whatever its insistence on its objective of self empire and world-empire, and its reliance on the Power or Shakti of the Divine, tended towards the relinquishment of worldly life and oriented towards merger in the Brahman. In fact, all these schools of Yoga walked under the banner of the Vedanta, though they were often in revolt against its cardinal doctrines. None of them fully succeeded in shaking off the spell of Mayavada and uphold the integral ideal of the persistence of the individuality of the soul even in the midst of the rapt union with the Divine, sayujya, and its dynamic participation with its Beloved in the rapture of His evolutionary, purposive, cosmic game.
The Mother's conception of the soul or psychic fills up all these gaps. It restores the wholeness of the conception we glimpse in the Vedas and the Upanishads. What is there implicit and cryptic, has been seized in its full body, held up in the clear light of intelligence, and " rendered in modern intellectual—one could say, scientific—terms. It has even been amplified and elaborated in certain directions in the light of expanding spiritual experience.
The Mother means by the soul "the divine spark within oneself, a spark of the-divine consciousness." She says that "out of this spark will slowly emerge an independent conscious being which will have its
1 Dance of the gopis or human souls with Sri Krishna.
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own action and its own will."1 The spark is what the Mother
calls the psychic presence or what Sri Aurobindo calls the psychic entity." This
spark, when it evolves in Nature, becomes an independent conscious being and is
called the psychic being. "The progress of the psychic consists in its
formation, building and organisation. It grows into a conscious individuality
through successive lives; for there can be progress only upon earth in the
physical world; it is not possible everywhere.?" Birth on earth-and not one
birth, but manyis the indispensable means by which the psychic being grows,
"builds and organises its existence. But when it is fully evolved, "fully
individualised, fully master of itself" and its destiny, birth is not
obligatory; whether it will take birth or not depends upon its choice and the
will of the Divine in it. If it feels that it has some work to do here, some
mission to fulfil, some divine purpose to accomplish, it incarnates.. But it is
not then "bound to circumstances or surroundings or heredity like ordinary human
beings."4 It is born free; it is, in a sense, jivanmukta, Not in one
life alone, but in many it can pursue, .unattached, the same mission or any
other which the Divine Will in it
ordains. It belongs to the nitya mukta class, as Sri Ramakrishna says.
We understand, then, that the psychic being is originally a spark from the Divine Consciousness, and it evolves into a conscious individuality through the experiences of successive births. It has a will, it has an action, and it determines the field, scope and nature of its mission in accordance with the Will of the Divine who dwells in it. Its progress, can therefore, be twofold. It may progress towards the full recovery of its unfettered self-existence of term less bliss and beauty, its liberation from the chameleon modes of the lower Nature. And if, at this stage, it has an aspiration for a traceless self-extinction in the Brahman, or an ecstatic immersion in the love and joy of the Divine, it is free to do it. But, if it seeks to serve the Divine and fulfil His evolutionary creative Will on earth, it may progress towards "capacity to work, to organise and execute the work, to express and embody the will of the Divine." "As long as the world continues,
1 The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo by Nolini Kanta Gupta—Part Nine.
2 It is also called the spark-soul.
3 The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo by Nolini Kanta Gupta—Part Nine..
4 Ibid.
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as long as he chooses to work for the Divine, he will continue to Progress. But if-he wishes to withdraw into the psychic world and gives up or refuses to work for the divine Plan, then he can remain in the static state beyond the range of progress."! This dynamic aspect of the life earthly psychic is not envisaged in the post Upanishadic Vedanta, Vaishnavism or Tantra. The Mother's conception of the psychic brings into a focus the essential nature, evolution and mission of the psychic in the physical world. What is, then, the fundamental nature of the mission for which the psychic has launched upon this eventful adventure of earthly life and the long exploration of the dense obscurity of Matter?
"The psychic is like an electric wire that connects the generator with the lamp; the lamp being the body, the visible form. Its function is of a similar nature, that is to say, if the psychic were not there in Matter, it could have no direct contact with the Divine. It is because of the psychic presence that there can be a direct contact between Matter and the Divine."2 The psychic is, as we now see, a bond of union between Matter and Spirit. And its presence in Matter, which is a direct result of the descent of the Supreme Purusha into the Inconscience here below, called Purusha Yagna in the Veda, and His dynamic and creative immanence in the unrelieved darkness of the Inconscience, described in the Nasad ya Sukta of the Veda, which is the pledge of the ultimate manifestation of the Divine on earth. "And every human being can be told : 'You carry the Divine within you, you have only to enter within yourself and you will find Him'. It is a direct, special, transmuting infusion into the most inconscient and obscure Matter to awaken it once more step by step to the Divine Consciousness, the Divine Presence and finally the Divine Himself."3
We have understood the essential mission of the psychic. Each psychic being, it is true, has an individual role to play, a specific work to accomplish, but this is the general basic purpose of the birth of the psychic in the material world. It establishes the truth, long eclipsed„by Nihilism and Illusionism, that the material world
1 The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo by Nolini Kanta Gupta. Part Seven.
2 The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo by Nolini Kanta Gupta. Part Nine.
3 Ibid.
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has been created in order that, by the self-infusion of he Divine Consciousness in the form of the psychic into Matter, it may be washed of its murk, purified, illumined, and transmuted into the very substance of the Spirit. Matter is destined to unite with. the Spirit, because it is That in its imperishable essence,:; and-one transcendental splendour of the Spirit will be poured upon the material existence. Earth, so passionately spurned by the ascetics, will five in the Light and Bliss of the Heaven of the Spirit. God will manifest here, and human life will be a resurrected life in a transformed" body. And all this glorious dream of the aeons, which no amount of atheism, scepticism or materialist denial has been able to wipe out of human consciousness, will be realised only by the instrumentality of the psychic or the soul. It is an exceptional privilege of man, which even the gods lack. Man is born, not to realise his soul and retire for ever into it, or into the absolute Brahman, or the infinite, gaping Void, but to reveal God in himself, in his transfigured mind, life and body, and fulfil His creative Will and evolutionary Purpose on earth.
We shall now proceed to a consideration of the central role the psychic being plays in the Mother's system of education.
(To be continued)
RISHABHCHAND
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THE RESURGENCE OF ASIA AND AFRICA
('These notes are compiled from Sri Aurobindo's writings in the 'Karmayogin' under the title: 'Facts and Opinions' They were written in 1909. -Ed.)
The Dying Race
Dr. U. N. Mukherji recently published a very interesting brochure in which he tried to prove that the Hindus were a dying race and would do well to imitate the social freedom and equality of the still increasing Mahomedans. Srijut Kishorilal Sarkar has gone' one better and proves to us by equally cogent statistics that not only the-Hindus but the Mahomedans are a dying race—even if the Hindus be in some places a little more rapid in the race of extinction than the followers of Islam. With all respect to the earnestness of these two
gender men we think it would have been well if they had been less strenuous in their discouraging interpretations and chosen a less positive title. The real truth is that, owing to an immense transition being effected under peculiarly un
favorable conditions, both communities, but chiefly the more progressive Hindu, are in a critical stage in which various deep-seated maladies have come to the surface, with effects of an inevitable though lamentable character. None of these maladies is mortal and the race is not dying. But the knife of the surgeon is needed and it is to the remedy rather than the diagnosis that attention should be pointedly directed. The mere decline in the rate of increase is in itself nothing. It is & phenomenon " which one now sees becoming more and more marked all the world over and it is only countries backward in development and education which keep up the old rate of increase. The unfit tend to multiply, the fit to be limited in propagating. This is an abnormal state of things which indicates something wrong in modern civilisation. But, whatever the malady is, it is not peculiar to Hindus or to India, but a world-wide disease.
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National vitality
Nothing is stronger than the difference presented by Europe and Asia in the matter of national vitality. European nations seem to have a brief date, a life-term vigorous but soon-exhausted Asiatic races persist and survive. It was not so in old times. Not only Greece and Rome perished, Assyria, Charade, Phoenicia are also written in the book of the Dead. But the difference now seems well-established. France is a visibly dying nation, Spain seems to have lost the power of revival, Italy and Greece have been lifted up by great efforts and sacrifices but show a weak vitality, the Anglo-Saxon race is beginning everywhere to recede and dwindle. On the other hand. in Asia life pulsates victoriously, Japan has risen at one bound to the first rank of nations; China untouched by her calamities renovates her huge national life. The effect on India of an accumulation of almost all the conditions which bring about national death has been a new lease of life and a great dynamic impulse. Of the Mahomedan races, not a single one is decadent. Persia rises from her weakness full of youthful enthusiasm and courage though not yet of capacity. Arabia in her deserts surges with life. Egypt after calamities is undergoing new birth; as far as Morocco the stir of fife is seen. And to-day Turkey, the sick man, has suddenly risen up vigorous and whole. What is the source of this difference? Is it not in this that Asia has developed her spirituality and Europe has turned from it ? Europe has always tended to live more in the matter and in the body than within; and matter when not inert is always changing; the body is bound to perish. The high pressure at which Europe lives only tends to disintegrate the body more rapidly when the spiritual forces within are ' not resorted to for stability.
The spirit in Asia
A spirit moves abroad in the world to-day upsetting kingdoms and raising up new principalities and powers the workings of which are marked by a swiftness and ubiquity new in history. In place of the slow developments and uncertain results of the' past we have a quickness and thoroughness which destroy in an hour and remould in a
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decade. It is noteworthy that these rapid motions are mostly discernible in Asiatic peoples.
The-Persian Revolution
The Persian Revolution has settled with a swiftness and decisiveness second only to the movement of Turkey the constitutional struggle in Iran between a reactionary Shah and a rejuvenated, eager and ardent nation. The weak and unstable promise-breaker at Teheran has fallen, mourned by a sympathetic Anglo-India but by no one else in the world. Since the late Shah under the pressure of passive resistance yielded a constitution to his people, the young nationalism of Persia has been attempting to force or persuade his son to keep the oaths with which he started his reign. Some deeds of blood on both sides, some sharp encounters have attended the process but the price paid has been comparatively small. Like other Asiatic States in similar process of transformation Persia has rejected the theoretic charms of a republic; she has set up a prince who is young enough to be trained to the habits of a constitutional monarch before he takes up the authority of kingship. In this we see the political wisdom, self-restraint and instinct for the right thing to be done which is natural to ancient nations who, though they have grown young again, are not raw and violent peoples new to political thought and experiment.
