INDIAN NATIONALISM : (v) REPRESSIVE MEASURES

Bill MR. MACKARNESS' BILL

WE find in India to hand by men last week the full text to Mr. Mackerness' speech in introducing the Bill by which he proposes to amend the Regulation of 1818 and safeguard the liberties of the subject in India. We are by no means enamoured of the step which Mr. Mackarness has taken. We could have understood a proposal to abolish the regulation entirely and disclaimed the necessity or permissibility of coercion in India. This would be a sound Liberal position to take, but it would not have the slightest chance of success in England and would be no more than an emphatic form of protest not expected or intended to go further. British Liberalism is and has always been self-regarding, liberal at home, hankering after benevolent despotism and its inevitable consummation in dependencies. To ask Liberal England to give up the use of coercion in emergencies would be to ask it to contradict a deep-rooted instinct. We could have understood, again, a Bill which while leaving the Government powers of an extraordinary nature to deport the subject, under careful safeguards, in unusual and well defined cirumstances and for no more than a fixed period, would yet leave the aggrieved subject an opportunity after his release of vindicating his character and, if it appeared that he had been deported unwarrantably and without due inquiry or in spite of complete innocence, of obtaining fitting compensation. Such an act would meet both the considerations of State and the considerations of justice. It would leave the Government ample power in emergencies but would take from it the freedom to deport out of caprice, panic or unscrupulous reactionism. Deportation would then be a rare act of State necessity, not an autocratic lettre-de-cachet used to bolster up injustice or crush all opposition to the continuance of autocratic absolutism. Mr. Mackarness'

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Bill seems to us to leave the essence of deportation just where it was before. The changes made are purely palliative and palliative not of the unjust, irritating and odious character of the measure but of the apparent monstrocity of deporting a man without even letting him or his friends of the world know what charge lay against him or whether any charge lay against him. It is this which gives an ultra-Russian character to the Regulation and makes the Liberal conscience queasy. The proposed changes are a salve to that conscience, not a benefit to the victim of deportation. It makes his position, if anything, worse. It is bad to be punished without any charge, it is worse to be punished on a charge which you are debarred to all time from disproving.

There are three changes which the Bill contemplates. Instead of being able to confine a man until farther orders the Viceroy has to renew his sanction every three months, a change which may have some deterrent effect on a Viceroy with a Liberal conscience but to others will mean merely a quarterly expenditure of a drop of ink and a few strokes of the pen. Another and more important change is the provision that, to qualify for deportation, "a British subject must be reasonably suspected of having been guilty of treasonable practices or of a crime punishable by law, being an act of violence or intimidation and tending to interfere with or disturb the maintenance of law and order." "That" thinks Mr. Mackarness "insures in the first place that a man must have been guilty of some definite offence. At any rate it is intended to provide for that." Unfortunately the intention is all, there is no real provision for carrying it out, except the clause that the warrant shall contain a definite statement of the character of the crime. How will this clause help the alleged intention of the Bill ? It is only the character of the crime that has to be defined and, if the authorities relying on a Mazrue Haque or a Rakhal Laha frame a charge say against Sit. Surendranath Banerjee of waging war or abetting or conspiring to wage war or financing unlawful assemblies and incontinently deport him, would the Liberal conscience be satisfied ? Or would it be possible for the Moderate leader to meet this charge, however definite in character ? It is evident that to carry out the "intention" of the Bill it would be necessary to name the specific act or acts which constitute the offence and the time and circumstances of commission, for it is only a precise accusation that

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can be met. Even if a charge be precise in its terms, Mr. Mackarness' Bill provides no redress to the deportee. All that he can do is to submit a '"representation" to the officials who have deported him. Those who know the ways of the bureaucrat can tell beforehand the inevitable answer to such representations, "The Government have considered your representation and see no cause to alter the conclusions they had arrived at upon sufficient and reliable information." So the deportation will stand, the charge will stand and the last condition of the deportee will be worst than his first. The only advantage the Bill will secure is the greater opportunities for effective heckling in the House of Commons if facts can be secured which throw doubt on the charge; but the Government has always the answer that its evidence is reliable and conclusive but for reasons of State policy it is not advisible to disclose either its nature or its sources, and the relics of the Liberal conscience will be satisfied. As things stand the deportations have made even some Imperialistic consciences uneasy and that advantage will be lost under the new Bill.

Mr. Mackarness has admitted that the regulations are absolutely hateful and he would prefer to propose their entire abolition if such a proposal had any chance of acceptance by a British House of Commons. His amendments will not make them less hateful, they will only make them less calmly absurd. That is a gain to the the Government, not to us or to justice. The only provisions that would make deportation a reasonable though still autocratic measure of a State would be to allow the Viceroy to deport a person, stating the charge against him for a period of not more than six months and oblige the Government to provide the deportee on release with full particulars as to the nature of the information on which he was deported, so that he might seek redress against malicious slander by individuals or, if it were considered impolitic to disclose the sources of information, for wanton and arbitrary imprisonment by the authorities. The measure would still be oppressive but it would then give some chance to an agrieved and innocent man, so long as a sense or justice and some tradition of independence still linger in the higher tribunals of the land. Such a measure would have been a moderate measure and would have left the essential absolutism of Government in India unchanged. But even to this

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Bill does not rise. It is noticeable that the only Irish Nationalist whose name was on the Bill repudiated it as soon as he heard Mr. Mackarness' speech, on the ground that he had been under the impression that the Bill went much further than was now stated. The other names were those of British Liberals or Conservatives. This is significant of the difference between the sympathy we may expect even from conscientious English Liberals and the real fellow-feeling of a Nationalist who has himself known what it is to live under the conditions of bureaucratic coercion. Mr. Mackarness has fought the cause of the deportees in the spirit of genuine Liberalism, but his Bill is a concession to that watery British substitute for it which is only Imperialism afraid of its convictions.

THE POLICE BILL

The Police Bill has passed the Committee and next week, it is rumoured, will be made law. It is a provision for giving absolute power to the police Commissioner and his underlings. It is true that the power is limited in time in certain respects, but so long as it lasts it is arbitrary, absolute, without checks and, practically, without appeal. We hear that the present Police Commissioner resents any proposal to put a check on his absolute power as a personal insult. If so, he is in good company, for he only follows the example of that great philosopher and democratic statesman, Lord Morley, who resents democratic criticism of his measures and actions as a crime and sacrilage and a petty amendment of the present provisions for the deportation of inconvenient persons as a vote of censure. The spirit of absolutism fostered by arbitrary Government in India is not only swallowing up the old British virtues in India itself but encroaching on the free spirit of England. The powers of prohibition, regulation and arrest provided for in the Bill will exalt Mr. Halliday into the Czar of Calcutta. It is noticeable that any man may be arrested for the breach of any law by any policeman without a warrant and be sentenced to a fine of a hundred Rupees or, for certain political offences among others, to a month's hard labour. Any meeting can be stopped for a week at the sweet will and discretion of an individual. The provisions for search and

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entry of the police into houses and so called public places are so ample as to give a power of inquisition and domiciliary visit second only to the Russian. Even boardings, messes and private lodging houses are liable to entry at any hour and on any pretext. And by an inspired improvement and the stringent Bombay Act no action of. the police, however vexatious unwarranted and malicious, can be punished unless the agrieved party can prove bad faith, a condition which in nine cases out of ten of malicious harrassment is impossible of satisfaction. It is a sound principle that where a citizen has been causelessly harassed, the burden of proving good faith rests on the harasser. An opposite proviso means the destruction of the liberty of the person. No man's personal freedom and dignity henceforth will be safe for a moment from the whims of the lowest policeman in the street. The authorities may say that this is not the purposed object of the Bill. We have nothing to do with the intention of the framers, we have to do only with the provisions of the law itself, and it is enough if all these things are rendered possible under the provisions. To make bad laws and plead good intentions is an old evasion of weak and violent rulers.

THE POLITICAL MOTIVE

That there is a political motive behind the Bill, any child can see and to conceal it only the most flimsy precautions have been taken. The prohibitions of public meetings can have no reference to any but Swadeshi meetings, the reference to objectionable cries is obviously aimed at the national cry of Bandemataram and the power of harassing under the pretext of regulation public processions and meetings can have no objective but the revived meetings and processions which have shown that the national movement was not dead but only suspended. Other provisions of the Bill may be dictated by the soul object of strengthening the hands, already over strong, of the Calcutta Police in keeping order, but the nature and wording of these provisions coupled with the amazingly comprehensive definition of "public place" leave us no option but to see the obvious political motive behind. It is possible for the Police Commissioner under these provisions to paralyze every legitimate form of public activity

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in the city of Calcutta. It is no use sheltering under the provisions of the Bombay Act. The Bombay Act has been used to paralyze public activity of a kind inconvenient to the Government in that city. What, moreover, was the necessity of suddenly resorting to the stringency of the Bombay Act at this particular juncture. It is not alleged that any of the meetings or processions recently organised were disorderly or led to disturbance or public inconvenience. The only fresh emergency was the political.

A HINT FROM DINAJPUR

The Amrita Bazar Patrika notices a case from Dinajpur which may give a few hints to Sir Edward Baker if he really wants or is wanted to establish police autocracy in Calcutta. Mr. Garlick there justified the caning of witnesses and accused by the police as a necessary "method of examination" without which the administration of justice in this country cannot be carried on. He says "I dare say the police frequently quickened the witness' answers with a cut from their riding canes. Such methods of examination are no doubt to be deprecated but without them I do not suppose the police would get any information at all". The case will come up before the High Court and we await with interest the view that authority will take of this novel legal dictum. Meanwhile why should not Sir Edward Baker take time by the forelock and, after a now familiar method, validate such "methods" beforehand by a clause in his Police Bill empowering any policeman to cut with a cane any citizen whom he may fancy guilty of breaking any law so as to persuade him to desist? Of course the said policeman will not be liable to punishment unless it can be proved that he cut in bad faith.

