Soonest is always best
When noble deeds are to be done.
SRI AUROBINDO
August :1969
The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda. ... - Sri Aurobindo.
THE LADDER OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS
CONSCIOUSNESS, the normal consciousness we know, has various degrees of potency: its familiar form is the rational consciousness or intellect; then at a higher level, there is the intuitive consciousness and at a still higher level the visionary consciousness, that is, the consciousness that sees the Truth, and at the highest, the objectless consciousness, consciousness in itself or the Sachchidananda consciousness.
Likewise unconsciousness too has its own various degrees. As consciousness rises up to higher and higher grades of consciousness, so unconsciousness too descends into lower and lower grades of unconsciousness. The first degree of unconsciousness is simple forget-fullness. It is the absence of consciousness, not the loss of consciousness. The consciousness is there but it is not apparent or expressed, it is held back for the time. One can recall it; it can be remembered and brought forward. The abeyance of consciousness, when it persists, when it amounts to a turn of nature, is called ignorance. Yet ignorance is not the negation of consciousness, it is clouded or veiled consciousness; it is not that the sun is set and gone but
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simply that it is behind the clouds, it is up in the sky but shrouded. This behind-the-veil consciousness is the subliminal consciousness or simply sub consciousness. Sub consciousness is a consciousness that is not dormant or asleep, stilled into silence, it is at work but behind the normal waking state—it is the swapna-state swapna-state as the Indian sages termed it. Lower down is the state of unconsciousness proper. It is a still more diminished degree of consciousness, apparently a total absence of consciousness, not merely an abeyance or subsidence of consciousness, it is a lack of consciousness. The animal consciousness might be taken as an instance or expression of the ignorant consciousness, likewise the plant-consciousness parallels the su bliminal consciousness-the Indian description of it is antahprajña, Next to it is the consciousness in the mineral, it is unconsciousness. By unconsciousness it is meant here naturally the absence of the mental consciousness: the presence or absence of consciousness means the presence or absence of the mental consciousness. There is a generic consciousness, consciousness in itself, or pure consciousness, which is imbedded in all created things, for creation itself is at bottom a vibration or pulsation of consciousness (vijñānavijrmbhanam). There is a range or rung still further below with a still lesser degee of consciousness: it is called the inconscient, which is a totally total, in depth and in extent, absence of consciousness. In the other degree that is above it, there is the probability of consciousness in the midst of apparent absence, here it is reduced almost to nothingness or to just a possibility: for, as I have said, some consciousness, the presence of Sachchidananda is always there everywhere in the core of things. Yet there is also an absolute negation and this has been termed Nescience, it is the zero of things, where there is no question or possibility or impossibility: it is the final and definite end, śunyam of the Buddhists, termed asat by the Vedantists.
Now, the curious and most interesting thing is that the end is not the end of things; for beyond the zero there is the minus sign and what does minus mean? It does not mean mere negation, it means a reality—a negative real. It is a moot problem in philosophy— philosophers have questioned, argued, discussed at length about it— whether negation means only denial, just the contrary of affirmation ? If affirmation means a real,—negation means simply the unreal. It
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has been declared by competent authorities that negation, like affirmation, is also a reality but of the opposite sign. We know in mathematics the minus sign is as real as the plus.
The minus consciousness is something like the minus numerical figure. And indeed in its pure and essential reality, its ultimate, it has or is a figure—a very ominous figure—it is Death. And as such it becomes an altogether real, living entity, of the opposite sign as I said. This minus reality stretches downward and goes round and touches as it were, the back of the Supreme plus reality, 'the Supreme Consciousness'. That is the negative infinite, the great shadow of the Infinite Light.
The absolute Nescience is the mere reversal of the Supreme Consciousness, the ever-lasting Nay is the ever-lasting Yes turned inside out. Death making a right about-turn is Immortality.
Modern science speaks of anti-matter and the possibility of a world of anti-matter. A world of anti-matter seems to be self-contradictory if it does not amount to be an absolute impossibility. The only possibility or plausibility is a world in which matter and antimatter co-exist (as actually in the present world), but the miracle is that they do not cancel or annihilate each other producing an absolute zero; indeed the two opposing elements in their inter-action through a process of continuous creation and destruction carry on the world ad infinitum.
