INDIAN NATIONALISM:

THE FUTURE (Continued)

TO MY COUNTRYMEN

TWO decisive incidents have happened which make it compulsory on the Nationalist party to abandon their attitude of reserve and expectancy and once more assume their legitimate place in the struggle for Indian liberties. The Reforms, so long trumpeted as the beginning of a new era of constitutional progress in India, have been thoroughly revealed to the public intelligence by the publication of the Council's Regulations and the results of the elections showing the inevitable nature and composition of the Councils. The negotiations for the union of Moderates and Nationalists in a United Congress have failed owing to the insistence of the former on the Nationalists subscribing to a Moderate profession of faith.

The survival of Moderate politics in India depended on two factors, the genuineness and success of the promised Reforms and the use made by the Conventionists of the opportunity given them by the practical suppression of Nationalist public activity. The field was clear for them to establish the effectiveness of the Moderate policy and the living force of the Moderate party. Had the Reforms been a genuine initiation of the constitutional progress, the Moderate tactics might have received some justification from events. Or had the Moderates given proof of the power of carrying on a robust and vigorous agitation for popular rights, their strength and vitality as a political force might have been established, even if their effectiveness had been disproved. The Reforms have shown that nothing can be expected from persistence in Moderate politics except retrogression, disappointment and humiliation. The experience of the last year has shown that, without the Nationalists at their back, the Moderates are impotent for opposition and robust agitation. The political life of India in their hands has languished...

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By the incontrovertible logic of events it has appeared that the success and vigour of the great movement inaugurated in 1905 was due to the union of Moderate and Nationalist on the platform of self-help and passive resistance. It was in order to provide an opportunity for the re-establishment of this union, broken at Surat, that the Nationalists gathered in force at Hughly in order to secure some basis and means of negotiation which might lead to united effort. The hand which we held out, has been rejected. The policy of Lord Morley has been to rally the Moderates and coerce the Nationalists; the policy of the Moderate party led by Mr. Gokhale and Sir Ferozashah Mehta has been to play into the hands of that policy and give it free course and a chance of success. This alliance has failed of its objects, the beggarly reward the Moderates have received has been confined to the smallest and least popular elements in their party. But the rejection of the alliance with their own countrymen by the insistence on creed and constitution shows that the Moderates mean to persist in their course even when all motive and political justification for it have disappeared. Discomfited and humiliated by the Govermnment, they can still find no way to retrieve their position nor any clear and rational course to suggest to the Indian people whom they misled into a misunderstanding of the very hmited promises held out by Lord Morley.

Separated from the great volume of Nationalist feeling in the country, willfully shutting its doors to popularity and strength by the formation of electorates as close and limited as those of the Reformed Councils, self-doomed to persistence in a policy which has led to signal disaster, the Convention is destined to perish of inanition and popular indifference, dislike and opposition. If the Nationalists stand back any longer, either the Nationalist movement will disappear or the void created will be filled by a sinister and violent activity. Neither result can be tolerated by men desirous of their country's development and freedom.

The period of waiting is over.......We have two things made clear to us, first, that the future of the nation is in our hands, and secondly, that from the Moderate party we can expect no cordial co-operation in building it. Whatever we do, we must do ourselves, in our own strength and courage. Let us then take up the work the God has given

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us, like courageous, steadfast and patriotic men willing to sacrifice greatly and venture greatly because the mission also is great. If there are any unnerved by the fear of repression, let them stand aside. If there are any who think that by flattering Anglo-India or coquetting with English Liberalism they can dispense with the need of effort and the inevitability of peril, let them stand aside. If there are any who are ready to be satisfied with mean gains and unsubstantial concessions, let them stand aside. But all who deserve the name of Nationalists, must now come forward and take up their burden.

The fear of the law is for those who break the law. Our aims are great and honourable, free from stain or reproach, our methods are peaceful, though resolute and strenuous. We shall not break the law and, therefore, we need not fear the law. But if a corrupt police, unscrupulous officials or a partial judiciary make use of the honourable publicity of our political methods to harass the men who stand in front by illegal ukases, suborned and perjured evidence, or unjust decisions, shall we shrink from the toll that we have to pay on our march to freedom ? Shall we cower behind a petty secrecy or a dishonorable inactivity ? We must have our associations, our organisations, our means of propaganda, and if these are suppressed by arbitrary proclamations, we shall have done our duty by our motherland and not on us will rest any responsibility for the madness which crashes down open and lawful political activity in order to give a desperate and sullen nation into the hand of those fiercely enthusiastic and unscrupulous forces that have risen among us inside and outside India. So long as any loophole is left for peaceful effort, we will not renounce the struggle. If the conditions are made difficult and almost impossible, can they be worse than those our countrymen have to contend against in the Transvaal. Or shall we, the flower of Indian culture and education, show less capacity and self-devotion than the coolies and shopkeepers who are there rejoicing to suffer for the honour of the nation and the welfare of their community ?

What is it for which we strive? The perfect self-fulfilment of India and the independence which is the condition of self-fulfilment are our ultimate goal. In the meanwhile such imperfect self-develop-ment and such incomplete self-government as are possible in less favorable circumstances, must be attained as a preliminary to the more

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distant realisation What we seek is to evolve self-government either through our own institutions or through those provided for us by the law of the land. No such evolution is possible by the latter means without some measure of administrative control. We demand therefore not the monstrous and misbegotten scheme which has just been brought into being, but a measure of reform based upon those democratic principles which are ignored in Lord Morley's Reforms,—a literate electorate without distinction of creed, nationality or caste, freedom of election unhampered by exclusory clauses, an effective voice in legislation and finance and some check upon an arbitrary executive. We demand also the gradual devolution of executive government out of the hands of bureaucracy into those of the people. Until these demands are granted, we shall use the pressure of that refusal of co-operation which is termed passive resistance. We shall exercise that pressure within the limits allowed us by the law, but apart from that limitation the extent to which we shall use it, depends on expediency and the amount of resistance we have to overcome.

On our own side we have great and pressing problems to solve. National education languishes for want of moral stimulus, financial support, and emancipated brains keen and bold enough to grapple with the difficulties that hamper its organisation and progress. The movement of arbitration, successful in its inception, has been dropped as a result of repression. The Swadeshi-Boycott movement still moves by its own impetus, but its forward march has no longer the rapidity and organised irresistibility of forceful purpose which once swept it forward. Social problems are pressing upon us which we can no longer ignore. We must take up the organisation of knowledge in our country, neglected throughout the last century. We must free our social and economic development from the incubus of the litigious resort to the ruinously expensive British Courts. We must once more seek to push forward the movement toward economic self-sufficiency, industrial independence.

These are the objects for which we have to organise the national strength of India. On us falls the burden, in us alone there is the moral ardour, faith and readiness for sacrifice which can attempt and go far to accomplish the task. But the first requisite is the organisation of the Nationalist party. I invite that party in all the great centres

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of the country to take up that work and assist the leaders who will shortly meet to consider steps for the initiation of Nationalist activity. It is desirable to establish a Nationalist Council and hold a meeting of the body in March or April of the next year. It is necessary also to establish a Nationalist Association throughout the country. When we have done this, we shall be able to formulate our programme and assume our proper place in the political life of India.

THE NECESSITY OF THE SITUATION

A very serious crisis has been induced in Indian politics by the revival of Terrorist outrages and the increasing evidences of the existence of an armed and militant revolutionary party determined to fight force by force. The effect on the Government seems to have been of a character very little complimentary to British statesmanship. Faced by this menace to peace and security the only device they can think of is to make peaceful agitation impossible. Their first step is to proclaim all India as seditious. Their second is to announce the introduction of fresh legislation making yet more stringent the already all-embracing law of sedition. By these two measures free speech in press or platform will be practically interdicted, since the peril of truthfulness will be so great that men will prefer to take refuge either in a lying hypocrisy, or in silence. Frankness, honesty, self-respecting and truthful opposition in Indian politics are at an end. The spirit which dictates the resort to these measures, will inevitably manifest itself also in the proclamation as illegal of all societies or organisations openly formed for the purpose of training the strength of the nation by solid and self-respecting political and educational work towards a free and noble future. By the law which gives the Government that power of arbitrary suppression associated work is rendered impossible, though not as yet penalised. If free speech, if free writing, if free association is made impossible under the law, it is tantamount to declaring a peaceful Nationalism illegal and criminal...