POLITICAL PRISONERS

We extract elsewhere some very telling criticisms from the pen of the well-known positivist Mr. Frederic Harrison on the treatment of political prisoners. This is a subject on which a Nationalist writer is naturally somewhat shy of dilating, as any stress on the brutality and callousness of the treatment to which not only convicted but

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undertrial prisoners of gentle birth and breeding are sometime subjected in Indian jails, might be misinterpreted by our opponent as an unwillingness to face the penalties which repressive legislation inflicts on those who cherish great aspirations for their race and country. But two instances have occurred recently which compel attention. One is. the death of the convicted prisoner Ashok Nandi of consumption brought on by exposure and neglect during fever in the under-trial period of the Alipore Case. We exonerate from blame the jail authorities who were exceptionally humane men and would have been glad to deal humanly with the prisoners. But their blameless-ness only brings out the barbarity of a system which allows of the confinement of a delicate ailing lad in a punishment cell exposed night after night to the dews and cold of an unhealthy season, and that without his having committed any fault or shown anything but the mildest and most docile of characters. The other case is that of Mr. Achyutrao Kohlatkar of Nagpur, editor of the Deshsevak, a gentleman of distinguished ' education, ability and character, who was convicted for the publication in his paper of the reports of Sj. Aurobindo Ghose's speeches delivered at a time when Mr. Kohlatkar was absent from Nagpur. The Sessions Judge of Alipore declared on the police reports of these speeches that so far from being seditious or violent they told in favour of the speaker and not against him. We find it difficult to believe that the newspaper report of speeches from which the police would extract nothing that was not in the speaker's favour, could be at all seditious. Be that as it may, Mr. Kohlatkar was convicted and perhaps, according to the "strong man" code of ethics, fore feited claim for generous treatment by his refusal to apologise. We have heard rumours of treatment being meted out to him which can only be described as studied brutality and the evidence of eye-witnesses which have seen the condition to which he was reduced, do not encourage us to reject these reports as fabrications. Finally, the refusal of the Central Provinces Government to face independent medical inspection and so dispose of the serious allegations publicly preferred put a very ugly aspect on this case. If the allegations are proved, they amount to a treatment which would evoke the loudest indignation and reprobation in England if applied under the same circumstances in

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another country. But we cherish little hope of redress. The prison system of the European nations is only a refined and systematised savagery perpetuating the methods of ancient and mediaeval barbarity in forms that do not at once shock the eye. Besides, the account of the recent starvation strike of the Suffragettes has shown what callous and brutal treatment can be inflicted by English Officials in England itself even on women, and women of education, good birth, position and culture, guilty only of political obstruction and disorderliness. Yet this is the civilisation for which we are asked to sacrifice the inheritance of our forefathers !

AN OFFICIAL FREAK

We suppose in a bureaucracy it is inevitable that officials should be masters and be able to inflict inconvenience and loss on the citizen without any means of redress. Last Monday the publication of a new weekly named Dharma, edited by Aurobindo Ghosh, was due and had been widely announced. The issue was ready and the printer duly attended the Police Court to declare his responsibility for printing and publishing the periodical. Except under very unusual circumstances this is a mere formality and one would have thought no difficulty could intervene, for nothing could persuade the Court Official to refrain from delaying the acceptance till the next day. It was pointed out that this would entail unnecessary inconvenience and perhaps considerable financial loss, but that naturally did not concern him as he was the master of the public and not their servant. The next day a variation of the same vexatious procedure was repeated. It was whispered, we do not know with what truth, that the first delay was for the Criminal Investigation Department to have time to find out whether the printer had been convicted in any sedition case. If so it was futile delay. There is no concealment of the responsibility with regard to this paper. The name of the editor and proprietor was openly given and the printer was there to accept his responsibility. This does not look like intended sedition. If here were any doubt, the required information could easily have been gained from the Manager of the paper who was present and would no doubt have been glad to save delay and loss by stating the printer's

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antecedents. It was not likely that he would conceal a conviction as that would be a thing impossible to suppress. But then, if officialdom were to acquire a common sense, the laws of Nature would be sadly contravened and it is better to inflict loss on individuals than to upset a law of Nature.

THE LAW AND THE NATIONALIST

There are several points connected with the national movement hi which the law is in a state of dangerous uncertainty. The exact limit of sedition is one of them, the matter of social boycott is another. We believe that social boycott involving no violence or direct coercion is perfectly legal but it is certain that not only the Anglo-Indian community at large but a portion of the judiciary would be glad to find it illegal. Any doubt on such subjects ought to be removed, for although ignorance is in itself no excuse in law, it ought to be a defence when it is created by the uncertainties of the law itself. We think the Nationalist ought to take every opportunity of testing the extent of the liberties still allowed to us in the ordinary course of the law. We are aware that a section of Nationalist opinion has held that our principle of Swadeshi-Boycott ought to debar us from taking any part in any legal proceedings whatever. While many of us had openly expressed our admiration for the heroic stoicism with which this principle has been adhered to in many cases, we have not held it binding on any except those fine consciences to whom it appealed nor would we allow it to guide our own action. We hold that no Nationalist should resort to the British Courts under the present political conditions as against a brother Nationalist or in any circumstances which give him a real choice. If he is dragged to the criminal or civil courts by others he is entitled to defend himself to the end by all means that the law provides. If arbitration is refused in a case where his interests are attacked, he is absolved from the self-denying obligation, or if the law of the land compels him as a landholder or propertied or business man to protect himself by certain legal forms, it is obvious that he cannot deny himself that protection without imperilling work or wealth necessary to nation. The same overriding rule of necessity which compels us to exclude machinery

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and other instruments of education, work and production from the Boycott, limits the application of the arbitration principle and the abstention from British Courts. Formerly we were content to go our way in doubtful cases, such as the limits of the law of sedition, putting our own interpretation and taking the consequences of a too elastic reading of the law. We even held ourselves justified in the case of unjust and arbitrary laws in breaking them not by violence but peacefully and passively, as the Dissenters did in England, so as to get them either tested or altered. This we still hold to be morally and politically justifiable. But the outbreak of Terrorism compels us to restrict our circle of passive resistance lest even by the most peaceful rejection of unjust laws we should seem to be encouraging lawlessness and disorder. Still, if we are to observe the law scrupulously, just or unjust, we must know what the law is and now that there is a man at the head of judicial administration who knows the law and tries to keep to it, we ought to take advantage of this now unusual circumstance, and use every opportunity to fix the legal position of our movement and its methods.

AN EXTRAORDINARY PROHIBITION

Pandit Bhoje Dutt of Agra has been in our midst for some time, and none had hitherto imagined that he was a political agitator or his teachings dangerous to the public peace. We all knew him as secretary of the Suddhi Samaj, a religious body having for its object the re-admission of converts from Hinduism into the fold of the religion and also, we believe, the admission of converts to Hinduism from other religions into Hindu society with the full status of Hindus. The society has been working for sometime with signal success and no breach of the law or the peace. Yet the other day Mr. Swinhoe thought fit to prohibit the Pandit from lecturing in Calcutta and the public from attending his lectures for the space of two months. We reproduce the order as it accords singularly clear proof of the contention, always advanced by Nationalists, that under the present system such public liberty as we enjoy, is not an ensured right but an insecure concession, based not on status but on permission, and therefore not, properly speaking, a liberty at all. It runs :—

"Whereas it has been made to appear to me by evidence adduced

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before me that Pandit Bhoje Dutt, political agitator and Editor of the vernacular paper "Musafir Arya", Agra, has arrived in Calcutta and intends to lecture in the Albert Hall in Calcutta this evening at 8 p.m. on the subject of "Musulman logonke barkhilaf" i.e. against the interests of Mohamedans :—

And whereas I am satisfied that such lecturing or preaching by the said Pandit Bhoje Dutt at any place or in any building in Calcutta may lead to serious disturbance of the public tranquillity and rioting which will be a source of danger to human life and public safety :—

And whereas I am satisfied that the immediate prevention of such lecturing and preaching by the said Pandit Bhoje Dutt within the town of Calcutta is necessary in the interests of human life and safety and in order to prevent any riot or affray, I do hereby under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code order and direct the said Pandit Bhoje Dutt to refrain from delivering any lecture or preaching or holding or taking part in any meeting within the town of Calcutta, and I hereby direct the public generally to refrain from attending or taking part in any lecture or preaching by the said Pandit Bhoje Dutt and to refrain from attending or taking any part in any meeting or meetings held by or on behalf of the said Pandit Bhoje Dutt in the town of Calcutta and I further direct that this order shall remain in force for a period of two months from the date thereof.

Given under my hand and seal of this Court dated the 25th September 1909".

The value of the evidence which so easily satisfied Mr. Swinhoe may be judged from its inaccuracy and triviality. Pandit Bhoje Dutt is not a political agitator, but a religious preacher and social reformer; the proposed lecture had nothing to do with the Mahomedans and was upon the Hindu Puranas, and there was no breach of peace or any approach to a breach of the peace at Monghyr. So much for the accuracy. Secondly, Mr. Swinhoe ought to have known that, although a lecture may be against the interests of the Mahomedans, "against the interests of the Mahomedans" cannot be the title or subject of a lecture, and we can only suppose that this satisfactory witness was a badly-educated detective or informer who either did not know his own meaning or could not make it clear to Mr. Swinhoe. Nor is it alleged that the preaching in Monghyr resulted in a breach of the

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peace, only that it merely so resulted. On such incorrect and flimsy evidence, given exparte and without any opportunity to the lecturer to expose its falsity, a magistrate is able and willing to deprive a citizen of his civic rights for two months and hamper a legitimate movement. If, after proper enquiry, the Magistrate had found that there was likely to be anything inflammatory in the lecture, he could have stopped the speaker from giving that or any similar lecture, but, even so, there would be no ground for a prolonged denial of civic rights. Further, it is not enough that a lecture should be against the interests of any community, for there may be such a thing as legitimate oppostion of interests; the coversion of Hindus to Maho-medanism is against the interests of Hindus and the conversion of Mahomedans to Hinduism is against the interest of Mahomedans, but neither religion can, on that ground be denied the right of proselytisation. If it be argued that whatever the exercise of legitimate rights may lead to a breach of the peace, that exercise may be stopped, we say that this is a most dangerous principle, since it would be enough for any section of the community to break or threaten to break the peace to stop others from the exercise of their legitimate rights. On such grounds Mr. Asquith should be barred from holding any meeting because the suffragettes climb walls and throw stones wherever he goes ! Such a principle simply means putting a premium upon lawlessness. In other countries the indiscreet use of powers by Magistrates is restrained by public opinion but in India there is no such safeguard.