Persia's Difficulties
A great and difficult task lies before the newly-risen nation. No other people is so difficultly circumstanced as the Persians. Weak in herself, long a stranger to good government, military strength and disciplining financial soundness and internal efficiency, Persia has to evolve all these under the instant menace from north and south of two of "the greatest European empires. The threat of Russia to act herself if the-new government does not instantly guarantee security on its borders, a threat made on the morrow of a violent coup d'etat and before there has been time for the Regency to cope with any of the immediate difficulties surrounding it, is typical of the kind of
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peril which this proximity is likely to produce. Self-restraint and patience towards these doubtful friends and unbound energy and decision within are the only qualities by which the statesmen of Persia can surmount the difficulties in their path and satisfy the claims, posterity makes upon them. The internal " reorganisation of Persia and the swift development of military strength are the first needs. Till then Persia must bear and forbear.
The new men in Persia
It is worthy of notice that Sipahidar and Sardar Assad, the Bakhtyari leader, who have effected this revolution, are .men who in their youth have studied in Europe. They should know the springs of European politics and thoroughly understand the way in which " European powers have to be dealt with as well as the necessities and conditions of internal reorganisation. The problem for all Asiatic peoples is the preservation of their national individuality and existence while equipping themselves with the weapons of the modern struggle for survival. A deep study of European politics, a strong feeling for Asiatic institutions and ideals, a selfless patriotism and immense faith, courage and self-restraint are the qualities essential to their leaders in these critical times. It is reassuring to find Persians high in praise of the self-denying and lofty character of the new Regent. In the absence of a patriotic king like the Mikado such a man alone can form the centre of a national construction.
The Growth of Turkey
The article on young Turkey and its military strength, extracted in our columns this week from the Indian Daily News,
is one of great interest. Behind the deprecation of Turkish Chauvinism and
Militarism we hear the first note of European alarm at the rise of a second
Asiatic power able to strike as well as to defend its honour and integrity
against European aggression. The fact that it is the army in Turkey which stands
for free institutions, is the greatest guarantee that could be given of the
permanence of the new Turkey, for it assures a time of internal quiet while the
country goes through the delicate
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and dangerous process of readjusting its whole machinery and ways of public thought and action from the habits of an irresponsible autocratic administration to those which suit free institutions and democratic
ideas. No doubt, the support of the army veils a Dictatorship. But that is an inevitable stage in a great and sudden transition of this kind, and suits Asiatic countries, however perilous it may have been in other times to European countries when men could not be trusted not to misuse "power for their own purposes to the detriment of their country. In Europe the present high standard of public spirit, duty, and honour was the slow creation of free institutions. To Asiatics, not yet corrupted, as many of us in India have been by the worst part of European individualism and an unnatural education divorced from morality and patriotism, a high standard of public spirit, duty and honour comes with the first awakenings of a freer life, for the Asiatic discipline has always been largely one of self-effacement, the sub ordination of the individual to a community and the scrupulous adhesion to principle at the cost of personal predilection and? happiness. As in Turkey now, so in Japan, it was a few strong men who, winning control of the country by the strength of great ideas backed by the sword, right supported by might, held the land safe and quiet while they revolutionised the ideas and institutions of the whole nation, forged a strength by sea and land no enemy could despise and secured from the gratitude of their race for their wisdom, selflessness and high nobility of purpose that implicit following which at first they compelled by force. The complaint that the young Turks ignore the necessity of civil reorganisation, commerce and education is a complaint without wisdom, if not without knowledge. The circumstances of Turkey demand that the first attention of her statesmen should be given to military and naval efficiency. The revolution plucked her from the verge-of an abyss of disintegration. The desperate diplomacy and cunning of Sultan Abdul Hamid had stayed her long on that verge, but she was beginning to slip slowly over when the stronger hand of
Man mud Shevket Pasha seized her and drew her back. Even so, the deposition of the cunning and skilful diplomatist of Yildiz Palace might have been the signal for a general spoliation of Turkey. Austria began a rush for the Balkans, Greece tried to hurry a crisis in Crete. The shaking of Turkish sword in the face of the Greek and the rapid
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and efficient reorganisation of army and navy against Europe were both vitally necessary to the safety of the Empire. They were the calculated steps not of Chauvinism but of a defensive statesmanship.
The Cretan Difficulty
The foreign affairs are as a rule lightly and unsubstantially dealt with by Indian journals. This is partly due to the want "of the necessary information, partly to the parochial habit of mind encouraged by a cabined and subject national life which cannot enlarge its imagination outside the sphere of these immediate and daily events directly touching ourselves. And yet the happenings of today in Asia, Europe and Africa are of great moment to the future of India and full of encouragement and stimulus to the spirit of nationalism. The recent events .in Turkey are an instance. It is not the methods of the young Turks which have any lesson for India. The circumstances are too dissimilar to warrant any fanciful theories of that kind. It is rather the character of the party of freedom which bears a lesson to all struggling nationalities. The dominant qualities of the democratic leaders—and these are the qualities they have imparted to the movement, are strength, manhood, a bold heart, a clear brain, a virile efficiency. The government they have established has been showing these qualities to the full in its treatment of the Cretan difficulty. It has shown that free Turkey, while not rashly oblivious of the circumstances created by an unfortunate past, will not tolerate any attempt to be treated as Sultan Abdul Hamid suffered himself to be treated. Sultan Abdul Hamid, afraid of his subjects, afraid of the world, afraid even of his spies and informers, followed the weak and cowardly'' policy of dishonest, intriguing and evasive Machiavellianism. He conducted that policy with a certain-skill and statecraft in details which eventually evoked admiration, but it could neither save Turkey from ignominy and weakness nor permanently protect a throne based upon cruelty, falsehood and despicable meanness. All that it did, for Satan must be given his due, was to stave off a final disruption of Turkey and expulsion of the Ottoman from Europe. But true freedom is always conscious of strength and knows that it is better to perish than to live for a short while longer at the cost
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of continual insult, degradation and weakness. The first efforts of the new government have been to save what remained of the outskirts of Turkish empire in Europe, the suzerainty in Crete, the supreme control in Macedonia. Their diplomacy has been strong, outspoken and fearless. 'It did not finch nor in any way draw back a step or lower its tone until it forced Greece to a satisfactory attitude and obliged the Powers to baffle the tortuous Greek methods by lowering the Greek flag in Canea. It has quietly ignored the attempt of Greece and Turkey is not going to give any formal answer to the Powers' Note recommending pacific counsels, as that Note did not call for any reply. It has been supported by the newly liberated nation by means of a Boycott which would have alarmed into reason a stronger government than that of Athens.' And as strength, when firm and able, can never be ignored, it has secured' the sympathy of the Powers in the shape of concessions which would never have been yielded to a weak or overcautious Government. Strength attracts strength; firm and clear-minded courage commands success and respect; strong and straight dealing can dispense with the methods of dissimulation and intrigue. All these are signs of character and it is only character that can give freedom and greatness to nations.
Greece and Turkey
It is not to be imagined, however, that this is the closing chapter. The question between Greece and Turkey will have eventually to be fought out by the sword. It is true that the immediate question is for the moment settled and the rest in the Cretan patchwork mended. But that patchwork is not of a kind to last. The Greek Government is
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sentiment of Greek unity, its latter history the sentiment 6fi Imperial Ottoman greatness. And apart from Crete, there are inevitable sources of quarrel in Macedonia. Some day the powers will have to stand aside and allow these natural enemies to settle the' question in the only possible way. The result of such non-intervention in an armed struggle could not be doubtful. The Mongolian is a stronger spirit than the Slav, the Mussulman a greater dynamic force than the Christian, and it is only ignorance and absolutism that has for the time depressed the Turk. The disparity between the Turk and the Greek is abysmal. The former is a soldier and statesman, the latter a merchant and intriguer. A war between two such Powers with none to intervene would speedily end with the Turk not only in. occupation of Thessaly but entering Athens.
Nation-stuff in Morocco
The Powers of Europe are highly indignant at the tortures and
mutilations practised by Mulai Hamid on his vanquished rival, EI Roghi, and his
captured adherents. There is no doubt that the savage outbreak' of mediaeval and
African savagery .of which the Moorish Sultan has been guilty, is revolting and
deprives him personally of all claim to sympathy; but European moral indignation
in the matter seems to us to be out of place when we remember the tortures
practised by American troops on Filipinos (to say nothing of the ghastly details
of lynching in the Southern States) and the unbridled atrocities of the European
armies in China. Be that as it may, we come across a remarkable account,
extracted in the Indian Daily News, of the stuff of which the Moorish people are
made. The narrator is . Belton, the Englishman who commanded the Sultan's army
and has resigned his post as a protest against the Sultan's primitive method of
treating political prisoners. Death and mutilation seem to have been the
punishments inflicted. Belton narrates that twenty officers of El Roghi had
their right hands cut off and then seared, according to the barbarous old
surgical fashion, in a cauldron of boiling oil, to stop the bleeding. Not from
one of these men, reports the English soldier with wonder, did there come, all
the time, a single whimper. And he goes on to tell how one of them, after the
mutilation, quietly
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walked over to the fire where the cauldron was boiling, and, while his stump was being plunged in the boiling liquid, lighted from the flame with the utmost serenity a cigarette he held in his hand. Whatever may be the present backwardness of the Moors and the averseness to light of their tribes, there is the stuff of a strong, warlike and princely nation in the land which gave birth to these iron men. If ever the wave of Egyptian Neo-Islam and Mahomedan Nationalism sweeps across morocco, Europe will have to reckon with no mean or contemptible people in the North West of Africa.
Spain and the Moor
Another corner of the Asiatic world—-for Northern Africa is thoroughly Asianised if not Asiatic,—is convulsed with struggles which may well precede another resurgence. There was a time-when the Moor held Spain and gave civilisation to semi-barbarous Eutope. The revolution of the wheel has now gone to its utmost length and finds the Spaniard invading Morocco. But this invasion does not seem to promise any Spanish expansion in Africa. With infinite difficulty and at the cost of a bloody emeute in Spain, King Alfonso's Government have landed a considerable army in Morocco and yet with all that force can only just protect their communications and stand facing the formidable country where the stubborn Kabyle tribesmen await the invader. There the army is hung up for the present, unwilling to retreat and afraid to advance, and the Spanish General has again sent to Spain for reinforcements, a feat of military strategy at which he seems to be exceptionally skilful. If the men of the mountains are fortunate enough to have a leader with a head on his shoulders, the circumstances augur a reverse for Spain as decisive and perhaps more sanguinary than the Italian overthrow in Abyssinia. Meanwhile King Alfonso has sacrificed all his youthful popularity by this ill-omened war and the bloody severity which has temporarily saved his throne. And with the popularity of the young king has gone the friendship of the Spanish nation for England, for the Spaniards accuse that friendship of the origination of these troubles and the British Government as the selfish instigators of the intervention in Morocco.