The effect of the recent assassinations on the Moderate party has been to throw them into a panic and demoralisation painful for any lover of Indian manhood to witness. It is quite possible for an Indian politician at this crisis to consider in a spirit of worthy gravity and serious

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recognition of the issues involved the best way of combating the evil, even if it involves co-operation with a Government which persists in the repression of the national hopes and aspirations and seeks to compel co-operation by pressure instead of by winning the hearts of the people. But that is not the spirit shown by Moderate organs and by Moderate leaders. All that we can see is a desperate and cowardly sauve qui peut, an attempt by every man to save himself and to burrow under a heap of meaningless words. Wild denunciations of the revolutionary instruments as fiends, dastards, cowards, with loads of other epithets which defeat their purpose by their grotesque violence; st ran ge panegyrics of the deceased police officer as a patriot, saint, martyr by those who formerly never discovered his transcendent merits or had a good word to say for the police; meetings to arrange steps for the suppression of Anarchism loudly advertised by leaders who know that they are powerless to take any effective steps in the present state of the country; Vigilance Committees which can at be st play for the hired vigils of watchmen easily avoidable by a skilful nocturnal assassin;-are these the speech and action of responsible and serious political leaders or the ravings and spasmodic gesticulations of a terrified instinct of self-preservation?

The Nationalist party can take no share in these degrading performances. On the other hand its own remedies, its own activities are doubly inhibited, inhibited from below by the" paralysing effect of successful or tempted assassinations, inhibited from above by panic-stricken suspicion, panic-stricken repression. We have not disguised our policy, we have openly advertised our plans of party reconstruction and reorganisation, we have sought to speak and act candidly before the Government and the country, not extenuating the errors of the Government, not inflaming the minds of the people. The first answer to our propaganda was given by the revolutionary party in the blow struck at Nasik, the second by the Government in the extension of the Seditious Meetings Act to all India. We still felt it our duty to persevere, leaving the results of our activity to a higher Power. The assassination in the High Court and the announcement of a stringent Press legislation convinces us that any further prosecution of the public activities we contemplated, will be vain and unreasonable. Until, therefore, a more settled state of things supervenes and normal conditions

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can be restored, we propose to refrain from farther political action. The Government and the Anglo-Indian community seem to be agreed that by some process of political chemistry unknown to us the propagation of peaceful Nationalism generates armed and militant revolutionism and the best way to get rid of the latter is to suppress the former. We will give them the chance by suppressing ourselves so far as current Indian politics are concerned. We have no wish to embarrass the action of the Government or to accentuate the difficulties of the situation. The Government have no doubt a policy of their own and a theory of the best means of suppressing violent revolutionary activities. We have no faith in their policy and no confidence in their theory, but since it is theirs and the responsibility for preserving peace rests on them, let them put their policy freely and thoroughly into action. We advise our fellow Nationalists also to stand back and give an unhampered course for a while to Anglo-Indian statesmanship in its endeavours to grapple with this hydra-headed evil.

But before we resort to silence, we will speak out once freely and loudly to the Government, the Anglo-Indian community and the people. We will deliver our souls once so that no responsibility for anything that may happen in the future may be laid at our doors by posterity. To the Government we have only one word to say. We are well aware that they desire not the co-operation of the Nationalist party, but its annihilation. They trace the genesis of the present difficulties to the propaganda of the Nationalist leaders and an unstates-man-like resentment is allowed to overpower their judgement and their insight. Choosing to be misled by a police whose incapacity and liability to corruption has been loudly proclaimed by their own Commissions presided over by their own officials, they have formed the rooted opinion that the leaders of Nationalism are secretly conspiring to subvert British rule, and neither the openness of our proceedings nor the utter failure of the police to substantiate these allegations have been able to destroy the illusion. The open espionage, menace and detective machinations to which we are subjected, are sufficient proof of its persistence. Nevertheless, it is due to the Government that we should speak the truth and it is open to them to consider or reject it at their pleasure. The one, the only remedy for the difficulties which beset them in India, is to cease from shutting

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their eyes on unpleasant facts, to recognise the depth, force and extent of the movement in India; the radical change that has come over the thoughts and hearts of the people and the impossibility of digging out that which wells up from the depths by the spades of repression. They are face to face with aspirations and agitations which are not only Indian but Asiatic, not only Asiatic but world-wide. They cannot do away by force with these opinions, these emotions, these developments unless they first trample down the resurgence in Japan, China, Turkey and Persia and reverse the march of progress in Europe and America. Neither can they circumvent the action of natural forces which are not moved by but move the Indian political leaders. Reforms which would have satisfied and suited ten years ago are now a mere straw upon a torrent. Some day they must make up their minds to the inevitable and follow the example of rulers all over the world by conceding a popular constitution with whatever safeguards they choose for British interests and British sovereignty, and the earlier they can persuade themselves to concede it, the better terms they can make with the future. This has been the traditional policy of England all over the world, and it has always been an evil day for the Empire when statesmen turned their backs on English traditions and adopted the blind impolicy of the Continental peoples. They have seen at Lahore and Hughly that Moderatism is a dead force impotent to help or to injure, that whatever the has may profess, the hearts of the people are with Nationalism. Impolite severity may transfer that allegiance to the militant revolutionism which is raising its head and thriving on the cessation of all legitimate political activity. The Nationalist leaders will stand unswervingly by their ideals and policy, but they may prove as helpless hereafter as the Moderates are in the face of the present situation.

The Anglo-Indian community through its recognised organs, is now busy inflaming hostility, hounding on the Government to farther ill-advised measures of repression and adding darkness to darkness and confusion to confusion. Statesmanship they never had, but even common sense has departed from them. The Indian people made a fair offer of peace and alliance to them at the beginning of the movement by including goods produced in India through European enterprise and with European capital as genuine Swadeshi goods;

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but instead of securing their future interests and position by standing in the forefront of the political and industrial development of India, they have preferred to study their momentary caste interest and oppose the welfare of the country to which they owe their prosperity. As a punishment God has deprived them of reason. They are hacking at the roots of British investment and industry in India by driving blindly towards the creation of more unrest and anarchy in the country. They are imperilling a future which can still be saved, by fanatical attachment to a past which is doomed. If they could look at politics with the eye either of the statesman or man of business, they would see that neither their political nor their commercial interests can be served by a vain attempt to hold this vast country by pressing a nailed heel on the throats of the people. The pride of race, the arrogance of colour, a bastard mercantile Imperialism are poor substitutes for wisdom, statesmanship and common sense. Undoubtedly, they may induce the Government to silence and suppress, to imprison and deport till all tongues are hushed and all organisations are abolished —except the voice of the bomb and the revolver, except the subterranean organisation that, like a suppressed disease, breaks out the more you drive in its symptoms. Have they ever contemplated the possibility of that result of their endeavours—the possibility that their confusion of Nationalism with Terrorism may be ignorant and prejudiced, and that the measures they advocate, may only destroy the one force that can now stand between India and chaos ?

To the people also we have a last word to say. We have always advocated open agitation, a manly aspiration towards freedom, a steady policy of independent, self-sustained action and peaceful resistance to the repression of legitimate activities. That policy was only possible on condition of a certain amount of self-restraint in repressive legislation by the Government, and a great amount of courage, self-restraint, resolution and self-sacrifice on the part of the people. It appears we cannot count on any of these conditions. The rise of a revolutionist party fanatically opposed alike to the continuance of the British connection and to peaceful development makes our policy yet more impossible. A triangular contest between violent revolution, peaceful Nationalist endeavour and bureaucratic reaction is an impossible position and would make chaos more chaotic. Any

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action at the present moment would be ill-advised, and possibly disastrous. The Government demands co-operation from the Moderates, silence from the Nationalists. Let us satisfy them and let there be no action on our part which can be stigmatised as embarrassing the authorities in their struggle with Terrorism. The self-restraint of our party after the conviction of Mr. Tilak was rewarded by the breakdown of Moderatism after it had undisputed control of the press and platform for almost a year. A similar self-restraint will be equally fruitful now. Revolution paralyses our effort to deal peacefully but effectively with Repression. Repression refuses to allow us to cut the ground from under the feet of Revolution. Both demand a clear field for their conflict. Let us therefore stand aside, sure that Time will work for us in the future as it has done in the past, and that, if we bear faithfully the burden of the ideal God has laid upon us, our hour may be delayed, but not denied to us for ever.