(Since the above was in type, the Police have undertaken to prove their statements, and the facts stated above must be taken as Pandit Bhoje Dutt's side of the case. Our general criticisms of the policy of the order remain unaffected. The chance now given to the Police to substantiate their case ought to have been given to the Pandit before the order was passed.—Ed.)

THE PATIALA ARRESTS

For sometime past the Native States of Rajputana and Punjab have been vying with each other in promulgations and legislations of a drastic character against sedition and conspiracy. The object of these edicts seems to be to stifle all agitation, all semblance of any

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political thought and activity that may be directed against the existing state of things not in the States themselves but in British India. Otherwise, it is impossible to account for the draconian severity of the language and substance of these ukases or the foolish thoroughness of some of the measures adopted, such as the prohibition of entry of even the colour less papers like the Bengali. The exponents of AngloIndian opinion point triumphantly to these measures both as a proof of aristocratic loyalty to British officialdom and as an index of the civility with which the agitation would be visited if, instead of the misplaced leniency of British bureaucrats, we were exposed to the ruthlessness of an indigenous government. As every Indian knows, these self-gratulations are insincere and meaningless. The majority of Native States are wholly under the thumb of the Resident and, with the exception of one or two independent princes, like the Gaekwar, neither Maharaja nor Council of Administration can call their souls their own. On all this comes the commotion in Patiala. The Patiala conspiracy has yet to be proved to be more real than the Midna pur specimen. But, if all is true that is being asserted in the Punjab press as to the refusal of the most ordinary privileges of defence to the numerous accused and the amazing and successful defiance of High Court orders by Mr. Warburton, the police are not going the best way to convince the public opinion on this point. The facts stated amount to a guess and shameless denial of justice. We do not blame the young Maharaja for his inability to interfere in favour of the oppressed victims of police rule. We know how helpless the princes are in the face of an Anglo-Indian Resident or employee and we wholly discredit the newspaper assertion that these strange proceedings were initiated or are willingly countenanced by him. It was first asserted that-as usual I-the police had full evidence and information in their hands. The present delay and sufferings entailed prove sufficiently that they had nothing of the kind-again, as usual. The arrested Arya Samajists may be innocent or guilty, but the procedure used against them would be tolerated in no country where law and equity were supreme.

(To be continued)

SRI AUROBINDO

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SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

CHAPTER IV

FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT

WESTERN LITERATURE

FRENCH LITERATURE (Continued)

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

WE have seen how the French philosophers of the eighteenth " century with Voltaire at their head strove to exalt reason to the rank of the supreme guide and judge of human life and do away with religion and all that it meant to them—irrational faith, crude superstitions, outworn conventions, and the blind allegiance of man to dead and senseless dogmas. They laughed to scorn the sacrosanct authority of the Church and dreamed of the social progress and individual freedom and advancement to be achieved by rationalism. They emphasised and inculcated what was already in the air, inspiring all contemporary philosophical and social thinking. They were inheritors of their immediate past, ardent followers of Descartes. But new ideas, new forces were now stirring in human nature, and it was high time their exclusive cult of reason was dislodged from its high throne. For, man is not all reason, all intellect; he has also a heart of feelings and passions; and however much reason may try to snub or suppress it by its arid glare, it throws up its foaming surges and undermines what reason has toiled to build. A natural reaction against the deification of reason set in. The voice of the heart struggled to express itself, and its deeper feelings and beliefs panted to recover the eternal object of their seeking, that without which the triumphant reign of reason seemed barren and vapid. This voice found its mouthpiece in France in Jean-Jacques Rousseau. But Rousseau was a prophet who did not understand the whole import and significance of what heaved in his own breast and boiled in his own blood. He delivered

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his message in stinging half-truths, naive paradoxes, and clumsy but eloquent contradictions. Though he took the literary world in France by storm and powerfully struck kindred chords in Germany, Italy and other parts of Europe, his gospel had but a potential success in his time—it bore abundant fruit in the near future, in the French Revolution, in the Romantic movement in literature, in the general recognition of the dignity and rights of the individual, and the enfranchisement of humanity from the fetters of feudalism and luxurious capitalistic aristocracy. As Goethe says, an old world ended with Voltaire, and a new world was born with Rousseau.

Rousseau called man to the simplicity, the naturalness, the un spoilt goodness of the primitive. Return to Nature by breaking out of the meshes of civilisation, he cried. The florid conventions, the gilded artificialities, the sophisticated amenities of civilisation choke the springs of simple sincerity and goodness in man. Civilisation dehumanises and mechanises man and leads him to duplicity, wickedness, and corruption. Shorn of its obvious extravagances, Rousseau's gospel finds an echo in every thinking being, as indeed, it did, later, in Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tolstoy.

In politics Rousseau fought for the common man and the community. He railed against the unequal possession of property. Property is the source of all social evils, he thundered—it leads to more and more exploitation, injustice, oppression etc. Some of his utterances have become the stock affirmation of socialism and communism. He was also a powerful and eloquent champion of the dignity and rights of the individual, Tyranny must be struck down and the liberty and dignity of man must be restored and safeguarded at all cost. His message contained some of the seminal ideas which govern even modern society and politics. His book, the Contract Social, exercised for about two centuries a profounder and more expansive influence than any other book of the eighteenth century. It became the Bible of the French revolutionaries, and a host of thinkers like Schiller and Hegel, Marx and Lenin were impregnated with its political ideas. He preached both individualism and socialism without being able to effect their reconciliation. He dreamed of an absolute State that would administer justice and fair play and guarantee the freedom of each individual. But such a state has never come into existence.

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What has actually come is a monolithic, authoritarian State nourished on the gospel of dialectical materialism in which the individuality of man is ground out of existence.

In education Rousseau's contribution is being more and more recognised as the days pass. The return to the simplicity of Nature, elimination of the treadmill of enormous text-books, training of the senses, development of the faculty of reflection and imagination, appreciation of Nature and a sympathetic response to its changing moods and aspects, and, above all, cultivation of music and the building up of a sound body, are some of the cardinal features of the education to which humanity is slowly awaking.

In religion and ethics his influence had a far-reaching success. He was no believer in institutional Christianity and dogmatic theology, but he was an ardent believer in God and fully realised the elevating power of religion and morals. Kant acknowledged his indebtedness to Rousseau in his conception of the moral life, and the subsequent, though not immediate, literary and philosophical thought of France throbbed and sparkled with something of the mediaeval faith. But it was a faith that blossomed in the light of reason and was not tainted by the old theological and superstitious orthodoxies.

To literature Rousseau's gifts were immense and varied. His "La Nouvelle Histoire" and "Confessions" infused the lyrical, romantic spirit, the zest for psychological exploration, and the love of Nature, which creations of the rationalists of his time so woefully lacked.

Herder and Goethe in Germany were influenced by Rousseau's vivid, idealistic, passionate romanticism and his thrilled delight in the beauties of Nature. Introspection, reverie and meditation, and the revelation of the instincts and impulses that prompt human actions gradually came to prevail in poetry, in fiction, and in other literary productions as a result of his impact. Rousseau's multiple contribution to literature, politics and education has not yet been adequately assessed. It is a pity a great prophetic genius was wrecked on the shoals of his own mental confusion and fantasies, and incredible temperamental oddities.

I have devoted a rather disproportionately large space to a survey of French literature, because it seemed to me that French

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language and literature, which exerted a great cultural influence practically over the whole of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merited it.

I shall now pass in rapid review the contributions of English and German literatures from the Renaissance to the close of the eighteenth century and then take up a survey of the nineteenth.

(To be continued)

RISHABHCHAND

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OLD BENGALI MYSTIC POEMS

(Charyapada)

III

She is the common ale-wife, she goes into both the rooms : (1)

She binds the ale tight with thongs of bark. (2)

Oh, fix the Simplicity and bind the ale tight, (3)

So mayst thou be ageless and deathless and carry solid shoulders (4)

The ten doors are marked : (5)

The customer observes it and comes by himself: (6)

The wine has been poured into the 65 jars (7)

Once the customer enters, there is no more exit for him. (8)

There is one jar and there is one thin spout. (9)

Birube says : steady your move. (10)

Notes

(1) The divine soul or consciousness in man embraces both the sphere of consciousness, the higher and the lower.

(2) That central consciousness hoards the delight, keeps it tight bound in the depth of the heart, so that it may not be spilt and spoilt—the material sheath with its teguments and ligaments must be strong and make a resisting armour.

(3) The supreme consciousness is simplicity itself. What can be more simple than Zero (Nirvana) ? One who follows, adheres to simplicity is the Simple Man (Sahaja). This simple single consciousness is to be affirmed, firmly established in this material frame, the body—which is to be made fit so that it may hold that delightful consciousness.

(5) The ten sense-instruments (indriyas) through which the consciousness passes in and out. They are to be vigilant and stamped with the seal of the ,supreme consciousness.

(6) The customer is the divine self, the true individual in man.

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(7) The complete number of the principles or elements of the human vessel.