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China Enters
The circle of constitutionally governed Asiatic countries increases. To Turkey, Persia and Japan, China is added. "Towards the close of the ten years set apart in the Chinese programme for he preparation of self-government, the Chinese government has kept its promise to grant a constitution. Provincial Assemblies have been established, are working and have shown their
rarity and independence by opposing government demands. The electoral basis of an Imperial Assembly has been provided. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the steady, resolute, methodical Chinese, with their unrivalled genius for organisation, will make a success of the constitutional experiment. In all Asia now with the exception of Siam and Afghanistan, the only countries which are denied a constitutional ..government are those which have not vindicated their national freedom. Even in Afghanistan the first ineffective stirrings of life have been and will grow to something formidable before many years are over. We wonder whether Lord Morley and his advisers really believe that when they are surrounded by a free and democratic Asia, the great Indian race can be kept in a state of tutelage and snail-paced advancement, much less put off to a future age in the dim mists of a millennial futurity to which the penetrating vision of the noble and Radical Lord cannot pierce ? The worst opponents of Indian freedom know well what this Asiatic constitutionalism means, and therefore the Englishman
struggles, in the face of continual disappointment, to foresee the speedy
collapse of Nationalism and Parliamentary Government in Persia, Turkey and even
Japan as the inevitable . fate of an institution foreign to the Asiatic genius,
which is popularly . supposed to recoil from freedom and hug most lovingly the
heaviest
chains.
The Progress of China
A recent article in the Amrita Bazar Patrika gives a picture of the enormous educational progress made by China in a few years. In the short time since the Boxer troubles China has revolutionised her educational system, established a network of modern schools of all ranks,
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provided for a thorough modern education for her princes and nobles, and added
to the' intellectual education a thorough grounding in military knowledge and
the habits of the soldier, so that, when the process is corsplete, the whole
Chinese people will be a nation trained in arms whom the retest combination of
powers will not care to touch. On another side of national development, a
railway has just been opened which has been entirely constructed and will be run
by Chinese. When the 'pros of education is well forward, it is intended by the
Chinese Government to transform itself into a constitutional and Parliamentary
government, and in its programme this great automatic revolution has been fixed
to come off in another eight years but the Chinese, trained by the Confucian
system to habits of minute method, perfect organisation and steady seriousness
in all things great and small, could thus calmly map out a stupendous political,
social and educational change, as if it were the programme of a ceremonial
function, and carry it out with thoroughness and efficiency. Once the Chinese
have made up their minds to this revolution, they are likely to carry it out
with the greatest possible completeness, businesslike method, effective
organisation, and the least possible waste and friction. In the history of
China, no less than the history of Japan, we are likely to see the enormous
value of national will-power using the moral outcome of a great and ancient
discipline, even while breaking the temporary mould in which that discipline had
cast society, thought and government. We in India have an ancient discipline
much more powerful than the Chinese or Japanese; but whence is the centre of
sovereignty in India which will direct the national will power to the
right use of that discipline? Where even is the centre of national endeavour
which will make up for the absence of such a government ? We have a government
manned by aliens, out of touch .with and contemptuous of the sources of national
strength and culture; we have an education empty of them which seeks to replace
our ancient discipline by a foreign strength, instead of recovering and
invigorating our own culture and turning it to modern uses; we have leaders
trained in the foreign discipline who do not know or believe in the force that
would, if made use of, revolutionise India more
swiftly and mightily than Japan was or China is being revolutionised. It is this
and not internal division or the drag of the old and unsuitable
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conditions that makes the work in India more difficult than in any other Asiatic country.
The Assassination of Prince Ito
A great man has fallen, perhaps the greatest force in the field of political action that the nineteenth century produced, the maker of Japan, the conqueror of Russia, the mighty one who first asserted Asia's superiority over Europe in Europe's own field of glory and changed in a few years the world's future. Some would say that such a death for such a man was a tragedy. We hold otherwise. Even such a death should such a man have died, in harness, fightingibr his country's expansion and greatness, by the swift death in action, which, our scriptures tell us, carry the hero's soul straight to the felicity of heaven. The man who in his youth lived in imminent deadly peril from the swords of his countrymen because he dared to move forward by new paths "to his God-given task, dies in his old age by a foreign band because, at the expense of justice and a nation's freedom, he still moved forward in the path of his duty. It is a difficult choice that is given to men of action in a world where love, strength and justice are not yet harmonised, and he who chooses in sincerity and acts thoroughly, whether he has chosen well or ill, gathers punya
for himself in this world and the next. Then he was building a nation and he
lived to do his work, for his death would not have profited. He was building an
Empire when he died and by his death that empire will be established. The soul
of a great man fulfilled in development but cut off in the midst of his work,
enters into his following or his nation and .works on a far wider scale than was
possible to him in the body. Korea will gain nothing by this rash and untimely
act, the greatest error in tactics it could have committed. The Japanese is .the
last man on earth to be deterred from his ambition or his duty by the fear of
death, and the only result of this blow will be to harden Japan to her task. She
has science, organisation, efficiency, ruthlessness, and she will grind the soul
out of Korea until it is indistinguishable from Japan. That is the only way to
perpetuate a conquest, to kill the soul of the subject nation, and the Japanese
know it. A subject nation struggling for freedom must always attract Indian
sympathy, but the
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Koreans have not the strength of soul to attain freedom. Instead of seeking the force to rise in their own manhood, they have always committed the unpardonable sin against Asiatic integrity of striving to call in a "European power against brother Asiatic. The Koreans have ringlet on their side, but do not know how to awaken might to vindicate the right. The Japanese cause is wrong from the stand-point of a higher morality than the merely patriotic, but they believe intensely in tarter religion of patriotic duty and put all their might into its observance. It is not difficult to predict with which side the victory will be.
Prince Hirobumi Ito was the typical man of his nation, as well as its greatest .statesman and leader. He went ahead of it for a while only to raise it to his level. He had all its virtues in overflowing measure and a full share of its defects and vices. Absolutely selfless in public affairs, quiet, unassuming, keeping himself in the background un-. less duty called him into prominence, calm, self-controlled, patient, swift, energetic, methodical, incapable of fear, wholly devoted to the nation—such is the Japanese, and such was Ito. As a private man he had the Japanese defects. Even in public affairs, he had something of the narrowness, unscrupulousness in method and preference of success and justice of the insular and imperial Japanese type. Added to these common characteristics of his people he had a genius equal to that of any statesman in history. The eye that read the hearts of men, the mouth sealed to rigid secrecy, the rare, calm and effective speech, the brain that could embrace a civilisation at a glance and take all that was needed for his purpose, the swift and yet careful intellect that could divine, choose and arrange, the power of study, the genius of invention, the talent of application, a diplomacy open-minded but never vacillating, a tireless capacity for work,—all these he had on so grand a scale that to change the world's history was to him by no means a stupendous labour. And he had the ancient Asiatic gift of self-effacement. In Europe a genius of such colossal proportions would have filled the world with the mighty bruit of his. personality; but Ito worked in silence and in the shade, covering his steps, and it was only by the results of his work that the world knew him. Like many modern Japanese, Ito was a sceptic. His country was God of his worship to whom he
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dedicated his life, for whom he lived and in whose service he died. Such was this great vibhuti, who came down to earth in a petty family, an Eastern island clan, a nation apart and far behind in the world's progress, and in forty years created a nation's greatness; founded an Empire, changed a civilisation and prepared the Ube. rtam of a continent. His death was worthy of his life. For there are only two deaths which are really great and carry a soul to the highest heaven, to die in self-forgetting action, in battle, by assassination, on the scaffold for others, for one's country or for the right, and to die-as the Yogin dies, by his own will, free of death and disease, departing into that from which he came. To Ito, the sceptic, the patriot, the divine worker, the death of the selfless hero was given,
The' Transvaal Indians
The visit of Mr. Polak has excited once more a closer interest in the. Transvaal question and associations are being formed for
the agitation of the question. It will therefore be opportune to consider the practical aspect of the struggle in the Transvaal and the possibility of help from India. There can be no two opinions outside South Africa, and possibly Hare Street, as to the moral aspects of the question; for it must be remembered that the Indians in the Transvaal are not claiming any political rights, but merely treatment as human beings first, and, next, equality before the law. It is open to the South Africans to exclude Indians altogether, but, once they are admitted, they are morally bound to refrain from a treatment of them which is an extreme and unpardonable outrage on humanity. To degrade any part of the human race to the level of cattle is in the present stage of progress an insult and an offence to the whole of mankind. It would be equally reprehensible to whatever
race the humanity so degraded belonged, but the fact that these men are Indians, has made their sufferings a national question to us and a standing reproach to the British people who, out of selfish fear of offending their own kith and kin, allow this outrage to be committed on their, own subjects whom they have deprived of all means of self-protection. The great glory of the Transvaal Indians is that while men under such circumstances have always sunk into the condition to which they have been
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condemned and needed others to help them out of the mire, these sons of Bharafba'rsha, inheritors of an unexampled moral and spiritual tradition have vindicated the superiority of the Indian people and its civilisation to all other peoples in the globe and all other civilisations by the spirit in. which they have refused to recognise the dominance of brute force over the human soul. Stripped of all means of resistance a helpless handful in a foreign land, unaided by India, put off with empty professions of sympathy by English statesmen, they, ignored by humanity, are fighting humanity's battle in the pure strength of the spirit, with no weapon but the moral force of their voluntary sufferings and utter self-sacrifice. Mr. Polak has well said that the Indian nation is being built up in South Africa. The phrase is true in this sense that the supreme example of the moral and spiritual strength which must be behind the formation of the new nation, has been shown first not in India but in South Africa. The passive resistance which we had' not the courage and unselfishness to carry out in India, they have carried to the utmost in the Transvaal under far more arduous circumstances, with far less right to hope for success. Whether they win or lose in the struggle, they have contributed far more than their share to the future greatness of their country.