SRIJUT SURENDRANATH BANERJI'S RETURN

The veteran leader of Moderate Bengal has returned from his oratorical triumphs in the land of our rulers. The ovation of praise and applause which appreciative audience and newspaper critics of all shades of opinion have heaped upon him, were thoroughly deserved. Never has the oratorical gift with "which Srijut Surendranath is so splendidly endowed, been displayed to such faultless advantage as in these the crowning efforts of his old age. The usual defect of his oratory, an excess of language and rhetoric over substantial force, a defect which also limited Gladstone's oratory and made it the glory of an hour instead of an abiding possession to humanity, was absent from these speeches in England. For the first time the orator rose to the full height of a great and sound eloquence strong in matter as in style. With the statesman's part in the speeches we do not wholly agree. Nevertheless it must be accounted as righteousness to Srijut Surendranath that he enforced the Moderate Nationalist view of things—a very different view from Mr. Gokhale's which is certainly not the Nationalists' and hardly even strong enough to be called Moderatism,—to its utmost limits and did not leave the English public under the vain delusion that some paltry tinkerings with

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the Legislative Councils would satisfy the aspiration of an awakened India. His first speeches accepting the reforms were great blunders which might have done infinite harm, but his later utterances, however equivocal on this point, did much to redress the balance. We await with interest Sj. Surendranath's action in this matter. In our view the one policy for us is "No control, no co-operation," and in this we believe we are supported not only by the whole mass of advanced Nationalist opinion but by a great body of Moderates. The danger is that the older Moderates, trained in a much less exacting system of political agitation, may attempt to enforce the demand for control only in speech while in action conceding co-operation without control and thus giving away for some fancied and worthless advantage the vital position of the new movement. The reforms give no control, therefore the reforms must be rejected. Co-operation is our only asset, the only thing we can offer in exchange for control, the only thing by withholding which we can by pressure bring about the cession of control. It would be the height of political folly to give away our only asset for nothing.

THE LONDON CONGRESS

Since we made our remarks on the proposal of a Congress session in London, we have seen two reasons urged for this reactionary step. It is necessary, it seems, to prevent judgment going against us in England by default and also to win the sympathy of the civilised world. The former argument we have already answered in our last issue. Neither the speeches of a famous orator nor the conjoint speeches of a many less famous will win for us the support of the British people for claims which go directly against their interests. Only a prolonged and steady campaign in England all the year round for several years can make any impression of a real and lasting kind and even that impression cannot in the nature of things be sufficient for the purpose. Those who are on the side of Indian interests must always be in the minority and will always be denounced by the majority as allies of the enemies of English interests. Even now that is increasingly the attitude of the public towards Mr. Mackarness and his supporters and we do not think Sj. Surendranath's eloquence has changed matters.

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Already the most prominent critics of Lord Morley and his policy of repression have received intimation from their constituents of their serious displeasure and are in danger of losing their seats at the next election. This is in itself a sufficient refutation of the fable that speeches and congresses in England can change an ignorant British public into informed and enthusiastic supporters of Indian self-government. It is only political necessity and the practical recognition that change is inevitable which can convert the statesmen of England. As for the opinion of the civilised world, we do not despise it as a moral course. But its practical effect is so little as to be almost nil. In a constitutional question between the present Government in India and the people we do not see what can be the place or mode of operation of the world's opinion or sympathy. And an academical approval of our aims can be of no help to us. Nor is the sympathy of the world likely to be excited beyond such academical approval unless the Government faithfully imitates the Russian precedence in dealing with popular aspirations. Even then it is not likely to tell on the action of the Government concerned which will certainly resent foreign interference in its dealings with its own subjects. The impotence of the civilised world was strikingly seen in the crisis of Russian despotism and at the same time of the Boer war. Even were it otherwise, a London session of the Congress would only awaken a passing interest. In that respect the visit of Swami Vivekananda to America and the subsequent work of those 'who followed him did more for India than a hundred London Congresses would effect. That is the true way of awaking sympathy,—by showing ourselves to the nations as a people with a great past and ancient civilisation who still possess something of the genius and character of our forefathers, have still something to give the world and therefore deserve freedom,— by proof of our manliness and fitness, not by mendicancy.

SRI AUROBINDO

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THE TENTH GURU

IN the three corners of this triangular peninsula, have risen three great cultures close towards the decline of the Mogul rule— Maharastra awakening of the South, the Vaishnava revival of the East and the Sikh culture of the North-West. Each has its distinctive feature and an element to add to the national store of spiritual culture. Vaishnavism brought a flood of love which rolled like a sweet torrent of nectar over Bengal and penetrated even beyond the Vindhyas into the South with Sri Chaitanya. Ramdas and Tukaram and a host of other mighty spiritual giants created in Maharastra by their tapas a great self-conscious Hindu nation which it was given to Shivaji to organise and lead. In the Panchanad, the sacred land of the five rivers, Guru Nanak cemented the hearts of the Hindus and Musulmans in the name of Alakh Niranjan and this laid another foundation stone to the mighty edifice of Indian nation-building. To count by the central figures, Chaitanya gave love, love and again love, Ramdas gave calm knowledge and creative force, coupled with a ring of Bhakti, (Guru) Nanak gave the pure knowledge of soul-unification. Punjab, ancient Brahmavarta where was first sung the first Rik of our national hymnology, perhaps still conceals behind her sthul skulls and strong bones a great potentiality of pure knowledge-force, bequeathed by Sri Nanak. Nanak was the worshipper of the Alakh and the Akal Purusha, the impersonal eternity-e-Niranjan, void of the tinge of quality. In fact, upper Hindusthan, minus Bengal, is the land of Jnana and Karma, of predominant Knowledge and work, as Bengal is of Bhakti and Shakti, and the Dakshinatya is of Bhakti and Jnana. Indeed, it is a beautiful ring of threefold puissances which run in twins round the three corners of the peninsula. Taken together, India herself is preeminently the Deva-Bhumi-the land of divine sadhana.

Be that as it may, Punjab has a great contribution to offer in the way of nation-building in the life of the Ten Gurus. Each, a towering monument of fiery spirituality, each has left a record of sacrifice and suffering, ever memorable in the history of the land. Indeed at times we feel confounded as which to place first in our estimation between

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the patriotic heroism of Rana Pratap and the religious heroism of the Sikh Gurus. Really both are inestimable. Considered on a collective scale, the reckless bravery of the Rajput men and women, shrinking not in the least from fire and steel, pouring blood like pools of water for the honour of mother and motherland,—admirable and wonderful as it undoubtedly is in its flaming brightness, must yet be admitted to present a less constructive, when placed beside them as much deliberate self-sacrifice of the Sikh leaders, who however when they bled, they bled to build a nation.

The greatest gift of the Sikhs to the nation is their firm-rooted Guru Bhava. In the midst of the diadem of Sikh culture, like a ring of Kohinoors stands this cluster of mighty Gurus. Really, the intense and solid line of spiritual power, which Guru Nanak founded in the heart of the Sikh sub-nation is unexampled in any history of any nation. Sikh history rings throughout with the glorious war cry —"Sri Wahuguru jiki Fateh". That history is a splendid record of the heroic careers of the great Gurus. Nowhere else do we find or hear of any such brilliant record of a whole nation, growing round one central chain of spiritual personalities, with unabated faith and unfaltering consecration from its day of start up to the present day.