(8) Once you have the divine delight and enter into it you can no longer be satisfied with anything else less.

(9) Truth is one and there is only one expression—that of the straight and narrow path.

(10) Drink but do not be drunk—steady and balanced and firm must be the frame that holds and expresses the divine consciousness and delight.

IV

O my mate, press triply and embrace me fast. (1)

The lotus and the thunder shall meet and I shall pass beyond time. (2)

O my mate, without you I cannot five a moment. (3)

I drink from your lips the very sap of the lotus. (4)

What I cast upward, my love, cannot be kept down here below. (5)

Climb towards the jewel centre and enter into the beyond. (6)

The room of the mother-in-law is under lock and key (7)

Cut away the wings, the sun and the moon. (8)

Gundari says I am a heroic reveller (9)

Between the man and the woman the victory banner is uplifted. (10)

(1) Triply—mind, life and body—bhūr-bhuvar-svar

(2) Lotus—the Heart Centre—The Divine within; Thunder—The Crown Centre—The Divine above

(5) The Consciousness—moves upward, it cannot be tied down upon the earth

(6) Jewel Centre—manipur, Solar plexus,

(7) Mother-in-law—ordinary consciousness

(8) Sun and Moon—day and night, the cycle of ordinary consciousness

(10) Purusha and Prakriti in right relation means the victory of the Supreme Consciousness.

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

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THE LIFE DIVINE

(BRIEF SUMMARY)

CHAPTER XIX

LIFE

MIND as a final action of Supermind is a creative and not only a perceptive power; in fact, material force itself being only a will in things working darkly as the expression of subconscious Mind, Mind is the immediate creator of the material universe. But the real creator is Supermind; for wherever there is Mind conscious or or subconscious, there must be Supermind regulating from behind the veil its activities and educing from them their truth of inevitable result. Not a mental Intelligence, but Supermind is the creator of the universe.—Mind manifests itself in the form of Force and Life to which we give the name of Life, and Life in Matter is an energy or power in dynamic movement which builds up forms, energies, maintains, disintegrates and recreates; death itself is only a process of life. It is one all-pervading Life or constant movement of dynamic energy which creates all these forms of the material universe and is not destroyed in the destruction of its forms.—The distinction between animal and plant life is unreal and that between the animate and the inanimate unessential. Plant-life has been found to be identical in organisation with animal life and, although the organisation may differ, life is also present in the metal, the earth, the atom. This life-force pervades the universe and is present in every form of it and there is a constant interchange of its energies which creates the symptoms and characteristics of vitality recognised by us; but even where these are suspended, Life is present and only withdraws by a process of dispersion which replaces the process of continual reconstitution of the form. The presence of these symptoms and characteristics is not the essential nor is their absence a sign of the absence of Life-force. Even where we do not detect Life, it exists.—Conscious nervous sensation accompanies life in the animal, but much of the action of

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nervous or life energy is subconscious; in the plant, as in many actions of man, the nervous sensation is present but the mentality of the sensation is subconscious. In the very atom there is a subconscious will and desire which must also be present in all atomic aggregates because they are present in the Force which constitutes the atom. That force is Chit-shakti, force of conscious being, variously represented in various forms of life.—Life is an energising of conscious being in substance of Matter, which on one side is constantly supplying the material of physical formation and on the other labouring to release mind and sense from their subconscious sleep in Matter. It is therefore the dynamic link between Mind and Matter. To create form and evolve consciousness out of its imprisonment in form is the sense of the omnipresent Life in the universe.

 CHAPTER XX

DEATH, DESIRE AND INCAPACITY

Life is the same whatever its workings and its terms need not be limited to those proper to physical existence. Life is a final operation of divine conscious-force for individualising existence; it is the energy-aspect of Mind when that creates and relates itself to form of substance : it has all the universal conscious-force of existence behind it and is not a separate entity or movement. Life in us must become conscious of this divine Force behind it in order to become divine. —Life, at first darkened, ignorant, divided and helplessly subject, seeks as it develops to become master and enjoyer, to grow in Power; but until it escapes from the bonds of individuality it must be subject to its three badges of limitation, Death, Desire and Incapacity.—The nature of physical life imposes death because all life exists by a mutual devouring and struggle and Life itself feeds upon the forms it creates; but the fundamental justification of Death is, the necessity of a constant variation of experience in succession of Time, the soul seeking thus to enlarge itself and move towards the realisation of its own infinity.—The process of Death results inevitably from the division of substance; life's attempt to aggrandise its being thus divided and limited translates itself into the hunger that devours. This hunger is

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the crude form of Death, and Desire is the necessary lever for self-affirmation; but eventually Desire is to grow out of the law of Hunger into the law of Love.—Desire itself is the result of the limitation of capacity which is the consequence of divided Life working as the energy of ignorant mind, all-force being only possible to all-knowledge. Therefore growth by struggle is the third Law of Life. This strife again has to divinise itself and become the clasp of Love. Until then Death, Desire and Strife are and must be the triple mask of the divine Life-principle in its cosmic self-affirmation.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ASCENT OF LIFE

The development of Life starts from an original status of division, subconscious will and inert subjection to mechanical forces. This is the type of material existence.—The terms of the second status which we recognise as vitality, are death, hunger and conscious desire, sense of limited capacity and struggle for survival and mastery. This is the basis of the Darwinian conception of Life, the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest. But this struggle involves a third status whose preparation is marked by the emergence of the conscious principle of love.—The third status contradicts the others in appearance, but really fulfils them. Life begins with division and aggregation based on the refusal of the atom, the first principle of ego and individuality to accept death and fusion by dissolution. This gives a firm basis for the creation of aggregate forms to be occupied by vital and mental individualities. In the next stage we have the general principle of death and dissolution by which the individual form fuses itself in its elements into other lives. This principle of constant fusion and interchange is the law of Life and extends into vital and mental existence as well as the physical. The two principles of indidual persistence and mutual fusion have to be harmonised and this can only be done by the emergence and full development of mind which alone is subtle enough to persist in individual consciousness beyond all fusion and dissolution of forms. Here the union and the harmony of the persistent individual and the persistent aggregate

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life becomes possible.—Love is the power by which the union and harmony are worked out; for love exists by the persistence of the individual and his conscious acceptance of the necessity and desire of interchange and self-giving. Its growth means the emergence of Mind imposing its law on the material existence, for Mind does not need to. devour in order to possess and grow; it increases by giving and confirms itself by fusion with others.—Subconscious will in the atom becomes hunger and conscious desire in the vital being. Love is the transfiguration of desire, a desire of possessing others but also of self-giving; at first subject to hunger and the desire of possession it reveals its own true law by an equal or greater joy in self-giving. —The inert subjection of the will in the atom to the not-self becomes in the vital being the sense of limited capacity and the struggle for possession and mastery. In the third status the not-self is recognised as a greater self and subjection to its law and need freely accepted; at the same time the individual by making the aggregate life and all it has to give his own, fulfils his impulse of possession. This is the Mind's reconciliation of the two conflicting principles which we find at the root of all existence.—But the true and perfect reconciliation can only come by passing beyond Mind and founding all the operations of life on the essential freedom and unity of the spirit.

SRI AUROBINDO

(From the Aryd)

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THE SPIRITUAL DESTINY OF THE WAKING STATE

III. THE W AK1NG STATE AND THE 'WHY' OF SAMADH1-PLUNGE

Above us dwells a superconscient god

Hidden in the mystery of his own light :

Around us is a vast of ignorance

Lit by the uncertain ray of the human mind,

Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute.

(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Bk. VII, C. II)

Since mind-consciousness is the sole waking state possessed by mental being,...it cannot ordinarily quite enter into another without leaving behind completely both all our waking existence and all our inward mind. This is the necessity of the Yogic trance.

(Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 452)

To enter into Samadhi is to pass into a state of which no conscious memory remains on awakening.

.............When people speak of Samadhi, I tell them, "Well, try to develop your inner individuality and you can enter into these very regions in full consciousness, with the delight of communion with the highest regions without losing consciousness for that and returning with a zero instead of an experience."

(The Mother, Bulletin, Vol. XIV NO·3, pp. 43-45)

Yes, they (all the states of higher realisation) can be attained even in full activity. Trance is not essential.

(Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga II, p. 715)

A THOROUGHGOING psychological self-investigation far transcending its present artificial bounds, an occult-spiritual exploration of the total field of our being, reveals the truth that what we normally know of ourselves is not all we are : it is no more than

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'a bubble on the ocean of our existence.' Indeed, apart from the very insignificant and resricted part of our waking individual consciousness, we are normally perfectly ignorant of the whole of the rest of our being, the immense more', that lies hidden in apparently inaccessible "reaches of being which descend into the profoundest depths of the sub cons. cient and rise to highest peaks of super conscience, or which surround our little field of our waking self with a wide circumconscient existence of which our mind and sense catch only a few indications."¹

As a matter of fact, following the ancient Wisdom of the Upanishads,² we can broadly divide the totality of our existence into four provinces or states : the 'waking state' or jāgrat, the subliminal or the 'dream-state' (svapna), the superconscient or the 'sleep-state' (susupti) and finally the state beyond or the 'ultimate state' (turiya). Corresponding to these four states of our existence, we have in us four selves or rather the four-fold status of the one self that is Brahman : the waking self or Vaiśvānara, the Waker; the dream-self or Taijasa, the Dreamer; the sleep-self or Prajna, the Sleeper; and finally the supreme or absolute self of being, the Fourth (caturtha), the Incommunicable (avyavahārya), the One without second (advaita), of which the three before are derivations.

In less abstruse and mystical terms, we may state that the fourfold scale of being delineated above represents, so to say, the 'degrees of the ladder of being' that an embodied soul must successively attain if he would seek to climb back from his phenomenal and ignorant self-view towards the supreme super conscience of the highest state of his self-being. But what are the essential traits of these four statuses ?