We must consider their chance of success, and though we do not wish to speak words of discouragement, it will not do to hide from ourselves the enormous difficulties in the way. For success, either the Government in England must interfere and compel the Transvaal to do right, or the Transvaal must be stirred by shame and by the interest of the poorer part of the Boer community to reverse the laws, or the Indian Government must intervene to protect its subjects. The first course is unthinkable. It would mean a quarrel with the newly conciliated Transvaal, the marring of the work of which the Liberal Government is justly proud, and a resentment in South Africa which the English ministry will not face for the sake of all India, much less of a handful of Indian coolies and shopkeepers. The poorer Boers will be only inconvenienced, not seriously hurt by the extinction of Indian shopkeeper, and, in any case, they are not a class who are wont to act politically. The Transvaal Government is not likely to yield to any sense of shame. The Boers are a stark race, stubborn to the death, and the grit they showed in the face of the
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British Empire, they are also likely to show in this very minor trouble. Nor are they likely to have forgotten the action of the Indians who rewarded the comparative leniency of the Boer Government previous to the war by helping actively in the British attack on, the liberty of Transvaal. With their slow minds and tenacious memories they are a people not swift to forget and forgive; we do not rely greatly on their present professions of friendship to the Power that took from them their freedom, and they are wholly unlikely to put from their minds the unpardonable intrusion of the Indian residents into a quarrel in which they had no concern or status.
There remains the Indian Government, and what can the Indian Government do ? It can forbid, as has been suggested, Indian coolly recruitment for Natal. This would undoubtedly be a great blow to the planters and they would throw their whole influence into the Indian scale. But, on the other hand, the mass of the Natal whites are full of race prejudice and their desire is for that impossible dream, a white South Africa. A more effective measure would be the suspension of trade relations by the boycott of Colonial goods and the cessation of the importation of Indian raw materials into South Africa. But that is a step which will never- be taken. Even if the Indian Government were wiling to use any and every means, the decision does not rest with them but with the Government in England, which will not consent to offending the colonies. The Indian Government would no doubt like to see an end of the situation in the Transvaal as it weakens such moral hold as they still have over India, and they would prefer a favorable termination because the return of ruined Indians from the Transvaal will bring home a mass of bitterness, burning sense of wrong and a standing discontent trained in the most "strenuous methods of passive resistance. And many of them are Mahomedans.
The one favorable factor in favour of the Transvaal Indians is their own spiritual force and the chance of its altering the conditions by sheer moral weight. It is India's duty to aid them by financial succour which they sorely need and the rich men of the country can easily afford, by the heartening effect of public and frequently expressed moral sympathy and by educating the whole
people of India literate and illiterate in an accurate knowledge of what is happening in the
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Transvaal. This is the only help India can give to her children over the seas so long as she is not master of her own destinies.
Transvaal and Bengal
There are two crying grievances which have done more than anything else to embitter popular feelings against the authorities and in both cases 'the populations most directly affected have resorted to passive resistance as the only remedy open to them. The first is the gross and systematic oppression now being practised on the Indians in the Transvaal, and the other the repression of national aspirations towards unity and self-development, in Bengal type
field by Partition and Deportation. Nothing can be more inconsistent than the attitude taken by the Moderate Convention towards these two questions. They have telegraphed their sympathy with the heroic passive, resistance of the Transvaal Indians; they have shown their sympathy with Bengal by
boycotting our boycott. Eighteen thousand rupees were promised for the Transvaal Indians in the one scene of enthusiasm which relieved the depressed dullness of the proceedings, and although we have little hope that this spasmodic activity will be followed up by steady support, it is better than nothing. On the other hand the Bengal questions were left to be moved by Bengalis, the Partition to Sj. Bhupendranath, the Deportations to Mr. A. Choudhuri. A deputation was appointed by the Convention to proceed to lay the question of Partition once more before Lord
Morley; and of whom, think you, the deputation is to consist? Sj. Surendranath Banerji and Sj. Bhupendranath Bose. Not a single Moderate deputy is forthcoming from the whole of India to support Bengal even to this extent in its bitter and arduous struggle. Yet men are not ashamed to go from Bengal as self-elected delegates to a Convention which has disowned and dishonoured Bengal and which Bengal has disowned.
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CHAPTER IV
FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT
EASTERN LITERATURE
A S we have already seen in the case of the arts, what is distinctively modern emerges from a protracted tension and clash between the past with its essential elements of enduring value and its overgrowths and exaggerations on the one hand, and the creative urge and lure of the future on the other. Like the overgrowths and exaggerations of the past, the futurist impulses have also their heady drifts and Bizarre extravagances. But the Time-Spirit tends to sort but only those elements that pertain to a definite future, and reject the rest. Its universal vision directs its selection, which the human mind cannot fathom.
Western literature has had a history which amply illustrates the above truth. Unlike the history of science since the Renaissance, that of the arts and literature usually shows less radical ruptures and abrupt transitions—the very spirit of aesthesis makes for a certain balanced continuity. But in the modern age, particularly since the Age of Reason, science has so firmly seized on the mind and life of man, and its increasing influence has been so decidedly antithetical to the aesthetic spirit that even in the spheres of the arts and literature we notice sudden and fundamental breaks and departures from the past, as if the new in its intolerant daring and exuberance was bent on wiping out all traces of the old. This is, indeed, a novel phenomenon, unprecedented and significant. It only proves the strong hold the scientific spirit has acquired over the whole of human life and its activities. Aesthetics or the cult of beauty, which is the soul of all artistic creation, has been sacrificed to the interest of utility, which is the only goddess materialism worships. "The age of the beautiful is over; ours is one of emergency and implacable demands",
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as Goethe says. And the cult of stark utility dominates and determines the
productions 'of modern art, labelled as realism. Utility is the goal and
realisation of self-interest, and the pervading commercialism and industrialism,
which is the modern method of providing for utility, has so infected the field
of art that the artist makes no bones of pandering to the vulgar tastes of those
who pay the piper and call the tune. Scientific commercialism has perverted
cultured taste and wallows in a general decay of all aesthetic values. Or, if
there is, as we have already observed, an incipient trend towards subjectivism,
which is a corollary of individualism, it is from the sensational findings of
modern scientific and medical psychology, unavoidably short-sighted and
superficial, that the artists have derived inspiration for their fantastically
subjective creations. It is, no doubt, a natural reaction against the
conventional and the florid. But what it achieves' is a ghastly portrayal of the
sinks and sewers of human nature. Modern' scientific insistence on the sole
reality of Matter with its inveterate tangency to considering it as the only
source of all psychological functions, which was so strong in the nineteenth
century, has blighted higher imagination and atrophied the power of profound
reflection, to speak nothing of the intuitive faculty in man. It is true that
the greatest of the scientists, such as Leonardo, Newton, Max Planck,
Einstein etc. have all had intuitions as the sole origin of their discoveries
and inventions, but they were fortunate exceptions who had escaped the corroding
influence of materialistic science. This influence has corrupted the very soul
of arts and literature and caused a deplorable sterility in the sphere of true
artistic creation. But there is a . steady gleam of hope in the recent
remarkable developments in physics, biology and psychology. It betokens a turn
of the tide. Before long man may well be exploring with a surer insight not only
the sub conscious and the unconscious, but the measureless realms of his
subliminal and superconscious parts and the infinity and immortality of his
Spirit, and receiving, perhaps more than ever before, a bountiful afflatus of
intuitions, inspirations and revelations, which are the real. stuff and
sustenance of all artistic creation.
Francesco Patriarch (1304-1374), though he belonged more to the traditions and temper of the Middle Ages, can yet be called the precursor and maker of Renaissance literature. It was he who brought
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into it a fresh breath of free imagination, a lyrical strain "of subjectivism nourished by his wide acquaintance with the Latin classics, a joyous love of Nature, and a distinctly secular spirit as against the conventional religious or theological note of his times. 'His poetry, characterised by a striking Atticism in language, exerted an extensive influence and set a model for the poetic form even in other languages than the Italian, like English and French. He displays in himself the conflict between the past and the future perhaps more than any other contemporary writer. His ascetic frame of mind could not' reconcile itself to his haunting love for Laura who became the centre of his impassioned poetic creation. He symbolises the typical pull between two polar drives: the call of the cloistered life of self-knighting, and the attraction of the sense objects of the world, glorified by the modernist spirit. Intuitive and emotional, he enlivened his secularism with the sap of his Chiristian and classical temperament.
His successor and follower, Boccaccio (died 1375) steeped himself in ancient Greco-Latin culture and continued the search begun by his master for old manuscripts. His Decameron was received with admiration and high praise, and at once established his fame as a master of Italian prose. In the one hundred tales of Decameron a few are romantic, but the rest are concerned with contemporary social life which is parodied in a glowing vein of realism. He strikes a strong secular note, which has been swelling down the centuries of the modern age.
An intense love of the pagan culture and classics, awakened by Petrarch and Boccaccio, spread far and wide, and numerous valuable manuscripts were collected and studied with zeal and earnestness. Libraries were set up at many places in order to preserve the manuscripts and cater for the increasing avidity for classical learning. The most important result of this classical revival was a-new conception of education. The old idea that education was a training for some vocation or for the monastic life was given the go-by, and a more liberal conception came to prevail, consistent with the humanistic spirit. The doors of educational institutions were flung open to all classes, and boys and girls were given equal facilities to train their character, improve their intellectual faculties, imbibe some religious and moral culture, equip themselves for being useful to society, and
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build their bodies by regular physical exercises. This was, indeed, a decisive step forward from the mediaeval notion of education which was rather conservative, narrow and strait-laced. With the expository of the horizons of thought and the fields of observation and experimentation,, there came a widening of secular interests and an adventurous spirit of enterprise. A general awakening all over Europe led to a quickening of the creative impulse and initiative.
Another' factor which immensely helped the spread of education and the cultivation of aesthetic sensibilities was the increasing patronage extended by wealthy men who took a special pride in fostering the arts and encouraging and helping deserving artists and students. They cherished a love for beauty in all forms—in painting, architecture, sculpture, music and literature, and even in individual and collective bearing and manners. The Greek ideal of general order' and refinement was thus retrieved to a certain extent in the Humanism-of the modern age.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) reflects in his famous book, The Prince, the ant moral or amoral spirit prevailing in contemporary politics. Expediency and not ethical principles had come to be the guiding rule among the governing heads of the continent. And Machiavelli gave an eloquent and piquant expression to it. His thought and language captured the intellectual men of his times, and he was widely read and admired. His influence has been percolating through various channels to the present times, receiving considerable support from the materialistic and sceptical outlook engendered by science.