That which had its beginnings in Nanak and Angada and flowered in Har Govinda and Teg Bahadur, came to some sort of a crowning culmination in the Tenth Guru Govind Singh. Nanak initiated the Sikhs in the fire of spirituahty. Guru Teg Bahadur died with the name on his hps—the very emblem of heroic leadership, but he died without resistance, a true Satyagrahin. Guru Govind Singh, the militant churchman, clasped the sword himself and transformed a race of udasies into a race of fiery Kshatriyas, whose sword blades clashed more than once at the gates of Delhi and shook the Mansad to its foundations. Here again is a burning truth of history, which never wearies to be told. What exasperated the Sikhs, the Mahratta, even the loyal Rajputs whom Akbar had literally wedded to the throne? It was the ruthless soldier-statesman Aurangazeb, whose blind and reckless policy sowed the seeds, which were left to be reaped by Shivaji in the South and Guru Govind Singh in the West. Or else, there would have been no necessity of the peace-loving children of that Indian province being turned, as if by a miracle into

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a nation of armed soldiers. It is not always the people that were responsible.

That was a glorious chapter in our national history, when Guru Govind Singh called five picked-up souls from the multitude and breathed fire of faith into them. That was the beginning of the Pants —the mighty soldiery, that became a power. That immortal flame never left the Sikh heart. It grew mightily splendid when the Guru's two heroic lads defied an insulting Mogul officer and were sacrificed to his wrath, being inhumanly buried alive. They died with not a single scar of fear in their countenance—young lions whose last words on the lips were the national cry of faith,—the word of Guru Teg was once more immortalised in another baptism of blood. The Sikh nation was made a solid rock over the suffocated corpses of the brave sons of Guru Govind Singh. That was Govinda Guru's undying gift to his people—the blood of martyrdom of his dearer selves— dearer than his own self.

(The Khalsa Advocate)

SRI AUROBINDO

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OLD BENGALI MYSTIC POEMS

XXII*

YOU build up yourself your birth and death.

You create yourself your illusory bondage.

We know not what is beyond thought, we know not

how birth and death and rebirth occur:

As is the birth, even so is death, there is no difference

between the dead and the living.

One who is afraid here of birth and death,

One who hankers for the alchemy of delight,

One who wanders about in the three worlds—

Such people can never be deathless and ageless.

Does action come from birth or does the birth

come from action ?

Saraha says, that law is beyond the reach

of thought.

XXIII

Bhusuka, if you go ahunting, do not fail

to kill the five creatures. (1)

Be single-minded when you enter the lotus grove. (2)

Like one not alive, for whom death has come, (3)

Bhusuk also has lost his flesh, he enters the lotus grove.

So have you spread your illusive net and caught the

deer that is Illusion. (4)

It is with the consciousness of the Guru that you have

understood whose is the story and what it is ! (5)

* Nos. XX and XXI have already been published in "Mother India".

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NOTES:

(1) Five creatures—the five senses.

(2) Lotus grove—the divine Consciousness.

(3) When one enters the divine Consciousness one becomes dead to the world, to the life of flesh.

(4) Illusion—the life of the flesh.

(5) Story—the Story of the Soul, the soul's union with the Divine.

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

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TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

THE DIVINE GUIDE

IT is a strange paradox that He who is nearer than the nearest¹ -"- appears to us as farther than the farthest. He who is the Soul of our soul, the Mind of our mind, the Life of our life, the light in our eyes and the very breath in our nostrils, He who is taste in the water we drink and scent in the earth we live upon, is unknown to us, unseen by us ! There are many among us who doubt His existence and not a few who even deny Him with an air of intellectual triumph.

Why this paradox ? Because we have sprung here from the in-conscience of Matter, our life is a slow, precarious growth towards something it does not know, our consciousness is a trickle of light from a dense darkness. Because the closer than the closest has hidden Himself, we grope after Him and toddle. We strive and struggle, and the struggle calls forth the potentials of our being, it releases our latent knowledge and strength. We do not know what we are groping after. We think it is this thing or that we are in quest of—it is wealth, it is health, it is love and affection of our fellow mortals, or it is name and fame or power and prestige. But really it is none of these. Fleeting are these that lure us and fatal their lure. What we gain today slips out of our hands tomorrow. We win only to lose, we rejoice only to grieve, we stumble and rise and continue the chase again and—again. But we do not even suspect that it is our eternal lover who is luring us to Himself through all these flashy masks of Himself, these shimmering bubbles of His eternal Existence. Because He is hidden, our search appears interminable. Death cannot stop it, nor frustration and failure quench its fire. Life and death are but episodes in this game of hide-and-seek. All that we have loved and longed for, possessed and lost, all that we have desired and not found, all is He, closer than the closest, appearing as farther than the farthest,

¹ " Although more near to us than near ness's self.

      It is some utter truth of what we are;

      Hidden by its own works it seemed far off."

  Savitri, Bk, III, Canto I

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eluding our grasp. His evasion is an act of His Love, which draws us more and more out of the cortex of our ego, out of our littleness and ignorance and weakness into more and ever more largeness, knowledge and strength, till we emerge at long last into the infinity of His Light and Bliss. All is His Love, and our life is a growing manifestation of His Love. He is ever present, ever guiding our faltering steps, ever helping our evolving being.

"Alive in a dead rotating universe

We whirl not here upon a casual globe

Abandoned to a task beyond our force;

Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate

And through the bitterness of death and fall

An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives."¹

Whatever the darkness, whatever the difficulties, dangers and disasters we may be passing through, however forlorn and crushed we may feel, the unseen Guide is always there, working out the possibilities of our evolutionary growth and helping our advance. Because of Him, storms and thunders which come to destroy us end by speeding us on our quest. It is because of the eternal Guide that we do not collapse and perish.

But when the blind search comes to an end by His Love making itself felt and His Light making itself seen, however dimly, we discover the timeless truth that He is not only closer than the closest, He is the very Soul of our soul and the very Life of our life. It is He alone who exists and we exist in His existence. We seem to perceive that our life and its labours, our heart and its cravings, our mind and its seekings and strivings, all our laughters and wails have been nothing but an unceasing propulsion towards our eternal Lover. We begin to see how we have stumbled only to rise and run after Him, drawn by His irresistible magnetism. We feel more and more clearly the Presence of the Divine Guide, and we reach out for His hand to hold. We realise the heartening truth of what the Divine says to the earth: "...remember that I am present in thee and lose not hope; each

¹ Savitri.

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effort, each grief, each joy and each pang, each call of thy heart, each aspiration of thy soul...all, all without exception, what seems to thee sorrowful and what seems to thee joyous, what seems to thee ugly and and what seems to thee beautiful, all infallibly lead thee towards me..¹

Little by little the veil lifts. Our consciousness of the Divine Guide becomes clearer and more abiding in us. The seeking persists, but it is no longer blind. We begin to perceive that His Love has arranged the cosmic play in such a way that each thing that happens tends to awaken us from our slumber, loosen our bonds, and make us long for Him. We look back and wonder with what providential Love and Compassion He has planned the whole course of our pilgrimage to His infinity and immortality. We realise more and more that there is a Consciousness organising our life and all its circumstances and making us pass through just those experiences, painful or pleasant, which conduce to our growth and help our upward striving. "At each moment the Divine does what is best for you, because His purpose is to save you and liberate you from all trouble." "Nobody can say, 'there is no hope for me,' because the Divine Grace is there."

The discovery of the Divine Guide marks a revolutionary turn in our life. We cease to strain and struggle, we cease to repine and repent, we cease to lament and despair. We meet the buffets of life, the rebuffs of men, the shipwreck of our hopes, and the sufferings that assail us with courage and equanimity, and perceive in them the fortifying smile of Love the purifier, the redeemer, the transformer. We feel that He is with us, in us, and above and around us—everywhere —and that He is leading us to our own highest Self, which is Himself, a luminous eternity of freedom and bliss. What solace, what strength and confidence to feel and see that we are being constantly led by the Divine Guide! Our inner eye opens to the truth and reality of our life and the growing splendour of our destiny. Alienation is being annulled, the petty ego is fading away, and the One seems to draw us closer and closer to Himself.

When our soul is in command, it makes us cling to the Divine Guide and the Mother's injunction becomes for us an absolute rule, spontaneously obeyed.

¹ Prayers & Meditations of the Mother.

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"Whatever your needs they can be satisfied by the Divine alone. Whatever your weaknesses they can be borne and cured only by the Divine. He alone is able to give you what you need ever and always.

"Never seek a support elsewhere than in the Divine. Never seek satisfaction of your needs in any one else than in the Divine— never, for nothing whatever.

"Never take the attitude of hoping for support, help, solace from anyone except the Divine. That is an absolute.