The Waking State: Our waking consciousness, the consciousness that we normally possess and that is dominated by the physical mind, is a limping surface consciousness shut up in the body limitation and within the confines of the little bit of personal mind. We are ordinarily aware only of our surface selves and quite ignorant of all that functions behind the veil. And yet "what is on the surface, what we know or think we know of ourselves and even believe that that is all we are,

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 592.

  : Vide, in particular, Mandukya Upanishad and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

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is only a small part of our being"¹, and by far the larger part lies hidden "behind the frontal consciousness, behind the veil, occult and known only by an occult knowledge."²

While in this normal waking consciousness, a man becomes externalised and gazes outward and rarely if ever inward (param paśyati nāntarātmari) .³ Hence the self in this status of external wakefulness has been described as 'wise of the outward' (jāgaritasthāno bahihprajñalz). 4 No spiritual life or any higher or deeper realisation becomes possible if one remains fettered to this waking state.

The Dream-State : This represents the subliminal condition of our conscious existence, the large luminous realm of interior consciousness, that corresponds to the subtler life-plane, the mind-plane and even a subtle physical plane of our being. Indeed, behind our outer existence, our outer mind and life and body,

Our larger being sits behind cryptic walls :

There are greatnesses hidden in our unseen parts

That wait their hour to step into life's front :

 

Our inner Mind dwells in a larger light,

Its brightness looks at us through hidden doors;

 

A mighty life-self with its inner powers

Supports the dwarfish modicum we call life;

 

Our body's subtle self is throned within

In its viewless palace of veridical dreams.⁵

Thus, the subliminal reach of our being comprises our inner existence, that is to say, our inner mind, inner life and inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them all. It is of the nature of a secret intraconscient and circumconscient awareness in full possession of a brilliant mind power, a limpid fife-force and an unclouded subtle-physical sense of things.

¹ & ² On Yoga II, p. 353.

³ Katha Upanishad, 11.

⁴ Mandukya Upanishad, 3.

⁵ Savitri, Bk. VII, C. II, p. 128.

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It is in this subliminal realm of our interior existence, the realm of subtle subjective supraphysical experiences and of dreams and visions and heavenly intimations, a veritable world of wonderful illuminations, that our mind and vital being retire when they withdraw by inward-drawn concentration from their absorption in surface activities.

It is because of its inward plunge bringing in its train a wealth of inner experiences, dreams and visions, that the self in this status has been termed the 'dream-self that is wise of the inward' (Svapna-sthāno 'ntahprajñah).¹

The Sleep-State : This corresponds to a still higher super-conscient status, a state of pure consciousness (prajñānaghana)², pure bliss (ānandamaya hyānandabhuk³) and pure mastery (sarvdvara⁴). This exalted state of self-absorbed consciousness is called 'sleep' because all mental or sensory experiences cease when we enter this super conscience. This 'dreamless sleep state' (yata supto ...na kañcana svapnam paśyati')⁵: this status of massed consciousness and omnipotent Intelligence (saroeśvara sarvajña⁶ ) , contains in it "all the powers of being but all compressed within itself and concentrated solely on itself and, when active, then active in a consciousness where all is the self,"⁷ It is in this superconscient 'sleepstate' that we become "inherently and intrinsically conscious of our self and spirit, not as here below by a reflection in silent mind or by acquisition of the knowledge of a hidden Being within us; it is through it, through that ether of super conscience, that we can pass to a supreme status, knowledge, experience'"⁸

The Turīya State : This corresponds to the highest status far transcending the first three, being the status of pure self-existence and absolute being, where consciousness and unconsciousness as we actually conceive of both lose their validity. It is the supreme state of Sachchidananda, 'a state of super conscience absorbed in its self-existence, in a self-silence or a self-ecstasy.'

¹ Mandukya Upanishad, 4.
²,³,⁵ Idid .,5.

⁴,6 Idid., 6.
⁷ The Life Divine, p, 405 f. n,
⁸ Ibid. , p. 501.

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About the self of this fourth or the Turiya state, the Mandukya Upanishad speaks :

"He who is neither inward-wise, nor outward-wise, nor both inward and outward wise, nor wisdom self-gathered, nor possessed of wisdom, nor un possessed of wisdom, He who is unseen and incommunicable, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, and un nameable, Whose essentiality is awareness of the Self in its single existence, in Whom all phenomena dissolve, Who is Calm, Who is Good, Who is is One than Whom there is no other, Him they deem the fourth : He is the Self, He is the object of Knowledge."¹

Such is then the fourfold divisions of the totality of our existence, and true knowledge, that is to say, spiritual knowledge about our self-being as well as about the world-being becomes available to us only when we succeed in establishing a conscious rapport with the subliminal and the now superconscient realms of our being. But unfortunately our waking state is blissfully ignorant of its connection with or even the very existence of these supernal reaches. So the goal of Yoga which is essentially an attempt at arriving at an integral self-knowledge, an entire consciousness and power of being and a supreme union or unity with Sachchidananda, the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute, can be attained only by a progressive ascension of the mind to higher and still higher planes or degrees of consciousness.

But here a serious and seemingly insuperable hitch presents itself. For mind is the sole waking consciousness actually possessed by man the mental being and this mind in its actuality completely fails to remain awake, beyond a certain line, in the really higher states of realisation where the heightened and intensified spiritual experiences are in the nature of thing sought. This almost absolute incompatibility of our waking mentality with the highest ranges of spiritual consciousness is strikingly brought out in the following very interesting account of Sri Ramakrishna's repeated failures to remain physically awake on the summits of realisation. Swami Saradananda, one of the closest direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the writer of his authoritative biography, is reporting :

¹ Mandukya Upanishad,  7 (Sri Aurobindo's translation).

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"In how simple terms the Thakur (i.e. Sri Ramakrishna) used to explain to us these abstruse truths of spiritual life :

" 'Well, something rises from my feet and climbs towards the head. So long as it does not reach the head, I retain consciousness; but as soon as it reaches there, an utter forgetfulness overtakes me -then here is no more seeing or hearing, far be it to speak. of talking. ' Who would speak then ?-The very sense of'!' and 'Thou' vanishes altogether! I often decide to speak everything to you, all about the visions and experiences that accompany this ascension. So long as that has reached so far (pointing to his heart) or even so far (pointing to his throat), reporting is possible and in fact I report; but as soon as that transcends this region (pointing to his throat), it seems somebody shuts my mouth and I fail to control my forgetfulness ! (Pointing to his throat) when one ascends still further than this level, no sooner than I contemplate for a moment to speak of the visions and experiences there, the mind immediately shoots upwards and no reporting becomes any more possible !'

"Oh, innumerable are the occasions when the Thakur sought to exercise the utmost control over himself so that he could report to us about the types of experiences that one has when the mind transcends the throat-centre but each time he failed !.. . One day he emphatically stated :

" 'Today I must speak to you everything, not a bit would I hide' —and he started to speak. He could very well speak all about the centres up to the heart and the throat, and then pointing to the junction of his eye-brows he said, 'Whenever the mind ascends here, the embodied soul has a vision of the supreme Self and goes into Samadhi. Then there exists but a thin transparent veil between the individual Self and the Supreme. And there the soul experiences in this way—' Speaking so far, as soon as he started detailing the realisation of the Supreme, he went into the Samadhi state. After coming out of his trance state, he recommenced reporting again, but again went into Samadhi. After such repeated attempts and failures he spoke to us with tears in his eyes :

" 'My sons, my intention is to report to you everything without hiding the least bit of it : but the Mother won't allow me to speak —She completely shut my mouth !'

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"We wondered at this and thought : 'How strange ! It is apparent that he is trying to report and that he is even suffering because of his failure to do so, but he seems to be altogether helpless in this matter—Surely the Mother must have been very naughty indeed ! He wants to speak about holy things, about the vision of God, and it is surely odd that She should shut his mouth !'

"We did not know at that time that the mind's range is indeed very much limited and that, unless one proceeds farther than its farthest reach, one cannot expect to have the realisation of the Supreme ! In our innocence we could not understand at that time that out of sheer love for us the Thakur was attempting the impossible I"¹

Sri Ramakrishna himself, in his inimitable style, emphasised on more than one occasion this fact of the inability of our mind-consciousness to retain its 'power of conscious discernment and defining experience' when it rises to the superconscient heights. He said :

"What happens when the mind reaches the seventh plane (and goes into Samadhi) cannot be described. Once a boat enters the 'black waters' of the ocean, it does not return. Nobody knows what happens to the boat after that. Therefore the boat (i.e. Mind) cannot give us any information about the ocean.

"Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. No sooner did it enter the water than it melted. Now, who would tell how deep the ocean was ?"²

So it is seen that in the actual state of our evolved waking existence the ascension and entry into the higher realms of our being becomes at all possible only by receding farther and farther from the waking mentality,

¹ Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna Lila-Prasanga (Gurubhava, Purvardha), pp. 64-66.

² The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 101.

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but...the very condition and status of that highest consciousness itself, in which alone it can be completely possessed and enjoyed while we are in the body."¹

But in that case our goal of dynamic divinisation of life becomes foredoomed to failure. So we must now see whether the trance can be progressively transformed into a waking Samadhi and its spiritual gains made manifest and active even in our waking existence.

JUGAL KlSHORE MUKHERJI

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 601.

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TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

CHAPTER XV

THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY

IF there is any religion, any cult or creed which is followed today with unfeigned interest, it is humanism or the religion or cult of humanity. It is believed that there is no better self-fulfilment ' than in the service of humanity, no more fruitful sacrifice than the sacrifice for the good of one's fellow-men, and no greater test of selflessness than philanthropic or humanitarian pursuit. "I must devote my life and all I possess to doing whatever I can to improve the lot of my fellow beings", says the modern humanist of the noblest type, "and try my best to bring 'a glint of light into the darkness of ignorant minds, raise a ripple of joyous laughter in despondent faces, and kindle a spark of hope in hearts that are sad and heavy-laden. What better use can there be of my life ?" Such is the thought and such the feeling that inspire those who are considered today the salt of the earth. Service of humanity is thus fully justified in the eyes of those who undertake it and glorified and extolled by those who benefit by it. It appears to be the best means of surpassing one's egoistic self and entering into the stream of universal life.