As a striking counterpoise to the drastic departure of Machiavelli's political thought appeared the sober views and balanced maturity of the mind of Deliveries Erasmus (1466-153TS), an erudite Dutchman writing in Latin. Erasmus had the strength and courage of his conviction to swim against the tide of humanistic bohemianism in life and arts. He used his profound biblical knowledge and solid scholarship to exhort the people to hark back to the moral and religious values they had almost thrown to the winds. A contemporary of Luther, he was anything but an iconoclasts. He believed deeply in morality and the cohesive power of religion, but was bitter in his criticism of the Church of his day and the ills corroding social life. His
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writings exerted a great inspiring influence on Luther, and he tried to enlist the sympathy of this intellectual giant in his onslaught against the Church, but he was a revolutionary man of action and Erasmus as a sedate thinker of far-reaching thoughts was averse to revolution. He was for steady, circumspect construction. Though he. had in the beginning showed his essential sympathy with Luther's stand-point, he developed later a sort of impatience of his headstrong ways and reckless utterances which tended to disrupt the existing order. But Luther carried in himself the breath of the Time-Spirit, and nething could stand in the way of his relentless campaign against the ramshakle fabric of mediaeval conventionalism, so long as he remained loyal to his inspiration. Erasmus, too, longed for reform, but the gingerly way all reformers long—by a gradual, though accelerated process of enlightenment, discarding of abuses, and reconstruction. He -stands as a bridge between the old and the new.
Thomas More (1478-1535) illustrates in his ambivalent personality the same tension between the past and the future which we have noticed in Erasmus, but in a more accentuated form. His attachment to the Christianity of the Middle Ages and his love of the classical culture and learning were as much firmly rooted in him as his reaction against the tattered conceptions and frozen conservatism of the past was powerful. He opened new paths of thought and, embodying the true spirit of Renaissance humanism, made a strong case in favour of communism, abolition of personal property, and annulment of all social distinctions and religious sectarianism. He insisted on material well-being and the healthy pleasures of life, and protested against ascetic practices. But his own practice belied his preaching. He was an ascetic himself in his nature and habits, as was evidenced by his wear-' ing of the hair-shirt and persistent monastic longings. He was not only a thinker and writer, but a lawyer, a politician, and an administrator of no mean stature. But his involvement in politics cost him his life—he was beheaded by the orders of Henry VIII. He thus earned martyrdom and was later canonised by the Church. Martyrdom covers up all inner conflicts and surrounds itself with a halo of glory. Caught between the cross-currents of his time, he could not square his conscience with the urgent strivings of the humanistic aspirations which he found in himself. He symbolises the long-
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drawn travail of the modern age.
Turning to France, we find the same struggle between the old and the new. But, whereas Renaissance in Germany produced an upheaval in theological and ecclesiastical spheres, in France it gave birth to a "literature of unprecedented richness. Francois Rabelais (1483-1553) felt a subtle attachment to the scholastic tradition of the Middle Ages even while he launched a vigorous attack upon the Church and its multiform corruption. He advocated reform in education and stood boldly for the hedonistic pleasures of life. More than Erasmus whom he admired and more than Thomas More, he introduced a robust note of modernism into literature, which he enriched by his mastery of technique, flexibility of language, mordant satire, and comic inventions.
Another great French writer was Michel De Montaigne, (1533-1592) who has won immortal renown as the first essayist in post-mediaeval Europe. There was very little of the scholastic or Christian tag in his thought and writings. A moderate Catholic as he was, he belonged to the growing number of those who represented sceptical humanism. Besides being a lawyer, he was a man of practical experience and insatiable curiosity who traveled extensively and learnt many an invaluable lesson not only by open-eyed observation, but by systematic and sustained introspection. His essays are considered as a model of perfection by virtue of their simplicity, naturalness, scintillating sarcasm, cosmopolitan outlook, and epicurean wisdom. He initiated a distinct phase of humanistic modernism in France.
(To be continued)
RlSHABHCHAND
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SRI AUROBINDO ON THE UPANISHADS AND THE GITA
THE UPANISHADS
SRI Aurobindo's approach to the Upanishads is not merely intellectual; he used them and the Gita as treasures of spiritual experience during the early period of his sadhana. To him they are not repositories of intellectual philosophies to be used in metaphysical discussions, but are inspired and intuitive expressions of the seers continuing the spiritual tradition of the Veda.
He has given detailed interpretation of the Isha and Kena. An early translation of the Eight Upanishads as also a revised one of the Mandukya is available. In his interpretation of the Upanishad he follow? the same line that he does in that of the Veda relying on the straightforward meaning of words and internal evidence of the text. This is what he says about them : "Here the intuitive mind and intimate psychological experience of the Vedic seers passes into a supreme culmination in which the Spirit, as is laid in a phrase of the Katha Upanishad, discloses its own very body, reveals the very word of its self-expression and discovers to the mind the vibration of rhythms which repeating themselves within in the spiritual hearing seem to bind up the Soul and set it satisfied and complete on the heights of self-knowledge."
He says further : "These works are not philosophical speculations of the intellectual kind, a metaphysical analysis which labours to define notions, to select ideas and discriminate those that are true, to legacies truth or else to support the mind in its intellectual preferences by dialectical reasoning and is content to put forward an exclusive solution of existence in the fight of this or .that idea of the reason and see all things from the viewpoint, in that focus and determining perspective."1
"The Upanishads are epic hymns of self-knowledge and world-knowledge and God-knowledge."2
1 The Foundations of Indian Culture pp. 305-306.
2 Ibid.
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SRI AUROBINDO ON THE UPANISHADS AND THE GITA
Some writers have advanced the contention that the Upanishads represent the Jnana Kanda in opposition to Karmakanda of the Veda : the Vedas stand for the rituals and Upanishads for knowledge. They even assert that the Upanishads are a revolt against the Vedic ritualism. Those opinions are not supported by proper study of the Riks or of the Upanishads. The core of the effort, both of the Veda and the Upanishads, is the attainment of a spiritual state which can lift man out of ignorance. Only, the Upanishads speak of the experience in intuitive, inspired and revelatory speech which is different from that of the Veda. The Veda speaks in the language of symbols and is written at a time when Sanskrit speech was plastic and the words retained the memory of their origins. The Rishis speak out boldly about the visions they saw as concrete spiritual realities related to outer ceremonials of the sacrifice which was their mystic symbol of man's communication with the divine powers that surround him" outwardly as well as inwardly. The difference in the language of the Veda and that of the Upanishads is marked : where we have Agni, Indra, Aditi, Surya etc. in the Veda in the latter we have Jnana, Satya, Brahma, Prakriti, Atma, but still as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out in his foreword to the Hymns to the Mystic Fire, there are passages where in the two types of expression meet. The Upanishad, like the Veda, aimed at attaining a secret knowledge: Artabhaga is asked by Yagnavalkya to retire into secrecy to speak about the problem of condition of the Soul after death.
There is hardly an Upanishad when does not include some Vedic hymns in its body, very often in a different context from that in the Veda. It shows the profound reverence in which the Vedas were held by the seers of the Upanishads. For example, when Satya-kama Jabala delays in imparting spiritual instruction to the young disciple his wife chides him and says :
मा त्वा अगनयः परिवोप्रवोचन् | (Chh. IV. 10. 2.)
"Let not the Fires instruct the seeker before you do." Fire as a God was worshipped by the seers of the Upanishads. In Kathopanishad Nachiketa-Fire is mentioned as the deity that can help the aspirant to realise the. Higher consciousness.
The Upanishads accepted the Vedic symbols in their psychological significance; for instance, घेनु Dhenu 'the fostering cow' is
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spoken as वाचं घेनुमुपासीत | तस्याः चत्वारः स्तवाः | "The fostering cow, the speech, must be worshipped; she has four udders". (Brihad 5.5.8) This has clear reference to sukta 164th of the I Mandala.
That the sacrifice—Yagna—was symbolic to the seers of the Upanishads—as it was later to the writer of the Gita also—is clear from texts like आदित्य एव सभित् | (VI. 1.9 Brihad) and then संवत्सर एव समित् | (Brihad VLI.9)-"The Sun is the offering holy wood for the sacrifice, so also "the year is the offering wood." Also असौ् वा आदित्यो देवमधु (Chhand. 1.4) "That Sun-the son of Aditi-is the "honey of the Gods" where the Sun and Honey both are openly symbolic.
The opening verse of the Brihadaranyaka shows not only that sacrifice was symbolic but that the universe itself is symbolised as the Horse-Sacrifice, Ashwa-medha. This is the Ashwa-medha in which Samudra is spoken as related to the Ashwa and to Usha, the goddess " Dawn, who is the head of the sacrificial horse : उषा वै अशवस्य मेघ्यस्य शिरः |
Thus the symbolism of the Veda is woven in these ancient Upanishads. Long ago I collected a list of Vedic words used in «the Upanishads almost in the same sense : Ex. वाम Varna: meaning 'delight'. That sacrifice is symbolic hardly admits of any doubt in face of Upanishadic texts like पुलषो वाव यज्ञः | (Chhand. 3.16.1). "The Purusha is, indeed, the sacrifice" which is followed by the text dividing man's life into three parts, symbolically represented by the rhythms like Gayatri, Trishtubha, and Jajati, corresponding to the morning, afternoon and evening sacrifice lasting 24, 44 and 48 years of life respectively, according to the number of words of the rhythm.तस्य यानि चतुविवतिवषोणि तत्प्रातःसवनं चतुविशत्यक्षरा गायत्री गायत्रं प्रातःसवनम् | (Chhand. 3.16.1)
Aditya, generally identified with the Sun, is said to be the Brahman : आदित्यी ब्रहा (Chhand. III. 19)
If we examine some of the passages in which the-Upanishads employ the Vedic words in the same sense we find that the symbolic sense is also accepted by them : तदृ तदृनं नाम he name of That is that Delight". तद् वनमित्युणासितञ्यम् "As that Delight one should seek it-follow after it".