"Never rely on anyone or anything whatever except the Divine. Because if you take anyone for your support, the support will break."

The perception of the Divine Guide behind the evolution of our consciousness and nature not only makes our progress quicker and smoother, but teaches us equality and universal sympathy. For, we realise that the same loving Master and Guide is piloting the evolution of the consciousness and nature of every being. None is to be disliked or despised, for all are blossoming under the fostering breath of the same all-seeing Guide, in all is the same Lord seeking His varied self-expression. The high and the low, the exalted and the debased, the virtuous and the sinful, all represent but different stages in the process of evolution. All life on earth is an aspiration and an ascent to the Divine.

When we make the Divine our sole Confidant, our sole Teacher and Guide, the nightmare of the separative existence vanishes for ever and we find ourselves rising out of the maelstrom of life's chaotic forces into the fight and serenity of the higher way and a purer atmosphere, and, undismayed and un harassed, continue our journey till the great goal is attained, the Divine Guide is embraced, and love unites with Love in an eternity of bliss.

RISHABHCHAND

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SPIRITUAL DESTINY OF THE WAKING STATE

XI. THE CONQUEST

The Spirit's tops and Nature's base shall draw

Near to the secret of their separate truth

And know each other as one deity.

The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze

And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face

Then man and superman shall be at one

And all the earth become a single life.

(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Bk. XI, C. I, p.796)

A manifestation of the Supermind and its truth-consciousness is.. .inevitable; it must happen in this world sooner or later. But it has two aspects, a descent from above, an ascent from below, a self-revelation of the Spirit, an evolution in Nature.

(Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation, p. 80)

As the psychic change has to call in the spiritual to complete it, so the first spiritual change has to call in the supra-mental transformation to complete it....This then must be the nature of the third and final transformation which finishes the passage of the soul through the Ignorance and bases its consciousness, its life, its power and form of manifestation on a complete and completely effective self-knowledge......So must be created the supramental and spiritual being as the first unveiled manifestation of the truth of the Self and Spirit in the material universe.

(Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 816)

WE have almost come to the end of our long dissertation on how to " remedy the spiritual penury of our waking physical existence. Not an escape or at the least a quietistic withdrawal from the world-consciousness, but rather the integral and victorious embracing of

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the life of action and creation and the divine transfiguration of the whole of our existence, is what we have placed before us as our goal.

But a further point remains to be elucidated here. A well-established line of spiritual experience shows that whenever our soul gets involved in action, it loses hold and becomes nescient of its immobile, passive and so-called true status, whereas a withdrawal from dynamism and an involution into passivity makes it totally oblivious of its active status which thus appears to be just a false superimposition upon the freedom and bliss of the soul.

Now, if this experience is the only or the ultimate experience possible, then we have perforce to admit that an active life cannot be compatible with the conscious experience and enjoyment of the soul-status. But fortunately this is not so. This alternation in the nescience of the active and the passive statuses occurs because it is only a part of our being and not the totality of it, that shifts its centre and makes the alternative movements. But in reality there are not two distinct and separate statuses: there is instead only a unique dual status, a status that embraces at the same time both the aspects, the static one and the dynamic one.

We have already spoken of the active Brahman and the passive Brahman, but there are not two independent realities, one immobile, the other mobile. "The Reality is neither an eternal passivity of immobile Being nor an eternal activity of Being in movement, nor is It an alternation in Time between these two things. Neither in fact is the sole absolute truth of Brahman's reality....There is not a passive Brahman and an active Brahman, but one Brahman, an Existence which reserves Its Tapas in what we call passivity and gives Itself in what we call Its activity. For the purposes of action, there are two poles of one being

The analogy of sleep and waking is a very apt one here. For,

¹ The Life Divine, pp. 5'2, 5'3, 5'4.

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what we normally find is that in our waking state we forget about our sleep status and while in the sleep-state we become oblivious of our waking existence. But this is so only because a small part of our being makes the transition and oscillates between the two states of awareness. And since this part cannot embrace the totality of our existence, it becomes nescient of one or the other of the two statuses, depending on its particular station at the time. But through a proper self-discipline one can so widen the scope of one's conscious discernment that one has no more to make this abrupt and all-forgetting change-over, but can instead hold both the states in a single uninterrupted gaze.

It is the same thing with the experience of Brahman. Action and creation need not and should not externalise the consciousness and make one lose the silent freedom of the passive Brahman, nor should the experience of the immobile Brahman be incompatible with the free possession of its mobile status. This apparent incapability arises from the fact that ordinarily we identify ourselves with only a part of the totality of our consciousness—the mental or at its highest the spiritual-mental part of it—and seek to realise the Divine through this limited part alone.

And since this is just a part and not the integral consciousness, it cannot simultaneously embrace both the aspects. Thus dynamis obliterates the self of status from its awareness and passivity loosens its hold on the self of action. When this passivity becomes entire, our mind-consciousness falls asleep, so to say, enters into the trance-state of samadhi or else is liberated into a spiritual silence. But evidently this is not the line which we would like to follow. For "though it is a liberation from the ignorance of the partial being in its flux of action, it is earned by putting on a luminous nescience of the dynamic Reality or a luminous separation from it: the spiritual mental being remains self-absorbed in a silent essential status of existence and becomes either incapable of active consciousness or repugnant to all activity."¹

But our goal is the integral fulfilment of our integral existence, the integral and simultaneous possession of both the static and dynamic

¹ The Life Divine, p. 574.

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aspects of the Divine, as is the case with Sachchidananda Himself. But this is possible only if we possess the integral consciousness. And this integral consciousness comes only with the attainment of the supramental Gnosis. For, as we have mentioned before, this Gnosis is a twofold Truth-Consciousness, an inherent and integral self-knowledge and at the same time an intimate and integral consciousness of the manifestation. As a matter of fact, supermind is none other than Sachchidananda power of self-awareness and world-awareness, and thus the dynamically integral liberation and fulfilment that we are seeking after can be achieved only in and through this supramental Vijñāna.

We have seen how to retain the consciousness of the passive Brahman while at the same time participating in the consciousness of the active aspect of It. But that does not automatically signify that our nature-part as distinct from our inner soul-existence will also get transformed and be moulded in the image of the Divine. But this is what we need for the fulfilment of our goal. For it is not merely the liberation of our soul, but the liberation and the divine transfiguration of the whole of our Nature. Prakrti-mukti, prakrti-rūpāntara, enabling the establishment of a Life Divine upon earth, that is the total content of our aim. Let us now proceed to show how this Prakriti-Mukti and Prakriti-Rupantara can be integrally achieved through the Supermind

But what is meant by soul or by Nature, by Purusha and his Prakriti ? Any relatively profound psycho-spiritual inquiry makes us aware of two elements of our being, a soul and a Nature. Purusha or soul, individual or universal, is the observing and experiencing conscious existence seemingly inactive but in relation with its becoming, while Prakriti or Nature, again individual or universal, is the principle and the powers of the becoming, appearing as "an executive Force or an energy of Process which is seen to constitute, drive and guide all conceivable activities and to create a myriad forms visible to us and invisible and use them as stable supports for its incessant flux of action and creation."¹

Apparently, Purusha and Prakriti seem to be two different and distinct Principles. Not only that: in the ordinary status of conscious

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 138.

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existence, the action and influence of Prakriti seem to be deleterious to the progress of the soul. As a matter of fact, as Sri Aurobindo has so beautifully put it, the whole problem of life resolves itself into this one question:

"What are we to do with this soul and nature set face to face with each other, this Nature, this personal and cosmic activity, which tries to impress itself upon the soul, to possess, control, determine it, and this soul which feels that in some mysterious way it has freedom, a control over itself, a responsibility for what it is and does, and tries therefore to turn upon Nature, its own and the world's, and to control, possess, enjoy, or even, it may be, reject and escape from her?"¹

It is because of this apparent tendency of the Purusha to get involved and self-lost in the obscuring action of Prakriti that the self-recovering soul feels a sort of aloof detachment if not total repugnance for the play of Nature and seeks to stand back from it and destroy all earthward tendencies so that it may securely possess its static infinity.