But we are more concerned with the mystery of anti-matter which is the ultimate form of what we have called minus consciousness whose image, as I have said, is Death. Sri Aurobindo has described in Savitri how Death the unreal or the negative Being in its ultimate recession turns round and stands face to face with the Divine in His plenary light and power, merges into it and becomes one with it for Death was nothing else than the Divine. Only when ignorance and unconsciousness (the negation) is thus transformed into its original essence and reality, it adds to it something, a quality which was not there, so to say, which is the fruition or summation of its long journey of material evolution. It is the delight of union, or fusion of two in place of mere unity—the delight of unity in multiplicity.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
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PERSONALITIES
SHREEJUT ARAVINDA GHOSH (From Swaraj) - By B. C. Pal
THE youngest in age among those who stand in the forefront of the Nationalist propaganda in India but in endowment, education, and character, perhaps, superior to them all—Aravinda seems distinctly marked out by providence to play in the future of this movement a part not given to any of his colleagues and contemporaries. The other leaders of the movement have left their life behind them: Aravinda has his before him. Nationalism is their last love: it is Aravinda's first passion. They are burdened with the cares and responsibilities of large families or complex relations: Aravinda has a small family and practically no cumulative obligations. His only care is for his country—the Mother, as he always calls her. His only recognised obligations are to her. Nationalism, at the best, a concern of the intellect with some, at the lowest a political cry and aspiration with others, is with Aravinda the supreme passion of his soul. Few, indeed, have grasped the full force and meaning of the Nationalist ideal as Aravinda has done. But even of these very few—though their vision may be clear, their 'action is weak. Man cannot, by a fiat of his will, at once recreate his life. Our Karma follows us with relentless insistence from day to day and from death to death. To see the vision of truth and yet not to be possessed by that supreme passion for it which burns up all other desires and snaps asunder, like ashen bands, all other ties and obligations—this is the divine tragedy of most finer natures. They have to cry out with St. Paul at every turn of life's tortuous path—"The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." But blessed are they for whom this tragic antithesis between the ideal and real has been cancelled: for whom to know the truth is to love it, to love the truth is to strive after it, and to strive after the truth is to attain it: in whom there is no disparity, either in time or degree, between the idea and its realisation:—in whom the vision of the ideal, by its own intrinsic strength at once attunes every craving of the flesh,
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SRI AUROBINDO
every movement of the mind, every emotion of the heart, and every impulse of the will—to itself: who have to strive for its realisation, not within, but without: who have to struggle not with their own Self but with the Not-Self, who have to fight and conquer not themselves but others, in order to establish the Kingdom of God realised by them in the relations of their own inner fife, in the outer actualities and appointments of the life of their own people or of humanity at large. These are, so to say, the chosen of God. They are born leaders of men. Commissioned to serve special ends affecting the life and happiness of large masses of men, they bear a charmed life. They may be hit, but cannot be hurt. They may be struck, but are never stricken. Their towering optimism, and the Grace of God, turn every evil into good, every opposition into help, every loss into gain. By the general verdict of his countrymen, Aravinda stands today among these favoured sons of God.
Birth is not an accident. "Accident of birth"—is the language of infidel empiricism. Nature has no room for accidents in her schemes. It is only man's inability to trace her secrets that has coined this word to cover his ignorance. Man's birth is no more an accident than the rise and fall of tides. There can really be no accidents in evolution, the law of natural selection has killed their chance altogether. But does the operation of natural selection start only after birth of the organism or does it precede it? Is it really a biological, or also a psychological law ? Like the problems of biology, those of psychology also are inexplicable, except on this theory. The inference is irresistible that there is such a thing as natural selection even in the psychic plane. The spirit, by the impulse of its own needs, must choose and order the conditions of its own life even as the physical organism does. This is the psychic significance of heredity. Life from this point of view is not a lottery, but a matter really of determined choice. The needs of the organism supply the organs in the lower kingdom: the desires of the heart collect and create their necessary equipment and environment for the human being. On no other hypothesis can the riddle of the human life be explained more satisfactorily. It may not explain everything, but it explains many things absolutely understandable and inexplicable on any other hypothesis. This at least has been the Hindu view from time immemorial. A
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crude intuition at first, it became a settled conviction with the people subsequently, with a fundamental philosophy of causation behind it. And this theory stands curiously verified in Aravinda Ghosh.