The Upanishad employing its own terminology suddenly brings in the Vedic symbol as in : the Vedic symbol as in: विज्ञानसारथियस्तु मनःप्रप्रहवात्ररः | सोऽघ्वनः पारमाप्नोतिः तदिष्णोः परमं पदम् || (Katha 1.3.9)
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"That man who uses the mind for reins and the knowledge for the driver, reaches the end of his road—the highest seat of Vishnu". The "highest seat of Vishnu" is a Vedic phrase.1
So also, हंसः शुचिषद् वसुरन्तरिक्षसद् होता वेदिषदतिथिदुरोणसत् |
Of the Katha is the same as Rigveda IV.40.5 "Lo, the Swan whose dwelling is in the purity, He is Vasu in the inter regions, the Sacrificer at the altar, the Guest in the vessel of the drinking: he is in man, in the great Ones, and his home is in the Law (of the Truth), his dwelling s in the firmament: he is all that is born of the water, and all that that is born of earth, and all that is born on the mountains. He is the Truth, He is the mighty one" (Katha Valli 2.2.)
नृषदृरसदृतसद् ञ्योमसदञजा गोजा त्ॠतजा अद्निजा ॠतं वृहत् ||
"Falsehood is embraced on both sides by Truth—partakes the nature of truth itself". (Brihada 5.5.1) This can be compared to V.5.7 of the Rigveda.
Here the universal manifestation is spoken of as the Ashwa tha tree : "This eternal Ashwa tha tree has its root above and blanches stretching below; that is the brilliant pure, that is the Brahman, that is what is called Immortal". (Katha 2. Valli 6.1)
ऊघ्वमूलोऽवाक्शाखः एषोऽशत्थः सनातनः | तदेव शुॠं तद् ब्रहा तदेवातृतमृच्यते ||
The tendency to turn spiritual experience into symbols seems almost inevitable because that seems to be the only way to concretise it.
The Vedic Rik I.164.12 is literally repeated in the Prashnopanishad.
Sometimes even the original text of the Upanishad runs into the language of the Rig Veda : take the Taittiriya text in which Indra plainly appears as the power and godhead of the divine mind :
यरछदसां वृषभो विरवरूपः छंदोभ्योघ्यमृतात् संबभूव | स मेन्द्रो मेघया स्पृणोतु | अमृतस्य देव घारणो भूयासम् | (Taittiriya I. 4.)
"He who is the Bull of the Vedas of the universal form, he who was born in the sacred rhythms from the Immortal—may Indra satisfy me through the intelligence. O God, may I become a vessel of the Immortal". Sri Aurobindo.
And a kindred passage may also be cited from the Isha in which
1 This is related to 1. 1.22.20; 1.154.5 Taittiriya I.A.3 v. c,
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Surya the Sun-God is invoked as the godhead of knowledge whose supreme form of effulgence is the oneness of the Spirit and his rays dispersed here on the mental level are the shining diffusion of the thought mind and conceal his own infinite Supramental truth,, the body and self of this Sun, the truth of the spirit and the Eternal.
हिरण्मयोन पात्रेण सत्यस्यापिहितं मुखम् | तत्वं पूषत्रपावृणु सत्यघमाय दृष्टये || Isha 15
पूषत्रेफषै यम सूय प्रजापत्य ञ्यूह रशमीन्समूह | इतेजो यते रूपं कल्याणस्मिं ततो पशयामि योऽसावसै पुशषः सोऽहमास्मि | Isha 15
"The face of the Truth is covered with a golden lid: O fostering Sun, that uncover for the law of the truth, for Sight. O fosterer, O Sole Rishi, O controlling Yama. Surya, O Son of the Father of creatures, marshal and mass thy rays: the Lustre that is thy most blessed form of all, that I see, He who is this, this Purusha, He am I". Isha 16 The kinship in difference of these passages with the imagery and style of the Veda is evident and the last indeed paraphrases or translates into a Irater and more open style a Vedic verse of Atris, V.62.I
ॠतेन ॠतमपिहितं ॠवं वां सूयस्य यत्र विमुचन्त्यशवान् |
दश शता सह तस्थुस्तदेकं देवानां श्रष्ठं वपुषामपशयम् ||
"Hidden by your truth is the Truth that is constant for every where they unyoke the horses of the Sun. There the ten thousands stand together, That is the One : I have seen the Supreme Godhead of the embodied gods".
In this text is expressed the aspiration of the human Soul :
असतो मा सद् गमय | तमसो मा ज्योतिगमय | मृत्योमाऽमृतं गमय |
(Brihad I. 3.28)
"From non-being lead me to Being, from Darkness lead me to Light, from death lead me to immortality". This finds expression in the Riks
उदृयं तमसस्परि ज्योतिष्पशयंत उत्तरम् | देवं देवत्रा सूयमगन्म ज्योतिलत्तमम् ||
(Rig-veda)
The symbolic nature of the sacrifice was very well known to the Upanishads, for it says : Aditya आदित्य is the Samit, the holy wood for offering. The Sun is the holy wood offered रशमयो घूमः "The rays of the Sun are the smoke". तस्मन्देवाः श्रद्धां जुह्वति | "In it the gods offer. Faith".
Even some Vedic words find a symbolic meaning in the
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Upanishads अयमसे अंतरिति सोऽयास्यः (Ayasya is one of the seers of the Rig Veda) One who sits in the inner being is Ayasya.
अथैतस्य मनसो घौः शरीरम् | ज्योतीरूपम् असौ आदित्यः | तद् यवदेव मनस्तावती घौस्तावान् असौ आदित्यः |
"Likewise, of that Mind sky is the body. Its light form is you Sun. As far as
Mind extends, so far extends the sky, so far Sun." I.
1.5.12.
These two, un and Fire entered into a sexual union, there from was born breath.
He is Indra, he is without a rival.
''These are all alike, all Infinite" Brih. 1.5.13
The Vedic symbolism finds place in the Brihadaranyaka a in the following :
पुरशचत्रे दिपदः पुरशचत्रे चतुष्पदः |
पुरः स पक्षी भूत्वा पुरः पुलषआविशत् || (Brihad 2.5 18th)
I. "Citadels with two feet he made, citadels with four feet he did make; in the citadels he, having become a bird-into the citadels he Purusha the person-entered." comp: V1.47.18 Rig Veda
इन्द्रो मायाभिः पलरूप इयते | युुकतानि अस्यः हरयः शता दशोति |
अयं वै हरयोऽयं वै दश च सहरत्राणि बहूनि च | Brihad 2.5.19th.
II. "Indra by his magic powers—powers of formation—goes about in many forms; yoked are his ten hundred steeds". He, the Soul, Verily, is the steeds" (Compare R.VI.47.18)
THE GITA
The Gita differs from all the scriptures of the world in that it is not a book of philosophy seeking for setting forth an explanation of the cosmos, neither is it a book of revealed religion? It is a book that addresses itself to a life-situation, it is not written in the cell of the philosopher or in the forest groves to answer the why and wherefore of the world and life. It answers the question : how to act in life in a critical situation created by conflicting values. In this regard the Gita agrees perfectly with Sri Aurobindo's vision of the Reality, for he insists that life, and therefore all action, should be moulded by the Divine dwelling in the heart of man-he wants human life to become divine.
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Gita tells us that the value of action depends not upon its outer form but on the psychological basis from which it proceeds. It points a practical path to reach the basis, the true source of action. In this respect Gita is value-centric. It shows that normally man acts under the pressure of desires, emotions, greed, ambition—in short on the basis of ego. This is not the right basis. It is, or should be accepted as, only a temporary basis which serves some preliminary purpose of the growth of man towards the Light. The right basis of action, the Gita says, is not even social morality or ethical idealism'. The true source of action is the Divine Will in the individual discoverable by him.
Gita teaches that Life and action are not to be renounced but their ignorant—egoistic—basis has to be rejected and it has to be changed into the true basis. It declares that a Divine Will is actively at work •and can, and does, intervene in a critical life-situation in the case of an individual or a collectivity. When the individual gives up his egoistic initiation of action then an impersonal and even a Divine Will can be discovered and obeyed. This great truth is crucial because it has a direct bearing on the goal of life, the highest fulfilment of man on earth.
The difficulty is that of discovering the Divine Will; for men have so many ideas, ideals, values etc. in life by which they seek to govern, partially through their conduct. Gita is catholic in its scope and accepts all lesser ideals and values as a preparatory stage— as steps on the way to the discovery of the Divine Will. But it insists again and again upon the necessity of making the discovery. Though in a certain sense everything happens by the sanction of the Divine Will, discoverable. This is the problem set before Arjuna in the Gita. One may equate the Divine Will to a principle, to an idea, an ideal, a value—which one follows but over and above—independent of all such intermediate, permissible standards, there is a Divine Will which is to be discovered. A divine purpose is at work in the universe in the individual's life and in that of the collectivity.
Gita points out psychological processes and methods by which one can gradually progress towards the discovery of the Divine Will : it can be arranged in the form of a graded rise with methodical steps. One has to begin by doing action without desire for the result, with an
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attitude of equality—samata—in which neither good nor adverse result affects the inner balance and the fundamental attitude of detachment. In fact the establishment of samata, equality, in the consciousness under all conditions is the sign that one has succeeded in giving up the desire or attachment for the fruit of action.
Gita suggests a further step : on the basis of the Sankhya realisation it speaks pf the two parts of human consciousness, a realisable dichotomy in" the inner being. There is in each individual a part that can separate itself from his nature, from the mind and all its ideas, suggestions, movements, from the emotions, feeling and their actions and reactions, from the desires, impulses and passions of the vital, and from the body, and remain unaffected by it. It is the Purusha as the Sakshi, the witness consciousness. Gita says that by practising this separation of Purusha and Prakriti man would be able to control his nature more effectively and it would serve as the initial step in-the process of transformation of nature.
Gita points out the distinction between Tyaga and Sannyasa external and true renunciation. There was an excessive otherworldly stress in the spiritual ideals of India for centuries, though renunciation of life as an indispensable condition for spiritual realisation was not accepted in the Vedic age. Nor was it accepted in the Upanishads.