But this antagonism between Soul and Nature is more apparent than real. For in reality, they are not distinct and different Principles; the trenchant duality is fictitious, they represent in fact, the Two-in-One or rather the One-in-Two. Thus,

"There are two who are One and play in many worlds:

In Knowledge and Ignorance they have spoken and met

And light and darkness are their eye's interchange.

 

Thus have they made their play with us for roles:

Author and actor with himself as scene,

He moves there as the Soul, as Nature she.

This whole wide world is only he and she."²

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 489.

² Savitri, Book I, Canto IV, pp. 70-72.

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Thus, the Purusha-Prakriti duality, although separate in appearance, is in fact inseparable. "Wherever there is Prakriti, there is Purusha; wherever there is Purusha, there is Prakriti. Even in his inactivity he holds in himself all her force and energies ready for projection; even in the drive of her action she carries with her all his observing and mandatory consciousness as the whole support and sense of her creative purpose."¹

But why is this so ? Because, in their essential nature and original aspect, Purusha and Prakriti arise from the being of divine Sachchidananda. As a matter of fact, "Self-conscious existence is the essential nature of the Being; that is Sat or Purusha: the Power of self-aware existence, whether drawn into itself or acting in the works of its consciousness and force, its knowledge and its will, Chit and Tapas, Chit and its Shakti,—that is Prakriti. Delight of being, Ananda, is the eternal truth of the union of this conscious being and its conscious force whether absorbed in itself or else deployed in the inseparable duality of its two aspects, unrolling the worlds and viewing them, acting in them and upholding the action, executing works and giving the sanction without which the force of Nature cannot act, executing and controlling the knowledge and the will and knowing and controlling the determinations of the knowledge-force and will-force, ministering to the enjoyment and enjoying,—the Soul possessor, observer, knower, lord of Nature, Nature expressing the being, executing the will, satisfying the self-knowledge, ministering to the delight of being of the soul. There we have, founded on the very nature of being, the supreme and the universal relation of Prakriti with Purusha. The absolute joy of the soul in itself and, based upon that, the absolute joy of the soul in Nature are the divine fulfilment of the relation''² (Italicsors)

Thus the apparent duality vanishes and the Two-in-One reveals Himself or Herself in the divine Sachchidananda, the Sat-Chit-Ananda, for Sat is the Being, the Purusha, Chit is the conscious executive force or Prakriti and Ananda is the halo and aroma of their indissoluble union.

But this essential unity and union of Purusha and Prakriti are

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 139.

² The Synthesis of Yoga. p. 496.

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not overtly realised on the lower planes of existence, the lower planes of manifestation of the Spirit. The true intrinsic relation has been perverted there and a pragmatic division and separation with all their undesirable consequences have developed alongside.

After all, what is a plane of consciousness, a plane of existence ? A plane is none other than 'a general settled poise or world of relations' between Purusha and Prakriti, between the Soul and Nature. Now with the progressive involution or self-concealment of Sachchidananda, has ensued the progressive self-hiding of Soul and Nature, one from the other, the result being that the self-possession and the world-possession, svarājya and sājmrājya; have become difficult to achieve at the same time. Now, depending on the nature of the dominant cosmic Principle and power of being around which the Soul and the Nature decide to weave their game of hide and seek, we have different planes of consciousness and existence. Thus we have, in ascending order, a material plane, a Life-plane and the planes of Mind.

But even on the highest range of spiritual-mind planes, the absolute harmony of the union of Purusha-Prakriti is not fully recovered. Thus even though the separate liberation and static release of the soul become feasible there, the latter cannot freely possess Nature, become its conscious Lord and transform it into an effective and flawless instrument of divine manifestation.

For that we have to reach the plane of supermind, the vijñāna or gnosis of Sachchidananda, which is "not only the concentrated consciousness of the infinite Essence, [but] also and at the same time an infinite knowledge of the myriad play of the In finite¹.....In the gnosis the dualism of Purusha and Prakriti, Soul and Nature,...disappears in their biune unity, the dynamic mystery of the occult Supreme. The Truth-being is the Hara-Gauri of the Indian iconological symbol (the biune body of the Lord "an d his Spouse, Ishwara and Shakti, the right half male, the left half female); it is the double Power masculine-feminine born from and supported by the supreme Shakti of the Supreme."²

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 544.

² Ibid., p. 571.

    Cf. "There he beheld in their mighty union's poise

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But even then a last point remains. For, we do not want to withdraw from the material plane of existence into the Super mind's self-existent realm: we want instead the supramental union of Soul and Nature in the very bosom of the physically embodied existence here upon earth. Thus, what is essential for the fulfilment of our objective is not merely the ascent into the supramental Gnosis but the eventual transforming descent of its Consciousness-Force into our entire being and nature and a concomitant or subsequent emergence of the concealed supermind at present involved here below. This influx from above and the unveiling from below will between them "remove what is left of the nature of the Ignorance. The rule of the Inconscient will disappear: for the Inconscience will be changed by the outburst of the greater secret Consciousness within it, the hidden Light, into what it always was in reality, a sea of the secret Super-conscience".¹

The supramental being, the gnostic soul, the Vijñānamaya Purusa, thus appearing in earth-existence will be the first unveiled manifestation of Sachchidananda in the material universe. Not a self oblivion in the Infinite, but an integral self-possession and world possession in the Infinite will be its characteristic .movement. It will be the first to participate in world-action "not only in the freedom, but in the power and sovereignty of the Eternal. For it receives the fullness, it has the sense of plenitude of the Godhead in it s action; it shares the free, splendid and royal march of the Infinite, is a vessel of the original knowledge, the immaculate power, the inviolable bliss, transmutes all life into the eternal Light and the eternal Fire and the eternal Wine of the nectar. It possesses the infinite of the Self and it possesses the infinite of Nature.... The gnostic soul is the child, but the King-child; here is the royal and eternal childhood whose toys

The figure of the deathless Two-in-One,

A single being in two bodies clasped,

A diarchy of two united souls.

Seated absorbed in deep creative joy;

Their trance of being sustained the mobile world.

Behind them in a morning dusk One stood

Who brought them forth from the Unknowable."

(Savitri, Book II, Canto XIV, p. 334)

¹ The Life Divine, p. 860.

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are the worlds and all universal Nature is the miraculous garden of the play that tires never......This biune being of Purusha-Prakriti is as if a flaming Sun and body of divine Light self-carried in its orbit by its own inner consciousness and power at one with the universe, at one with a supreme Transcendence. Its madness is a wise madness of Ananda, the incalculable ecstasy of a supreme consciousness and power vibrating with an infinite sense of freedom and intensity in its divine life-movements......a dance this also, a whirl of mighty energies, but the Master of the dance holds the hands of His energies and keeps them to the rhythmic order, the self-traced harmonic circles of His Rasa-Lila."¹

Thus, with the supramental transformation of our being and nature, this earthly life will flower into the Life divine and our waking physical existence will be a divinised existence of integral consciousness and dynamis. Neither will one then have to plunge into the superconscient trance-state in order to experience the Absolute Existence or Non-Existence, nor to content oneself with the Jivanmukti-status waiting all the while for the final release in Videha-Mukti. Because, then

Nature shall live to manifest secret God,

The Spirit shall take up the human play,

This earthly life become the life divine.²

In the words of the Mother:

"In the supramental creation there will be no more...what men now call gods.

"These great divine beings themselves will be able to participate in the new creation, but for that they must put on what we may call the supramental substance on earth. And if there are some one who choose to remain in their world, as they are, if they do decide not to manifest themselves physically,

¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 571-73.

² Savitri, Book XI, Canto I, p. 798.

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"When the physical substance will be supramentalised, to be born on earth in a body will not be a cause of inferiority, rather the contrary, there will be gained a plenitude which could not be obtained otherwise".¹ (Italics Ours)

But the question is: when is this divine Supermind going to descend into the earth-existence or the involved Supermind going to emerge ? The answer is that it is no longer a question of when in the future, it is already an established fact. The divine Supermind has descended in the year 1956 and a new world is already born, although not yet manifest to the gross physical consciousness of man. The Mother who along with Sri Aurobindo has 'luminously laboured' for decades for the descent of the Supermind has Herself vouchsafed us this assurance:

"The greatest thing that can ever be, the most marvellous thing since the beginning of creation, the miracle has happened''²

"The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it."³

Only, the involved supermind has not yet emerged. "The emergence is for the future, but, of course, now it is merely a question of time: the process is natural and Inevitable."⁴

THE END

JUGAL KlSHORE MUKHERJI

¹ Towards February 29, i960: Some Statements by the Mother (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1960), p. 16.