In fact, doing good to man has always been an important tenet of all world religions and an ideal of all ethical culture. From almsgiving and feeding the starving, to healing the sick, helping the needy, protecting the weak, and instructing the ignorant, all manner of philanthropic work has always engaged the mind and energies of religious and ethical people. Today when religion is under a cloud and even ethics scouted as a relic of cramping tradition, humanism is considered in a scientific spirit, as an important component of modern culture, and a practice of it indispensable to the fullness of a sophisticated life. Though the welfare of humanity has come to be equated with its physical well-being, its deeper ingredients have not been altogether forgotten. There is a steadily growing awareness of an integrated perfection of man and a drive towards its

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realisation by corporate effort. Perfection, unity, peace are among the principal objects of modern human endeavour at its best, and he must be a cynic who cries it down as a vain or transitory flourish of an unrealistic idealism. Indeed, since the Renaissance in the West, humanism has sought to claim the allegiance of all progressive minds. "The greatest good of the greatest number" has been the watchword of modern civilisation. The meaning the Renaissance attached to the word humanism has undergone such a change that, except in the "humanities" of university education, it retains nothing of its primal connotation. Particularly, since the eighteenth century, there have been propounded various ideals of humanitarian work, and many institutions have been founded to mobilise the philanthropic ideas, energies and material resources of men, so that human life may be better, healthier, saner, and more harmoniously happy and prosperous. The Unesco with its many-branching activities has established itself as a salutary force for human development and well-being.

It may be contended that much of this work is being crossed and perverted by political motives, and that what little is achieved is naturalised by other cognate factors. But even taking all this drawback into account, it would be uncharitable to deny the light and force of the ideal which is spreading into all layers of modern culture. There is no civilised country in the world today in which there is not some institution or some group of men coordinating all individual initiatives in the direction of humanitarian work, and exerting a moral pressure upon the human mind to emerge out of its selfish grooves and bear a hand in improving the general lot of mankind. The idea itself has a powerful appeal, and the thought has become almost inescapable. And, granting the force and appeal of the idea which has undoubtedly possessed itself of the modern mind, its fulfilment can only be a matter of time.

It may be contented again that the warm feeling which inspired the service of man in the past when it sprang from a consciousness of duty is lacking today. One who helped others or ministered to their well-being, in whatever modest way it might be, felt gratified at having had the opportunity and the means to

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do it. It was considered a religious obligation, an act of sacrament, a sacred duty, which one could disregard only to the detriment of one's spiritual progress. The sympathy, the sense of sharing which prompted the service of one's fellow men benefited the giver more than the receiver. But modern service is something mechanised, institutionalised, and coldly impersonal. The charge is not altogether unfounded, but it is too sweeping in its generalisation to be wholly true. Even today in what are rather arrogantly called developing countries—as if the prosperous nations had gone beyond all development—one comes across instances of social, national or humanitarian service which glow with genuine feelings of sympathy. But still it must be conceded that much of such service has become more or less mechanical and matter-of-fact, and hardly evokes any immediate deep feeling in the givers. In many cases, it cannot be denied, it has been rendered a powerful means of parading one's power and riches, and a sort of self-advertisement. Sympathy, compassion, kindness and generosity have not yet disappeared from the world, and their utility can never perhaps be over. But what has certainly to be guarded against is the mechanisation of generous impulses and the freezing of human feelings. If men become automations, their humanitarian service cannot but be reduced to a mechanised system, a drab routine work. And modern scientism is driving fast towards it.

However, admitting the great value of service to humanity, one may yet ask : "Is this the height of human endeavour ? Does it really contribute to human happiness ? Is it a means of effacing the ego, and its selfish motives ? Can it be done in a truly selfless spirit ? What is human welfare ? What is real happiness ? Are the persons who engage in such activities really happy ? Have they discovered the secret of making themselves and others happy ? What are the causes of human misery and how can they be eliminated ? What is the hidden motive behind this service, even at its best ? These are some of the questions we propose to consider next.

(To be continued)

RlSHABHCHAND

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LET US RECONSIDER EDUCATION*

A MASSIVE Report of the Education Commission has recently been submitted to the Government of India. Much had been expected of this Commission, and its Report has been hailed in many quarters as revolutionary. Indeed, the Commission itself has underlined the need for a drastic reform, almost a revolution in education. However, when one reads its recommendations one feels a sense of disappointment in the fact that it has missed the soul of education. It seems as though most of the attention has been paid to the external aspects of the educational system. Undoubtedly, the external aspects are important, and indeed the soul of education does need a fully developed body and organisation for its full effectivity, still, the external by itself cannot be properly and fully organised without the central recognition of the soul of education.

Undoubtedly, again, the Commission has declared explicitly that education is not a mere process of imparting information, that it has something to do with the whole personality of the student, that education has to be purposive, goal-seeking, that there should be a close link between education and life, that educational system must put forth ideals before the entire educational community. Not only that, the Commission has gone farther and underscored the point that the national system of education must be rooted in the basic values and the cherished traditions of the Indian nation and suited to the needs and aspirations of a modern society. It should, in other words, be science based while fully incorporating the highest Indian values. It has devoted a full chapter to the ideals of education system and has strongly recommended that all students should receive, among other things, an education in moral and spiritual values.

And yet we feel that this is not enough, in fact, hardly anything. For, when we try to be precise, we are greeted by some

* Based on a talk given by the writer on 13-8-1966 at Calcutta on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee celebrations of -Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir, Calcutta.

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vague phrases, such as those of democracy, tolerance, national unity, study of religious books, stress on moral principles common to all religions. It has been recommended that a period or two per week should be devoted to the study of religion and moral principles, and that those who give these periods need not be specialists, but should be drawn from the general teaching staff, representing, however, different communities. And what books should be read or studied ? Well, the recommendation is that the Departments of Comparative Religion in the Universities should be entrusted with the task of preparing the necessary text-books. And, of course, with regard to other national ideals, viz., democracy, national unity and secularism, the remedies are universal education, scientific spirit, learning of various Indian languages, periodical and organised occasions for meetings of students and teachers from different parts of the country, the formation of All-India schools and institutions, and a number of similar things, including those recommended by the Radhakrishnan's Commission and by the Commission on the Moral and Spiritual Education.

What are we to think of these recommendations ? One feels underlying these recommendations a cobweb of conflicting principles and ideologies, imported notions and even fashionable dogmas. One would have wished a more strenuous effort, if not at the solution of the problems, at least at a clear statement of them. But certain things seem to have been taken for granted. It is assumed, for instance, that reading of moral and religious books makes one moral and religious; or if not, what more can schools and colleges do in this regard ? Again, secularism is an axiom implicitly laid down by the Constitution; and what this word means is something quite difficult to define; in any case, it is made out that it does not oppose moral and spiritual training in the educational institutions. But what is moral and spiritual ? Indeed, it is difficult to define, we would be told, but surely, if we take important extracts from the great religious and moral writings of the world, we should be able to make out something. But, what if we find conflicting teachings among these ? Surely, then, these differences should be pruned off by the expert scissors of the departments of comparative religion in the Universities. And what is it that will be left after all this censor ? Perhaps

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nobody knows : for still the work remains to be done, and in the meantime we can hope for all sunshine and glory !

When one reads the recommendations about the goal of national unity, one wonders if the underlying assumption is that the unity is simply political and linguistic. Before all these modern revelations, one used to think that India had a basic unity, generated by the unity of the turn of thought, the direction of seeking, the harmony of inner and spiritual realisations. But now we are told that the unity of India will be maintained if we man oeuvre in the right way with regard to the problem of languages and the teaching of the great history and geography of India. One comes here again to the same sort of externality and superficiality of the handling of the problem; the soul of the problem lies far, far behind.

Secularism has been implicitly or explicitly regarded as a national goal and value. And what a confusing thing it is to so regard it ! Secularism, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, means the doctrine that morality should be non-religious, or the policy of excluding religious teaching from schools under State control. Now, the fact is that India is a land of numerous religions and it is therefore impossible for the State to patronised any particular religion. And yet, on the other hand, it is thought that there is something so valuable in religion that we cannot dispense with it at all ! The Radhakrishnan Commission Report states that morality derives its value only when it is rooted in religion. Otherwise, morality, it is pointed out, is a neutral thing by itself; courage, for example, is a virtue found both in a good man and in a wicked man. Obviously, we have here a sort of a dilemma, an acute problem; we have a situation that can properly be described as that of a disequilibrium; but how can it be described as a situation covered and solved by secularism ! And one fails to understand when we loosely talk of secularism as a value !

Democracy too, let us say, is not a value; it is a form of political organisation, it is a device; it is true that it recognises the dignity of man and accepts man as an end in himself; and these indeed are values, although, we must say, not the highest values. It is again true that democracy is a result of years of experimentation to preserve individual freedom while reconciling with the social need of stability

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and order. But even then it is a means, not an end. Moreover, democracy has still not proved its case; let us not forget that Socrates was condemned in a democracy, and a democracy in a city where education was at a high level. It does not follow, however, that we should abandon democracy. As a form, as a device, it has a certain utility, within certain limits; it has even a spiritual truth behind it, as many other alternative political forms have. But still, can we not clearly state to ourselves that democracy is a form, a device, instead of elevating it to the status of a value ? Value is something that is intrinsic, something that we cherish, something that we love and something in which we find our fulfilment. Value is something that transcends limitations.