Two strong currents of thoughts, ideals, and aspirations met together and strove for supremacy in Bengal, among the generation to which Aravinda's parents belonged. One was the current of Hindu Nationalism—of the revived life, culture and ideals of the nation that had lain dormant for centuries and had been discarded as lower and primitive by the first batch of English-educated Hindus, especially in Bengal. The other was the current of Indo-Anglicism—the onrushing life, culture and ideals of the foreign rulers of the land, which, expressing themselves through British law and administration on the one side and the new schools and universities on the other, threatened to swamp and drown the original culture and character of the people. The two stocks from which Aravinda sprang represented these two conflicting forces in the country. His maternal grandfather Raj Narayan Bose was one of the makers of modern Bengal. A student of David Hare, a pupil of De Rozario, an alumnus of the Hindu College, the first English College that had the support of both the Hindu community and the British rulers of the Province, Raj Narayan Bose started life as a social and religious reformer. But while he caught as fully as any one else among his contemporaries, the impulse of the new illumination, he did not lose so completely as many of them did, his hold on the fundamental spirit of the culture and civilisation of his race. He joined the Brahmo-Samaj under Maharshi Debendra Nath Tagore, but felt repelled by the denational spirit of the later developments in that movement under Keshab Chander Sen. In fact, it is difficult to say, to which of its two leaders—Debendra Nath or Raj Narayan, the Adi or the older Brahma Samaj, as it came to be called after Keshab Chander Sen seceded from it and established the Brahma-Samaj of India—was more indebted for its intense and conservative nationalism. But it may be safely asserted that while Debendra Nath's nationalism had a dominating theological note, Raj Narayan's had both a theological and social, as well as political emphasis. In him, it was not merely the spirit of Hinduism that rose up in arms against the onslaught of European Christianity but, the whole spirit of Indian culture and manhood stood up to defend and assert
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itself against every form of undue foreign influence and alien domination. While Keshab Chander Sen pleaded for the recognition of the truths in the Hindu scriptures side by side with those in the Bible, Raj Narayan Bose proclaimed the superiority of Hinduism to Christianity. While Keshab Chander was seeking to reconstruct Indian, and specially Hindu, social life, more or less after the British model, Raj Narayan's sturdy patriotism and national self-respect rebelled against the enormity, and came forward to establish the superiority of Hindu social economy to the Christian social institutions and ideals. He saw the on-rush of European goods into Indian markets, and tried to stem the tide by quickening what we would now call the Swadeshi spirit, long before any one else had thought of it. It was under his inspiration that a Hindu Mela, or National Exhibition, was started a full quarter of a century before the Indian National Congress thought of an India Industrial Exhibition. The Founder of the Hindu Mela was also the first Bengalee who organised gymnasia for the physical training of the youths of the nation. Stick and sword plays, and others ancient and decadent sports and pastimes of the people that have come into vogue recently, were originally revived at the Hindu Mela, under Raj Narayana Bose's inspiration and instruction. Raj Narayan Bose did not openly take any part in politics, but his writings and speeches did a good deal to create that spirit of self-respect and self-assertion in the educated classes that have since found such strong expression in our recent political activities.
A strong conservatism, based upon a reasoned appreciation of the lofty spirituality of the ancient culture and civilisation of the country; a sensitive patriotism, born of a healthy and dignified pride of race; and a deep piety expressing itself through all the varied practical relations of life—these were the characteristics of the life and thought of Raj Narayan Bose. He represented the high-water mark of the composite culture of his country—Vedantic, Islamic, and European. When he discoursed on Brahma-Jnana or Knowledge of the God, he brought to mind the ancient Hindu Gnostics of the Upanishads. When he cited verses from the Persian poets, filling the ear with their rich cadence—with his eyes melting in love and his mobile features aglow with a supreme spiritual passion—he reminded one of the old Moslem devotees. And when he spoke on the corruptions of current
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religion, or the soulless existence of modern politics, he appeared as nineteenth century rationalist and iconoclast of Europe. In his mind and life he was at once a Hindu Maharshi, a Moslem Sufi, and a Christian theist of the unitarian type; and like Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of the Brahmo-Samaj, of which Raj Narayan Bose was for many years the honoured President, he also seems to have worked out a synthesis in his own spiritual life between the three dominant world cultures that have come face to face in modern India. Like Ram Mohan, Raj Narayan also seems to have realised in himself, intellectually and spiritually, that ideal of composite nationhood in India, which the present generation has been called upon to actualise in the social, economic, and political relations of their country. Raj Narayan Bose was also an acknowledged leader in Bengalee literature. A writer in the "Modern Review" (Calcutta) calls Raj Narayan the "Grandfather of Indian Nationalism". He was Aravinda's maternal grandfather; and Aravinda owes not only his rich spiritual nature, but even his very superior literary capacity to his inherited endowments from his mother's line.