² Ibid., p. 18.

³ Ibid., p. 9.

⁴ Ibid., p. 10.

             * Readers wishing to know more about the supramental descent and the course of its manifestation as it is being actually elaborated may consult the above booklet priced at Re. 1—and follow the writings of the Mother that are being serialised in the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India).

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THE LIFE DIVINE

(AN OUTLINE)

33

THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE

TO rise out of the sevenfold Ignorance into the integral Knowledge is the progress of man's being; it is to grow in all his complex existence and consciousness into the full possession and enjoyment of his whole and his true being.

He starts with three categories, himself, Nature or cosmos and God, and though he tries to deny any two of these in order to affirm the third only, he cannot really succeed; for he is neither separate nor sufficient to himself, cosmos also is not sufficient to itself, but points always to an infinite, one and absolute behind it, and to affirm the Absolute to the exclusion of these two others leaves man unsatisfied and cosmos unexplained.

In affirming himself man has first to put himself in front and act and feel as if God and the world existed for him and were less important to him than himself; this is his egoistic phase necessary to disengage his individuality out of Nature and as if against her and to bring it out into force and capacity. He has to affirm himself in the Ignorance before he can perfect himself in Knowledge. Afterwards he has to seek for himself in Nature and God and others, but it is still himself that he seeks to know and possess and his own perfection or salvation which is his motive.

In the progressive enlargement of his knowledge he gets rid of his sevenfold ignorance; of the temporal by growing into his eternal being with its pre-existence and subsequent existence in Time; of the psychological by enlarging his self-knowing beyond the waking self into the subconscient and superconscient; of the constitutional by realising his spiritual being and its categories; of the cosmic by discovering his timeless self; of the egoistic by realising the cosmic consciousness; of the original by opening to the Absolute of whom

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Self, individual and Nature are so many faces.

At the same time he realises the unity of himself and Nature in the first three steps of knowledge, of himself and God in the others; of himself with all beings relatively in Nature and absolutely in God; of God and Nature because it is the Self who has become all these beings and the nature of the Lord which is apparent in cosmos.

The knowledge of Nature leads him to the same result as soon as he goes beyond Matter and Life to Mind; for he discovers a sub-conscient and superconscient, a soul in Matter, and perceives a super-nature in which he realises the Self, the Spirit, the Absolute.

In the quest of God he begins by seeing through Nature and himself, crudely and obscurely at first, till he finds more luminously the one Truth behind all religions; for all seize on the Divine in many aspects and their variety is necessary in order that man shall come to know God entirely.

When he arrives at the unity of his knowledge of God, man and Nature, he has the complete knowledge, the sense and goal of humanity's progress and labour and the sure foundation of all perfections and harmonies.

SRI AUROBINDO

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REVIEW

The Gospel of Emerson: Newton Dillaway. Publishers: Unity Books, Lee's summit, Missouri, U.S.A. PP. 128. Price: Not stated.

Compiled from 25 Volumes of the writings of Ralph 'Waldo Emerson, this collection of the cardinal thoughts of the seer, classified under appropriate headings, presents his philosophy in a nutshell.

"The highest revelation", he writes "is that God is in every man."

"The life of the soul in conscious union with the Infinite shall be for thee the only real existence."

What is the soul ? ".. .the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie,—an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all."

Life is a continual revelation: "No truth so sublime but it may be trivial tomorrow in the light of new thoughts. People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."

Further, "The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this generation of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the force of truth of the individual soul."

"Man's life is a progress, and not a station." There is no gulf in this vision between the world and the Divine. "I believe in the existence of the material world as the expression of the spiritual or the real, and in the impenetrable mystery which hides (and hides through absolute transparency) the mental nature, I await the insight which our advanced knowledge of material laws shall furnish.

"Once men thought Spirit divine and Matter diabolic; one

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Ormuzd, the other Ahriman. Now science and philosophy recognize the parallelism, the approximation, the unity of the two: how each reflects the other as face answers to face in a glass: nay, how the laws of both are one, or how one is the realization. We are learning not to fear truth."

The book is full of epigrams. To cite a few:

The religion that is afraid of science) dishonours God and commits suicide.

Heaven always bears some proportion to earth.

The only sin is limitation.

Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

The way to mend the bad world is to create the right world.

One feels in good company in reading these pages.

M . P. PANDIT

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PAST EDITORIALS

(From this issue we propose reproducing, serially, the editorials that appeared in the Advent from its inception in February, I 944-Ed.)

THE ADVENT

Vol. I. No. 1

February 1944

OURSELVES-AN APOLOGY

"THE Advent" proposes to place Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future before aspiring humanity. The words of the Master himself are there, no doubt, available to all who seek to know, and one must remember that it is always better to go to the original source for the light and guidance than run the risk of a wrong lead under a lesser luminary or a borrowed inspiration. Sri Aurobindo has dealt extensively with the matter he has chosen as his field of concern and has viewed and reviewed it from many sides and angles; it would almost look as if he was anxious to give no room for future commentators and note-makers to misinterpret or^obfuscate his meaning and intention.

All this is perhaps true and we must always keep it well in view. And yet our attempt may not be quite superfluous. Our candle-light is not meant to replace the Sun, nor has it even the pretension to show the way to the Sun, it is more like a taper kindled from our heart of adoration and gratitude, an incense burning and offering itself, tendering back to the Source what it received from there.

Our purpose, then, will be served if we can touch kindred souls and rouse in them—or help or be an occasion to rouse in them—the aspiration which moves us. Our task will be to bear testimony, in our way, to be Truth and Life that has been revealed by the Master.

Sri Aurobindo's vision entire the entire domain of human preoccupations; it embraces and relumes all truths that secretly build

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and inspire man's integral being—his mental and vital and even physical, his individual as well as collective formations. So one line of our interest will he in the direction of scanning and understanding human movements—spiritual, intellectual, social, literary or scientific—in the light Sri Aurobindo has shed upon them. Naturally it is the principles and forces behind external formulations that will principally, if not wholly, engage our attention; for it is the principles and forces that guide and control our actual life that have to be fundamentally changed—transmuted—if there is to be a fundamental change in the mode of our earthly living.

To be able to create a living interest in the Master's Revelation about these abiding truths that determine human destinies, to call together some people who look for the Saviour Grace but do not know where to find it, to turn a few hearts and minds to something that would allay all their questionings—well, that is ample achievement and we ask for no more.

THE GOLDEN AGE-THE AGE OF TRUTH

The first of August last was heralded by a good many prophets in India as a day of cataclysm (pralaya) and day of New Creation. The prophecy, it appears, dates back to the Bhagavata and the Vishnupurana which stated quite plainly and intelligently—unlike the prophetic riddles of Nostradamus—solid astrological grounds. Booklets and pamphlets were widely circulated warning men to prepare for the Doomsday, when the sheep will be separated from the goat, the godly from the sinful and these will be chastised and those rewarded. Some spoke of the apparition of Kalki galloping on his white horse, reeking with blood, driving out the old world, dragging in the new. Simple-minded folk woke on the fateful morning and were trembling...but the day wore on and passed quietly as the day before, as all the days.

In Europe, a similar hope and catastrophe were announced by Christian devout to awaken the world in the year 1,000 A.D.—here in India today, it is to be noted, we are in the Vikram Era 2,000. Then too a kingdom of heaven upon earth was promised and the end of a world with its cup of sin full to the brim. As today, so in that year

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too nothing happened, the inexorable march of Nature.

Well, nothing more than the merest common sense is needed to tell the simple truth that man must change first inwardly before a real change can come in the outside world; the more radical a change we expect or demand in terrestrial circumstance, the more radical a change there should be in man's character and nature. If there is to be a catastrophe and revolution outside in life, there must occur beforehand a similar thing in his being and consciousness. An active volcano means a pre-existent seething fire in the bowels of the earth. Verily, verily the kingdom of heaven is within.