In all this there is a clear indication of our ill-digested importation of ideas and sentiments from the West. And more than that, there is a deeper defect on our part, viz., the inability to seize properly and fully the entire realm of values and to find a dynamic way of their operation in the educational process. We speak of Science, we speak of modern dynamism, we speak of our Indian values and cherished traditions. The meanings of all these terms are a confused mess, and yet without clarifying ourselves about them we are trying to reconcile them.

The Commission lays down that education should be science-based and in coherence with the moral and spiritual values. It further recommends that education should be closely linked up with life itself. But, as we shall see shortly, when we analyse the chief terms of these recommendations, viz., science, morality, spirituality, and life, we shall find that the meaning of each one of them points to a state of disequilibrium; and it is impossible to reconstruct education on such a state of disequilibrium. When we still force ourselves to do so, we fail to provide to education that which is central to it, viz., its soul. This calls for a reconsideration of education.

*

* *

A thousand-rayed sun of solid mass of knowledge illuminating by an incessant downpour of its sheer lustre the universal skies and the hidden and distant secrets of Matter, a most potent drive of energy

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and action, and an irresistible bursting forth of love, joy and marvellous forms of beauty—these are the ideals, which, if accepted, would infuse the soul in education.

But as we pronounce these ideals, we hear a clamour and a noise of dogmatic denials and refusals, whispers and warnings of scepticism and agnosticism, arresting promises of Science, tempting words of compromising idealisms, scornful growls of the prisoners of the past, and even, the hostile mockery of the dwellers and enjoyers of the jungle of Ignorance. To the hostile mockery, however, we shall give a short shrift and ignore it. To the prisoners of the past we shall bid good-bye for we know that we must hew new paths for the future, even at the risk of committing mistakes. To the compromising idealisms we shall be grateful for their sympathy, but we shall say that what we have to seek is something radical and that shining words do not deliver the goods. The promises of Science, we shall welcome whole-heartedly, and invite Science as our co-wayfarer. But for the time being, we shall not allow its promises to arrest our movement towards a greater Science and a greater applied Science, the Science of the Spirit, the Shastra of Yoga. For Science today is circumscribed by a great philosophic scepticism and agnosticism, and looks at Yoga with suspicion and with indifference. This suspicion and this indifference we shall try our best to remove, for they are detrimental both to the Modern Science itself and to the great new knowledge that can be ours, if we can embrace whole-heartedly the great gift of India to the world, the knowledge and practice of Yoga.

(To be continued)

KIREET JOSHI

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THE YOGIC APPROACH TO ADMINISTRATION*

THE yogic approach to administration is not really one that you must do a little  or stand on your heads for five minutes before starting your official work; though prānāyam and standing on the head are a part of certain yogic disciplines. However, yoga essentially is much different. Yoga essentially means an attitude, a status of mind and consciousness. There can be, one might say, two attitudes in general to life and life's work. What are these two attitudes? There is the attitude of separative acquisition and possession, of competition, anxiety and strain. This is one attitude. There is another one of relative freedom, of detachment, of relaxation and of self-consecration. Whatever the sphere of life, these two attitudes are always possible. In the one, the basic position is that I regard myself as an individual rather sharply separated from others. I am an ego-personality. Then the attitude which arises in my mind is essentially competitive and the thoughts that arise are, 'my things', 'my position', 'my work', 'my merit' as against those of others. In the other case, the attitude is, this work is my line of consecration. I do my best and, in doing my best, I have an inner assurance that the best will happen to me. Here there is a sort of care-freeness as to what the others think of me and my work. What I really think of is the work I have to do. My consecration is fairly effective and I am trying to make my efficiency rise from level to level and, therefore, I am assured in my mind that it is all fairly nice. Evidently, there would be very little room for anxiety and then the mental powers as a whole would have a better chance of prospering. There would be more concentration, better work and, therefore, on the whole, a better sense of fulfilment in life.

We were considering two attitudes as two possible approaches to life and work as a whole. One may be called the narrow, small-minded egoistic attitude. The other that of wide, large-minded self-consecration. The former is very common and it belongs to the normal human nature. But it is always accompanied by competitiveness,

¹ A Talk to the Himachal Secretariat Staff in Simla.

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anxiety and tension. The latter has a sense of freedom, self-satisfaction and care-freeness. This latter approach is really the yogic approach to life. It is, more fully stated, the approach of detachment, of freedom, of faith, of consecration, of trust. This attitude has a rich reward to offer in joy, efficiency and success. But there are surely difficulties in taking up this attitude, as the normal constitution of human nature is of a divided personality, divided within itself and divided from others. When we are divided from others, then competitiveness, which naturally comes into play, brings strain and anxiety. In the yogic approach, we are called upon to consider ourselves as we really are, i.e., a part of the larger whole. Obviously I am not something complete by myself, but a part of a larger social structure and ultimately of the universal existence as such. Our larger social structure surely has a common aim and a common goal. In the egoistic way, I say—my position, my reward, my progress, my rise. In the yogic way, it is the larger truth that comes first. And if the larger truth is secured, then is the individual not automatically assured of his security ? The full yogic way is to take the view of Truth and Reality in regard to the affairs of life. And the first question of Truth and Reality is : "Is man a part of or is he the whole Reality ?" The yogic answer is : "No. All existence is one and each one of us is only a part." When we carry in ourselves the consciousness of being a part, and fit in properly in the scheme of the whole, then everything goes well. This is, in fact, a primary position of truth itself. If, on the other hand, each person who is a part takes himself to be the whole and then seeks to guide his life as such, then a mutual competitiveness comes into being resulting in a danger of existence to everyone. Anxiety, tension, insecurity then become unavoidable. There is another aspect of the matter also. If the right attitude of the whole and the part is taken, the individual begins to acquire a proper feeling for his own life and its inner complexity too. And that tends to reduce and eliminate the inner conflicts and tensions from personal life. This is a point to consider rather carefully.

I recall an interesting reading. There was an American journalist working here with the British and American armies during the last World War. He was a psychologist and his duty was to smooth out the differences arising between the two armies.

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He was also interested in observing Indian culture and making a study of it. While living in Delhi, he missed no opportunity to make a personal experience of the essential trends of Indian culture. After the war, he wrote a book entitled "Richer with Asia". In that book, he narrates lots of his experiences which he gathered during the war. He relates one incident. He says that he was once invited or he happened to attend a meeting at a private house in New Delhi which was to be addressed by Shrimati Sarojini Naidu as also by Begum Shah Nawaz. Those were the days when there was a strong political tension between the Congress and the Muslim League. Our American observer says that Sarojini Naidu spoke and presented the case of the Congress and then after her, Begum Shah Nawaz was called upon to present the case of the Muslim League. He adds that he feared there would soon be a riot even though this was a private house. He managed to take a corner in a safe place so that he could escape as soon as some kind of trouble arose, but he couldn't resist the temptation of listening to Begum Shah Nawaz, having listened to Sarojini Naidu. Then he says that he had the shock of his life when after Begum Shah Nawaz ended her speech, Sarojini Naidu and she embraced each other. And he says that he painfully felt that the Indian people did not seem to know what contradiction is. They did not know the distinction between truth and falsehood. How could both of them be right ? Either one was right or the other and one must necessarily be wrong. And then he goes on to give other illustrations of the kind. In the end he makes an astounding judgment. He says that the Hindu mind has had the joy of wholeness as perhaps no other mind in the world had done. He further elaborates that in Europe they have developed the philosophy which he calls the philosophy of "nothing-but-isms", by which he means that they say either this position is right or the opposite of it is right and that the two can never be right together. But the Indian thinks in a different manner. To him the two contradictories, of necessity, imply that they must be reconciled somewhere, somehow. The contradiction can never be absolute; the very fact that the two things are opposed means that there must be a way of some reconciliation between them; This is exactly the idea presented in the Gita in the concepts of 'the realm of the dualities' and 'the realm beyond

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the dualities'. There is a whole sphere of experience where the principle of contradiction holds good. But this is a lower sphere. There is another sphere, a higher one—the sphere of the spirit, where all contradictions are reconciled. The yogic approach strongly reminds us that the ultimate position is one of harmony, of wholeness. Contradiction is a lower position and where there is a contradiction, harmony is, in fact, more or less indicated by the very fact of contradiction. That certainly gives an attitude very different from the normal and the ordinary. That is to say, the yogic approach does not allow us to be daunted and frightened by a contradiction of any kind because it gives us an innate courage that there is a way of reconciliation for it. Imagine what power this attitude carries within itself ! A person who has an innate faith and belief that wholeness and harmony is the last word of things, then whenever problems and difficulties arise, he says, yes, there must be a solution for them and I must find it out and, surely one shall be found. This fact itself minimises the force of the contradiction and the difficulties wherever and in whatever form they happen to arise.

The yogic approach thus gives us an appreciation for wholeness, for reconciliation. That makes a very fine contribution to our personal lives as individuals too. If one were to ask oneself, what most determines a man's happiness and what is most responsible for his un-happiness, one would sooner or later discover that freedom from inner conflict, tension and contradiction is itself happiness and their presence is unhappiness. The modern psychological investigations which have become associated with the name of Freud have shown clearly that conflict is always the cause of mental derangement and to lose mental sanity is to lose everything. A man may possess all the wealth of the world but if he does not possess sanity of mind, he has no capacity to enjoy even a fraction of that wealth. Now what is it that produces the greatest amount of happiness ? That which not only produces but by itself constitutes human happiness is inner harmony and peace. A man is rich if he has inner peace and harmony. It is the wealth of inner peace and harmony which makes the enjoyment of the goods of life possible. If a person has an inner equality, peace, tranquillity, it is like a mirror, steady and firm, in which every object truly reflects itself. If there is no tranquillity of mind,

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one might see a fine picture and yet miss all the enjoyment of it. One may be served with excellent food and if he lacks inner equality and tranquillity, he may not enjoy it at all. If at that moment, he is ridden by anxiety, the most delicious things can appear to him as utterly insipid. Are all these truths or not ? In fact, they belong to common experience and anybody who would care to observe can verify them for himself.