The conception of the Divine in the Gita is not that of a static being, it is dynamic. Gita may be said to be unique in emphasising this aspect and relating it to life. This Omnipresent Reality has a purpose, a divine purpose, and life is meant to be the field for the working out of that purpose and even the battle-field of Kurukshetra is not exempted from it. By implication, and even by open declaration, Gita says that life is not altogether governed by the ego— either individual or collective. In fact Sri Aurobindo' suggests that Kurukshetra can be taken as the symbol of the battle of life in which forces of Light and Darkness are constantly clashing. As regards the dilemma of Arjuna Sri Krishna assures him that the Divine Will shall be fulfilled as far as the battle of Kurukshetra is concerned, even if Arjuna does not participate in it as its instrument. Krishna says to Arjuna in effect: Kurukshetra is not your battle only—though each participant has joined it for his own purpose—it is mine and I have a purpose to carry out and it would be carried out at any cost. We
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might note that the Gita teaches that collective life has a divine purpose to fulfil.
The world we live in wears the appearance of an inert, inconscient creation, and the human life is full of the play of ignorant forces and is undivine. Many religious and philosophical systems have given great prominence—e.g. Buddhism—to this aspect. To Gita the world is not altogether undivine. It devotes^four chapters to the Vibhuti Yoga and shows how the world is beautiful, magnificent and divine. Even Matter which is regarded as inert can be sublime— the Himalayas are the sublime in Matter. In fact these four chapters of the Gita may be regarded as a detailed Bhashya-exegesis—of the opening verse of the Ishopanishad: "īsā vāsyamidam sarvarh yat kiñca jagatyām jagat" (All this (Universe here manifested) is for habitation by the Lord-whatever is moving in the universal government," Sri Krishna points out in effect that the Divine is not absent from the world he is here flowing in the rivers and in the vegetable kingdom. Gita makes us feel the divine Presence in the world, for the world is not merely what our senses represent it to be, the Divine is there even though unperceived.
One of the basic ideas of the Vedanta—derived from the Sankhya system—is that Purusha—the Self, is eternally free—nitya mukta -but Prakriti, Nature, is, and is condemned to remain, bound -it is eternally ignorant and imperfect. Gita points out that as the Purusha, the Self, is eternally free so is Prakriti also a claimant not only to freedom but even to perfection. This can be seen by studying the implications of some aspects of the Gita. Even though the essential divinity is the same in the Saint and the Sinner, still the Saint Sadhu-has to be protected and saved and the wicked destroyed. The distinction between 'Sadhu'-the Saint, the Mahatma, the great Soul, or the Sreshtha and the ordinary man is due to what they express in their Nature, in their Prakriti. That may be regarded as the first step of the movement of Prakriti towards freedom and perfection.
Next, the Gita speaks of the Vibhuti—special becoming. The Vibhuti embodies not merely the nature of a Sadhu, not merely heightened human perfection but some quality, some aspect of the Divine and his power. That may be regarded as the second step in nature's ascent to freedom and perfection. In the Vibhuti nature
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rises to far greater heights than even the highest attainment reached by man. For example, the non-violence practised by Mahatma Gandhi far surpasses the ordinary practice of it by man. In that sense he can be called the Vibhuti of Ahinsa.
In the. Avatar, the incarnation, nature attains its highest perfection. The Avatar aspect is an important part of Indian conception of the Divine and it has been brought into prominence by Gita, which points out the evolutionary significance of the phenomenon of Avatar hood. The Divine is not some absentee land-lord away from life, it can take up human nature and a human form. Some religions, like Christianity, accept one and only one incarnation of the Divine. They practically limit the Omnipotence to one single act—but to the Hindu view Omnipotence of God cannot be limited to one incarnation and therefore the Hindu admits many incarnations including that of Christ. Sri Krishna says: I have accepted human birth and-action; one who knows my birth and action as divine really knows me.
Gita points out that divine action by the human being is possible; it is possible by a gradual development of the human consciousness. This is made clear in the Vibhuti yoga chapters by Sri Krishna declaring : पाण्यवानां अजुनोऽहम् "I am Arjuna among the Pandavas"-and Arjuna would be carrying the Divine Will and therefore doing divine action if he participated in the battle. To act in life from a divine poise is possible and even a Five Year Plan, Tibetan situation and some disturbing incident can seek guidance from it.
Sri Aurobindo's last chapter in the "Essays on the Gita" is not merely a brilliant summary of its teaching but is the most inspired message in modern writings on the Gita.
"A. B. PURANI
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The Community Church .
NEW YORK '
16th September 1962.
"Stop thinking that you are of the West and others of the East. All Human beings are of the same divine origin and meant to manifest upon earth the unity of their origin."
The Mother.
4-8-1949.
Crisis of Culture
1.—Man is living under the shadow of Matter, not in the Light of the. Spirit.
2.—The leading power of life to-day is the Desire-Soul working in the individual or in the collective being. To this Desire-Soul the Kamanamaya Purusha—the world is a vast treasure-house in which man is allowed to rob as much as he can during his short life: this Desire-Soul is leading the mental being of man.
3.—Life instead of becoming an instrument has become the leading claimant on man. Man to-day is "the engine without a driver or rather the driver is servant of the engine".
Sri Aurobindo
4.—The mind that is at work in man is subject to severe limitations of practical reason. Science is the result of his practical reason. The aspect of universal knowledge which is science has acquired a " high place in" the life of man. Scientific progress is mind's great victory over Matter, Science has turned undreamt of possibilities into actualities. It has established man as the king among earthly creatures.
The mental outlook which science promotes lends more and more towards utilitarianism, agnosticism and atheism.
Economy has become the central dynamic drive and the highest
* A Talk given at a meeting of The Religious Discussion Group at the Community Church, New York.
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value of man's collective life. In spite of efforts to avoid it, the economy-centric outlook tends always to lead to conflicts.
The peace that seems to prevail is not true peace, it is the result of fear,—fear of the atom-bomb and other destructive weapons. Man is still unable to see that atom-bomb has no power apart from man to do any harm/He fails to see that the problem is man himself. It is he who has to change his psychology.
The Crisis of Culture is a world-crisis, it is the crisis of Human Culture. The crisis arose and developed in Europe and would have remained confined to the advanced countries of Europe and America. But the two world-wars rightly made it a crisis of human culture.
The world-war two shattered many false notions about superiority and perfection of European culture. In fact, it clearly demonstrated that behind the veneer of civilized man was hiding the barbarian and all his scientific advance had only sharpened his claws and teeth.
The immediate result was the beginning of liquidation of political and economic exploitation of empires and colonies,—not on any ethical or idealistic ground but in view of competitive scientific progress and efficient organisation of national life, competitive armaments and fear of catastrophes.
But the cultural domination of the world by the European out-- look remains due to its dynamic character and scientific progress which has changed so rapidly the outer life of man. As a matter of fact, as far as cultural values are concerned, the European outlook dominated by economy as the highest value of cultural life, has gained in humanity.
After the second world-war America created history by giving economic aid not only to the defeated but even to underdeveloped nations of the world. It was a gesture, perhaps, prompted by enlightened self-interest, but equally, or even more, by a feeling of "one world" which has already emerged after the second world -war.
But the overall result of the scientific advance and the economic
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help has been the concentration of all the energies of the nations, —old and newly awakened—on economic progress hoping to banish poverty and illiteracy, from their midst. It is, certainly a necessity. But it has tented to make economy-centric outlook as the highest cultural value. .
This is now so widely accepted that it has become the problem of human culture. Rebuilding of economy to be sound requires planning; and peace is needed to carry out economic plans. That is why peace has lasted even in the midst of a prolonged "cold "war". In all these efforts even the best leaders forget that establishment of real peace requires an inner change, a change in man's nature. There must come a change in his mode of looking at himself and at the world, a change in his way of thinking about life and the world.
Man has to remember that economic forces are, in their last analysis, psychological and not merely material. Economy influences and in many cases even governs man's life and nature; the mind, the will, the general attitude can influence his economic outlook and create a new mould of individual and collective living. America partly, bears the responsibility for creating, this cultural crisis in humanity. With the best intentions she is trying to apply remedies that have already failed or have very little chance of success. Her economic help has rendered possible the raising of the standard of living on earth. But in the last analysis it is not "plans"—five years or fifty years that will truly resolve the crisis. It is "man" who will have to do it by changing his own nature.
If we look at modern culture we find, as Sri Aurobindo puts it, it has two gods : Life and practical Reason organised as science. Under the guidance of these two gods the potentialities of matter have been sounded and man has acquired the knowledge of processes by applying which to the field of production man can live in comfort on the earth.
But now instead of dominating Matter of which he is the manipulator—not the creator, nor yet a perfect master,—man is being dominated by material conditions—(almost as he was once governed by inert Nature when he was living in the primitive state) and sometimes he behaves like a barbarian with all his scientific advance. This
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happens when ambition goads his life to possess all the riches of mother earth.
The remedy suggested and attempted by science is "more science" but, science is not the solver of problems, often it is their creator. Prosperity, the result of scientific inventions applied to life, is like a "tiger" 'he who rides it cannot dismount, or rather it is like a monster that needs constant attention. In attending to this monster no time, no "energy is left for anything else. Material abundance, where it is achieved, has not made man more free; he has only become a victim of his own creation. By the blessings of science not "production" but "consumption" is now the problem. An eminent American writer says "we cannot use, do not want more wheat, butter or cotton but we dare not produce less".
This has logically led to an indefinite increase in the number of things used by the average man. Advertising, radio, television etc.-—things that can contribute to man's uplift if properly used,—yes, "if" is a big "if",— all urge the common man to buy or do something. "Buy on credit, pay later"—they say. The tendency is to create a mass-mind controlled by "interests". The individual, his uniqueness is losing its importance. In the present atmosphere the "mass" counts. The worst harm of communism is the reduction of the individual to non-entity. It is happening in the midst of our free and democratic society. Even crime has lost its natural roots; it has now in some places become a "business". For prosperity consumption is regarded as the necessity and prosperity is equated to happiness, if not to perfection. This prosperity is not sound for it depends upon consumption. In the collective life of to-day, organised solely on economy as the highest value, it is not what "man" wants but what "industry" wants is the problem. It can be said that men are not riding the automobiles, they are being ridden.
Even in the field of Education where we try to prepare the future leaders of humanity our ideals are influenced by the prevailing atmosphere. We prepare our students for "Life". Which life ? The grinding economic machine in which he will have to fit in as a mechanical part ? Our educationists actually try to fix capacity of the groups while real education is "leading out that which is behind the veil of nature" not what is on the surface. Efficiency of educationist institutions
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is judged by equipment and building. Our education is trying to prepare the mentality of the student to adjust itself to the prevailing values in our society; it should really arm him with the capacity of keenly observing the structure of our collective life and inspire him to change if it necessary.