It is the complex of wish-fulfilment in man that makes him hungry for results which he is averse to prepare with pains and efforts. That is mere day dreaming. Not in that way do things happen in the world. The world will be cleared of demons if we individually clear ourselves of the demons that we harbour within us; human society can be a temple of truth, if each member rids himself of falsehood and builds himself with truth and nothing but truth. Earth can be made a perfect play of the Divine if and when the embodied souls embody the Divine. Not before.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Consistency, they say, is the bugbear of great minds. But, according to some philosophers, it is the soul and substance of Truth, which is defined as nothing more and nothing less than self-consistency. Whatever is self-consistent, whatever is free from self-contradiction is truth. That is the criterion par excellence of truth. Falsehood is that which bears in itself self-contradiction. Even the other day an eminent Indian leader stated that "Truth is the universal oneness of our word, thought and deed." We have doubts about this definition and criterion. This may be, at the most, truthfulness, but not truth. A falsehood can be self-consistent throughout. We do not know if there is a shred of self-contradiction in Hitler's mental make-up: it appears to be a single seamless stream-lined consistency and yet its name is falsehood.

We consider truth to be nothing else than the soul in things, it is

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the Spirit, the divine element, the Divine Himself secreted in things. There is no other truth, no other criterion of truth. If one lives in his soul, finds the Divine—the real Divine—and is identified with it, then only can one be said to have possessed the truth. The anti-divine or the undivine may be quite self-consistent, but because it is not the Divine, because it has severed itself from the Divine, it has fallen from the truth and has become falsehood.

It can be asked, however, does not the Divine mean a wholly self-consistent reality, as he is the supreme harmony and identity ? Anything less, anything divergent, must perforce carry within itself some kind of inconsistency. An Asura, a Titan, however consistently perverse, cannot altogether eliminate the element of falsehood. This is a metaphysical position which may be theoretically true: but, it must be remembered that the Divine is an infinite unity and holds in himself, although harmonising and unifying them all, multiple contradictoriness; a single-track self-consistency—A is A and A is not B—cannot be the logic of the Infinite Truth, it can very well be the logic of Falsehood.

RELIGION VS. ETHICS

Quite a heated controversy has been raging in the pages of the "New Statesman and Nation" of London among partisans of two schools upholding one or' the other of these two creeds. The "Christian School" led by the Rector of Bartington pronounces most vehemently that ethics, mere ethics is truncated Christainity and without the life-breath of the religion, morality is sure to break up and fall to pieces. Devoid of the religious sense, ethics stands on a foundation of sand. What truly makes man moral is faith in God, what has made Europe admit moral values is Christianity, belief in the Revelation of Christ. The free-thinkers,—socialists and modernists generally—aver that religion and morality are quite different things—religion may be immoral and morality irreligious. Morality, according to this school, is the result of man's growth in civilisation; it has developed as man has developed through his varied experiences and experiments in life and society. One may have no faith in religion, no belief in Christ, still one can be a perfectly ethical man. The religionists answer that

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the ethicist can say so only because he is banking upon the capital built up by religion in the past. It was religion that started civilising man, it is man's discovery of God that first laid the basis of a moral fife, and this moral life progresses and is strengthened and organised as man progresses in his religious consciousness. At the present stage of man's evolution, in the world of today, you can lop off the religious element without immediately destroying its offshoot morality, for it will survive and go on for some time through the momentum given to it, but its life would soon fizzle out, and unless religion comes back and re-moralised man, he will surely revert to the animal stage. Naturally the pure ethicists will not admit such a conclusion. They would stick to their view of an independent origin and functioning of the ethical sense in man.

We say that both religion and ethics are the expression of a certain status of being, of a certain level and mode of consciousness in man. Both have developed pari passu through the pressure of a developing consciousness. But both have limitations.

All values have their absolutes only in the truth of the Spirit, in the Divine Consciousness. The values of the mental order are relative and variable; they are of interest as intermediate terms of a growing consciousness. Religious tenets and ethical principles both belong to this lesser category.

SEX AND SPIRITUALITY

Our readers will come across the problem of sex and spirituality raised in one of our reviews in this issue. A few words seem necessary to make our position definite and clear in this matter. It is to be noted, however, that this is largely a modern problem, the problem, that is to say, of how to mix or reconcile or harmonise the two elements in human nature. For, the ancient or traditional disciplines in spirituality never left a doubt on the point, they all eschewed and banned sex, declaring that it is the negation of spirituality-brahmacarya, continence or chastity, the very basis of spirituality, is nothing but the annulment and elimination of sex. The Vedantic disciplines, including the Buddhistic, were categorical on the subject and went so far as to deny, at least at the the outset and in principle, the right of

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spiritual endeavour and achievement to women. And when women were, in fact, admitted into the spiritual domain, they were segregated from men; it was considered absolutely necessary for the spiritual welfare of both that they should not meet or see each other. The bias was so strong that spiritual women were looked upon as exceptional and uncommon beings; even so it was doubted whether they could reach the very highest status in spirituality. It was Tantricism and Vaishnavism that gave an honoured place to women and allowed meeting and association between men and women in the spiritual field.

In some esoteric Tantrik and Vaishnava disciplines a woman had to be chosen as an indispensable associate or companion—counterpart in sadhana, uttara-sādhikā. But the meaning and intention was
never ambiguous: it was a way, a powerful and effective way, according to the practisers, of controlling and mastering the sex impulse and sex instinct. The Vedantic path, it was pointed out, avoided the problem: they cut the Gordian knot, as it were; for they ran away from life and its fundamental difficulties, took to the way of absolute withdrawal from the world into the Beyond. Their remedy for the ills of life was the suppression of life itself. The Tantrik, on the other hand, sought to experience the spiritual in Prakriti, in dynamic movements of life; he faced life, was in it, although he was not of it. In view of this end it would not have served his purpose to cut away the sexual knot: he proposed to unravel it, make it straight and clean. His object was-riot to be mastered by the sex dynamism but to be master of it, to sublimate and transmute it into a purer energy at the service of spiritual experience and spiritual life. The sex impulse being the strongest force in human nature, when transmuted, can make for the strongest spiritual realisation and achievement. So the Sahajiya adept in his mystic symbolism says, "Then indeed you become the marvellous conjurer when you know how to make the frog dance in the very fangs of the viper."

One can now easily understand the particular stress that was laid by certain sects upon extra-marital companionship (parakiya) in spiritual practice. The sexual force is peculiarly strong and violent in such a case and evidently the view was that the greater the force the greater the merit in conquering it. A greater force on a lower level of consciousness when conquered and transmuted yields a correspond-

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ing greater force on the higher level. It is true that the method is full of peril and ends very often in disaster; but it is a method that has been cultivated by some heroic souls. It is also true however that the same or even more absolute result—that is to say, the sublimation and transmutation of sex energy—can be achieved by other means less dramatic but safer and surer.

The theory of a companion soul—an alter ego necessary in the spiritual journey is only the imposition of truth of the lower consciousness upon the higher consciousness, an illegitimate carrying over of a truth of the desire-soul in social life into the domain of pure spiritual truths. But it is well-known among spiritual seekers that in heaven there is no marriage nor giving in marriage. Such a transference not only falsifies the spiritual truth but deludes the aspirant and leads him to perdition.

The Vaishnava conception, as has been pointed out by our reviewer, that there is only one Man, namely, Krishna, and that all human souls are feminine, is nearer the truth. It is not that there cannot be affinity among souls, among human beings living the spiritual life, but this is not an exclusive relation between two and the sex notion does not at all enter into it: the same affinity can exist between persons of the same sex. This affinity is entirely based upon unity in the Divine Will and Consciousness: it is free from the sense of sex, as it is free from the sense of age difference; so long as there is a shadow of such differentiation, the divine affinity cannot express itself or have its play.

It may be asked what then is the meaning in the creation of these two types of beings, thus sexually differentiated ? Well, whatever may have been the use to which it was put on the lower levels, in the spiritual consciousness the truth that this differentiation represents is this that the two are dual modes of expression of the Divine Personality. The component elements that make up the two types are the same and the same divine in flatus moves both, only there is a difference in stress and rhythm: thus difference is necessary for a richness, variety and colourful harmony in the execution of the Divine Plan.

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