In administration, there are problems of various kinds. One thing that is almost the key of the effective working of administration is the capacity in the men in position to inspire confidence in others. This is not only true of administration, this is also true of other spheres of life. If one could inspire confidence in the persons with whom one has to deal, one would naturally command their collaboration more easily. Now consider what we said a little while ago. A person who seeks inner wholeness, who appreciates peace within and harmony in the social set-up outside, will surely be a man with some sincerity and honesty of purpose. Virtually, the greatest punishment which dishonesty and insincerity bring in their wake is the loss of inner peace. You might succeed against another person by using a false pretence but you can't succeed against yourself. This is most interesting. When there is a lapse in sincerity and honesty, there is a conflict created in the mind. And what happens if one goes on behaving in a manner which is not straight. He multiplies his inner conflicts. And, in course of of time, he can become so gross that he may become less aware of them. But the divisions do not thereby disappear. In fact, such a person becomes so gross in his life that only the grossest pleasures are then able to make an impression upon him; he loses capacity for refinement in life. He falls in his standard of conscious living. On the other hand, a person who remains sensitive about his inner motivations and keeps them in adjustment and harmony, his capacity for joy grows from more to more. How many of us really have the capacity to enjoy beauty in nature ? Very few, in fact. Whereas there is a rich harvest of beauty all around us but unless the inner capacity for enjoyment is there, it is all as good as non-existent. Now a person who has an appreciation for inner harmony and peace will automatically have more sincerity and honesty in his

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character. If he has, he will enjoy greater clarity of mind. And one most wonderful thing is that in that case our words have more force with others. If my words are just a manipulation of the tongue, they come and pass off and do not touch anybody; but if they proceed from the depths within me, they have a chance of touching a corresponding depth in others.

Now an administrator in the measure that he has built up and nursed carefully from day to day a sincerity and honesty of purpose, while enjoying more of inner peace and health, will also be more effective with others. This is again a lesson of life, a complete experience of life, which can be observed and verified. And if one has more effect with others, will his work not become easier in every way? Certainly, the work will become easier. The yoga says that our short-sighted reactions of the superficial mind are really self-defeating mechanisms of the ego. This is more or less an axiomatic judgment of both yoga and psychology. In fact, there are lots of of actions and reactions in us which are of a self-defeating nature. One such fact is that if you seek pleasure, the chances are that you will miss it. There is another similar truth of life—if you try to make an impression on another, you will usually fail in doing so. Now these are some of the simple truths of life worth putting into practice to find out if they do offer any rewards for life or not.

The yoga calls these superficial ways self-defeating. They deceive one in the end. On the contrary, the honest and the sincere and the straightforward and the frank ways, involving clear dedication to the task are the ways which are solid as a rock and more effective for the results that anything can be. Therefore, the Yoga says—look here, this is in your interest, in your own selfish interest to take this larger out-look. If you approach life in that superficial way, you get failure. If you approach life in a deeper and steadier way, success is sure for you in every way both in personal as well as in professional life. Sri Aurobindo, whose name most of you have surely heard, was very keen on finding out a way by which human life as a whole, in the individual as well as in society, could be raised to a happier level. He said, why man should remain poor and niggardly, petty and unhappy ? He said, man is endowed with a blissful soul and has such a wonderful power and capacity.

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He insisted that ways and means should be discovered to bring these hidden capacities into overt expression and to improve the life of the individual and of the society. When he withdrew from politics in the year 1910, this was the quest which engrossed him and he decided to explore and find the way by which the avenues of larger living could be opened up to man. And he found that yoga was the way. Yoga is not something for those who have renounced the world and live in a cave on the Himalayas. He says, yoga is like education. Through the yoga, the larger powers and capacities can be developed and a man can become entitled to a rich life. Sri Aurobindo said, man lives like a beggar. Even those who believe themselves to be rich, high and proud, are also beggars. Why ? Because they suffer from wants, they complain of this and of that. Where is the sense of richness and plenty in them ? A man is rich when he has a sense of plenty in him. How can he have this ? Virtually a sense of plenty is altogether a thing of experience and not a thing of external possessions. A man can have all the wealth of the world and yet in his experience can be poor and niggardly and it is also possible that a man may possess nothing on earth and yet may lead a wonderful existence. Now what is really this sense of plenty ? In fact, a man who can eliminate hankering from his life becomes rewarded with plenty. To the extent that a man is subject to hankering, to trsnā, to craving for things, he is a beggar. And a man who has eliminated, rejected trroā from his own life, he is a king. Perhaps this is not convincing enough. But that is exactly the prospect held out by yoga. In fact, there is a further prospect too. The yoga says that not only you can be a king to yourself, you can be a king over others. The yoga says, Swarājya in the true sense means that one becomes a master of one's unruly impulses. One may not be subject to somebody's external control but one may be a slave to one's own desires. Supposing a person is lying sick and the doctor says, ' you mustn't eat this or that. But then such a hankering takes possession of him that, he says, he can't help it, he must have it. Now does it not mean sustaining an inner defeat which would necessarily give a feeling of depression. He knows he should not do it and yet he does it. Now, when he feels helpless, certainly he sustains a defeat. He doesn't have a sense of power. Supposing, he feels he

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ought not to do something and he doesn't do it, he enjoys a sense of power, a confidence and a self-mastery. Now Swārājya means mastery over the unruly impulses within us and the yoga says one who becomes
a master within himself, acquires mastery over others too. If a person attains Swārājya, he also attains Sāmrājya. He acquires power over similar impulses in others. From this, in fact, a psychological truth, a very great lesson for administration at the higher, level becomes available. We have, say, a person in charge of a district. He has to command quite a large population. He is anxious to have a real insight into the working of human nature. Now, the yoga says your insight in human nature depends upon the measure of insight you have acquired as to the working of human nature within yourself If. you learn to understand human nature here you will be able tounderstand human nature there too. The yoga says, a ruler who aspires really to rule over others has to learn to rule over himself as a precedent condition. Thus, arises a wonderful concept-the concept of a "self-ruled ruler". Sri Aurobindo, in fact, sums up the ideal of Indian polity in this brief phrase.

The President of this meeting, Shri B. N. Maheshwari, very rightly referred to the most wonderful institution of Indian political life in the opening remarks when he referred to Vashishta and Ramchandra and the relationship between them. Did Vashishta occupy any official position in the State Organisation of Ramchandra ? None whatsoever. And when Vashishta gave advice, did he demand that it must be accepted ? No, that was not the way of that relationship. And what was the attitude of Ramchandra ? He sought Vashishta's advice. Ramchandra would seek Vashishta's advice and Vashishta would give it and yet leave him entirely free to follow the way that he chose to do. This was a wonderful kind of institution. That is to say, here was accorded an authority and a status which depended entirely on the character, the insights and the realisations of the person. The person had no official position. His advice was sought because his advice was valuable; the king was not haughty and conceited to take the attitude, "Well, I won't seek advice." No, there was a recognition on the part of the temporal power that the spiritual power had a high status' in the experience of life—so the temporal power sought the advice of the spiritual but

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the spiritual left the temporal entirely free to respond to the force of truth itself. Thus a wonderful kind of relationship came into being.

This has been a most valuable institution in Indian polity and the advantages of it have been enormous. Let us say, a situation of conflict arises between the temporal power and the people. The spiritual power can intervene and ease the situation because it is so high and above, independent and impartial, and commands the confidence of both the king as well as the people. A Vashishta could come and say, "Well, it is not altogether right what Ramchandra did but the people should be discreet and obedient."

This has been a unique feature of Indian polity and one can only hope and pray that this may become a living force again.

In the end, we might contemplate a difficulty and objection. Many amongst you might say that the yogic attitude of consecration, dedication, of the part fitting in with the whole, is surely right. But is it not too idealistic ? Is it really practicable ?

The objection and difficulty are entirely understandable. Our ordinary attitude of a divided personality, of a fearful nature, is too deeply ingrained in us. But what we are here contemplating is the possibility of a new approach, the validity of it and the prospect of it for life. Let us dwell on the new possibility and if it attracts us, let us aspire that we might be able to make a beginning. And if we do make a beginning, the joy it may bring will be its own encouragement. And even if a few here are able to launch out on this new prospect of life, they may well create a new direction of aspiration and a new quality of atmosphere. And what a great difference would it make for all, for their life as also for the work.

INDRA SEN

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REVIEW

The Hindu Philosophy of Conduct By Prof. M. Rangacharya. Pub. Educational Pub. Co., Madras 34. pp. 430, Price Rs. 12.

THIS is the third and final volume of the lectures of the author, the late Prof. Rangacharya, on the Bhagavad Gita, now in its second edition. Like the previous two volumes, it contains the text, translation and exposition. The subject-matter of the present book is the last six chapters of the Gita which are treated as one block. Prof. Rangacharya treats the first six chapters as one unit expounding knowledge of the Soul, the next six as relating to knowledge of God and the last six to the application of this self-knowledge and God-knowledge to life in the world.

While explaining the concepts and ideas the author draws upon the commentaries of Shankara and Ramanuja, points out where the commentaries are not satisfying and goes on to give his own rational presentation. He cites from various authentic works; for instance, while developing the argument in the famous Mahavakya of the Gita in which the Lord calls upon the devotee to surrender to Him alone leaving all man-made standards aside, Prof. Rangacharya writes : "We are now in a position to grasp the significance of the six ingredients of prapatti, which the Lakshmi-Tantra mentions-the practice of that which is good, the avoidance of that which is evil, a strong faith that God alone is the deliverer, earnest prayer to God for protection, the entire entrusting of one's soul to the disposal of God and the realisation of one's own littleness." (P. 360)

The three volumes are a worthy contribution to the Gita literature of the land.

M. P. PANDIT

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