A constantly rising standard of living as a criterion of collective progress is at best a half-truth, and therefore dangerous. A life with a high standard of living need not necessarily be "good" life. Even when man's needs are met and he has ample leisure, it does not follow that he will devote himself to higher pursuits of culture. That needs an inspiring motive in life. But to-day even the educated man has no time to think or read, and the uneducated does not want to think or read.
What is the end we seek in our culture to-day ? we do not know -where we are going, we don't know even where we want to go, but we are on the move and we are doing everything to increase our speed. Needs ^re met but the drive creates restless activity which ends. in psychological tensions, constant strain, want of poise, it does not permit man to look either backward or forward. Suddenly, the rising curve of production seems to end in a catastrophe.
There is need for a radical reconsideration of the values of collective life. We must try to find the true fulfilment of the individual.
The remedies suggested fall into two classes : one advocates acceptance of machinery and other a Marxist society or a rationalisation of the use of atomic energy as advocated by Bertrand Russell in his six broad-casts from London, entitled "Living in an atomic age". Russell's solution seems to beg the question; for, how is mankind to be persuaded to use the atomic power rationally ? The second solution wants td reject machinery and also industrial progress. It is too late to put the question, for it is impossible to roll back the wheel of life.
Is it inevitable to have these problems ? In fact, these problems are the result of a "choice" made by man. So, in this crisis of culture to-day we must make a choice. We must give up the idea that man needs nothing except an increase in his ability to produce goods and to wield power.
We then come to the real problem : man. To-day man is trying
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to know every thing except himself. He has forgotten the famous motto which Plato "gave "know thyself", and also the command of the ancient wisdom of India that said : "know that self of thine which is the -bridge to immortality". Even when modern man tries to know himself as ki the attempts of psychology he tries to know himself as Matter. He believes that the potentiality of Matter is richer than that of man. He ha? lost sight of the truth that man's consciousness is more interesting than the mechanically determined aspects of behaviour." Not what man can "do" but what man "is" and what he can "become" that is the problem. As he has sounded the potentiality of Matter and contributed to the progress of mankind, he has to work out the potentiality of Life and Mind and Spirit.
In some intellectual quarters the complaint made about "value judgments" as something contrary to man's nature—whatever we may mean by human nature,—is without foundation, for "value insistence is part of human nature. It is man's power of value-insistence that changes the individual and collective life.
If the modern man will not bring actively in his life some values higher than economy the condition will go on inviting greater and greater crisis. Where is the race for production going to stop ? Where is the constantly rising standard of living going to end ? To go on producing more and to induce man to use what is produced would be nothing short of tying man down to his animal existence albeit a comfortable one—; it would emphasise his outer nature at the expense of his inner being.
What is man ? Is he merely an economic being, a producing and consuming machine, or an individual ? Is man a piece of Matter determined in his every movement by inconscient forces, or is he something in his essence that is fundamentally free arid can change the balance of existing forces within and around him ?
This crisis of culture is really a crisis of evolutionary movement of universal energy. The awakening of Mind—intellect—in the midst of a world of Matter's apparent inconscience and the blind play of life-force was the beginning of a developing crisis which seems now to have reached a critical point. The question is : is mind the highest reach of this evolving energy ? Does the solution of man's problem lie in the intensification of what man is at present ? does it lie in
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the efficiency and the complex play of Life-force ?
The solution lies in a radical change of human nature and it can begin by replacing the economy-centric value in life by either the idealistic, ethical, aesthetic or spiritual values as the highest one. The call on man is to rise to a higher level of consciousness, she level of universal consciousness, the truth-consciousness. He may begin by thinking and feeling in terms of humanity and unity of the race. He has to ascend to that higher level and bring down the Light, Peace, power and harmony from there into Mind, and Life and Body into the individual and collective life. The problem is not external it is an inner one. What is needed is not intensification of what man is, but bringing into manifestation what he can be.
There is a higher power that is the origin and sustainer of all life. Man can take help of that Power in the difficult task of transforming his own nature. For, as the human aspiration to reach divine perfection is needed as the indispensable condition, so the Divine help is -also there to help man in his endeavour. There is a Divine will to manifest divine perfection in life. The world exists to manifest the Divine.
But there are difficulties and obstacles on the path. The late Dr. A. Coomarswamy wrote an article in the Hard ward university journal : "who is Satan ? and where is hell ?"
Dr. Coomarswamy argues that the attempts of some modern scholars to disprove their existence is mistaken and misses the mark. Satan is not outside, it is not a separate being : it is a part of man that blinds him to his own divinity. It opposes the divine potentiality in man and lures him with the false promise of fulfilment in the pursuit of power, of abnormal ambition. Under its influence man thinks that Divinity is not the Eternal Reality, but an illusion and an outmoded superstition. It is this part in man—mainly his vital being, that obstinately refuses to admit anything higher than his ego, his ambition and greed, his "will to power" and "to conquer".
When man accepts this active denial of his higher nature and takes to the path of the ego-centric outlook in life,—the satisfaction of desires and impulses and ambitions—as the highest fulfilment he creates hell. No actual hell can be compared to that which surrounds the living human beings.
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Modern culture all along tends to make this denial of man's higher possibility a logical conclusion. The modern mind has been meekly submitting to the triumphal march of materialistic outlook and-is trying to become its exponent and supporter.
The crisis of human culture is upon humanity : it has to choose between its ignorant egoistic nature and the Divine spark within him. Will my voice reach the wider collectivity of this great country ? I do not know. But I would like to appeal to, and awaken that sleeping soul of the pioneers who came as "pilgrims" seeking freedom of conscience; they did not come and found this country with the lust of gold. They wanted to find a place where they could worship God according to. their inner light. It is that which has found expression in Whitman, Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln and others less known to history. Has the material prosperity and its lure tempted the inheritors of that freedom of conscience ? It is for you to answer.
I come to this country to a when that original aspiration and I bring no feeble voice, no halting faith; for I bring the power of Mother India to awaken the brother soul of this nation, the country in which the call of the spirit has been ringing for thousands of years from the eternal snow of the Himalayas to Kanya Kumari.
From non-being lead me to Being,
From darkness lead me to Light,
From death lead me to Immortality.
This constant refrain in the life of the country has given rise to galaxies of personalities that bear witness not only to the truth of the aspiration but to the fact that it can become the guiding Light of , every day life. When the aspiration for the Divine becomes living and dynamic it tends always to transform life—individual and collective—into the image of the Divine. The voice of*ancient India ' proclaimed in the early dawn of man's culture "All this, indeed is for habitation by the Lord". It is in awakening this Spark in man— lying hidden under his extrovert nature,—that the remedy for resolving the crisis lies. Let us awaken that aspiration and by the aspiration the spark and make it the inspiring guide of our life so that we may make this earth of ours a fit "habitation for the Lord !"
A. B. PURANI
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Thus Spake Basava—Translators: A. S. Theodore and D. K. Hakari. Published by Basava Samiti, Bangalore 9. Pages : 82.
IT is gratifying that Karnataka has embarked on a series of centenary celebrations of her saints, mystics and other spiritual personalities. Last year witnessed the fourth centenary commemoration of Saint Purandaradasa, this year of Kanakadasa, his contemporary, and now Basava Samiti have organised the centenary celebration of Sri Basaveswara, a saint and mystic of rare insight who lived and taught in the 12th century and founded the sect of Veerasaivas. To -mark the occasion the Samiti have brought out this booklet containing English translation of a selection of 108 sayings or Vachanas of Basaveswara. ,
The translation is a brave and laudable effort; for, although composed in a language seemingly simple, interspersed with homely anecdotes and analogies, the Vachanas do not lend themselves to easy rendering into other languages least of all into a European language like English. Alive to this difficulty the translators have provided explanatory notes towards the end of the book to assist the general reader, as far as possible, in understanding the texts.
The Vachanas elucidate the philosophy and the ethical teachings of Basava. Devotion to Shiva and jangamas God and devotees of God-is the keynote of Veerasaivas. "Treat me, Lord, as feckless . beast of Thine... Raise me with Thy Grace and hold fast my mind , firmly to Thy feet... " prays Basava, and gazing at the Beatific Vision vouchsafed to him he bursts forth: "I behold none but Thee Where'er I lift mine eyes." There arc other moments of sublime exaltation too : "Thy Maya enshrouds the universe yet my mind possesses Thee. Therefore am I greater than Thou, greater than the universe the' Thou be ! " Is there anything impossible for the Divine Grace to accomplish or fulfil? No:
"If Thy hand be upon it the dead wood sprouts
With Thy favour the dried cow, its udders fill..."
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Basava accepts one God only although He may have many names. He has no use for 'Diverse gods in diverse places niched in plant, flower, tank and well' which men seek after; evidently he refers to vital gods arid other lesser beings who can at best confer health, wealth or progeny.. Likewise he does not hold with public worship in temples or pilgrimages and holy baths. He is vehemently opposed to any discrimination between man and man based solely on birth or caste. Although himself born to Brahmin parents he denounces the four uarnas of orthodox Hinduism.
Basava is intensely practical; to him world is a workshop and far better, he says, to serve humanity here, on this earth, than to aspire to the status of Brahma, Vishnu or Rudra.
And what of salvation ? This is, according to Veerasaivism, Nishpatti, perfection. "Perfection comes out of good action and good action comes out of vicāra, i.e., discrimination based on knowledge.. Reliance on linga1 helps proper discrimination and the basis for linga1 is the guru, the preceptor. The basis for guru is bhakti, i.e., devotion." (P. 8I)
"On the soil of devotion Guru as seed sprouts
Then as leaf appears the linga.
Branches of linga bear flowers in bloom for thoughts,
Which in season turn as young fruits for actions.
These mature and mellow by devotion's inspiring;
And full ripen'd they, annon to earth's dusty claim return.
But behold ! 'fore each could finish the fall,
"Mine own" claimed HE by HIS call,-
Lord Kudala Sangama."
KESHAVMURTI
1 The word linga has a distinct connotation in Veerasaiva philosophy. Briefly, ista linga is the gross Linga which the devout Veerasaiva receives at the time of his initiation by a Guru and which he has to wear aral worship throughout his life time. Through concentration and worship of ista linga the initiate gets into contact with the subtle prana linga, life-force, and through Prana Linga he meets bhdva linga, the Para Brahman.
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"Do not be troubled by your surroundings and their opposition. These conditions are often imposed as a kind of ordeal."
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