If his maternal grandfather represented the ancient spiritual forces of his nation, Aravinda's father, Dr. Krishnadhan Ghosh, represented to a very large extent the spirit of the new illumination in his country. Dr. Ghosh was essentially a product of English education and European 'culture. A man of exceptional parts, he finished his education in England, and taking his degree in medicine, entered the medical service of the Indian Government. He was one of the most successful Civil Surgeons of his day, and, had his life been spared, he would have assuredly risen to the highest position in his service open to any native of India. Like the general body of Indian young men who went to finish their education in England in his time, Krishnadhan Ghosh was steeped in the prevailing spirit of Anglicism. Like all of them, he was a thoroughly Anglicised Bengalee, in his way of life. But unlike many of them, underneath his foreign clothing and ways he had a genuine Hindu heart and soul. Anglicism distorts Hindu character, cripples, where it cannot kill, the inherited altruism of the man, and makes him more or less neglectful of the numerous family and social obligations under which every Hindu is born. Like the original Anglo-Saxon, his Indian imitation also lives
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first and foremost for himself, his wife and children; and though he may recognise the claims of his relations to his charity, he scarcely places his purse at their service as an obligation. But Krishnadhan Ghosh was an exception. Though he affected the European's way of living, he never neglected social obligations of the Hindu. His purse was always open for needy relations. The poor of the town, where he served and lived, had in him a true friend and a ready help. In fact, his regard for the poor frequently led him to sacrifice to their present needs the future prospects of his own family and children. He had his sons educated in England; and so great was his admiration for English life and English culture that he sent them out even before they had received any schooling in their own country. But his charities made such constant and heavy inroads into his tolerably large income, that he could not always keep his own children living in England, provided with sufficient funds for their board and schooling. Sons of comparatively rich parents they were brought up almost in abject poverty in a friendless country where wealth counts so much, not only physically, but also intellectually and morally. Keen of intellect, tender of heart, impulsive and generous almost to recklessness, regardless of his own wants, but sensitive to the suffering of others—this was the inventory of the character of Dr. Krishnadhan Ghosh. The rich blamed him for his recklessness, the man of the world condemned him for his absolute lack of prudence, the highest virtue in his estimation. But the poor, the widow and the orphan loved him for his self-less pity, and his soulful benevolence.
When death overtook him, in the very prime of life, there was desolation in many a poor home in his district. It not only left his own children in absolute poverty, but destroyed the source of ready relief to many helpless families among his relations and neighbours. His quick intellectual perceptions, his large sympathies, his selflessness, characterised by an almost absolute lack of what the man of the world, always working with an eye to the main chance, calls prudence, as a matter of personal calculation—these are Aravinda's inheritance in his father's line.
As a boy, Aravinda received his early education in a public school in England. The old headmaster of this school is reported to have said when Aravinda's name came prominently before the British
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public in connection with the State trial of which he was made the principal accused, this time last year—that of all the boys who passed through his hands during the last twenty-five or thirty years, Aravinda was by far and above the most richly endowed in intellectual capacity. From this school he went to Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a student of European classics, and passed the Indian Civil Service examination with great credit. Failing, however, to stand the required test in horsemanship he was not allowed to enter the Covenanted Service of the Indian Government. But returning to India he found employment in the Native State of Baroda, where his endowments and scholarship soon attracted the notice of the authorities, leading to his appointment to the post of Vice-Principal of the State College. Had Aravinda cared for earthly honours or wealth, he had a very splendid opening for both in Baroda. He was held in great respect by the Maharaja. He was loved by the educated classes in the State. He was exceedingly popular with the general public. All these opened very large possibilities of preferment before him in the service of this premier Native State in India.
But there was a new awakening in the country. A new school of thought had arisen, demanding a thorough reconsideration of the old and popular, political, economic, and educational ideas and ideals of the people. It abjured the
old mendicant methods of prayer, protest and petition. It
proclaimed a new gospel of self-help and self-reliance. It called out to the
spirit of India to come to its own, to stand upon its own inner strength, and
put forth its own native efforts for the realisation of its true native life. It
called aloud for leaders and workers-for the poet, the prophet, the philosopher,
the statesman, the organiser and man of action, to help the sacred cause. It
laid on all who would accept the call the heaviest self-sacrifice yet demanded
of any political man in modem India. It wanted men who would not only, as
hitherto, give to their country their moments and their little pennies, but who
would consecrate all their working hours and their hard earnings to the service
of the Motherland. The call went home to the heart of Aravinda. His own native
province called for him. It laid on him the vow of poverty. It offered him the
yoke of the saviours of their people and the up lifters of humanity -the yoke of
calumny, persecution, imprisonment and exile.
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Aravinda obeyed the Mother's call, accepted her stern conditions, and cheerfully took up her chastening yoke. He gave up his place in Baroda, worth £ 500 a year, to take up the duties of Principal in the College started in at Calcutta under the new National Council of Education on a bare subsistence of £ 10 a month.
This movement of National Education owed its origin to the latest education-policy of the Indian Government, who sought to turn the institutions of public instruction in the country to chstinctly political ends. The old education had given birth to widespread disaffection. It had called into being "the discontented B.A.'s". The new educational policy initiated by Lord Curzon was directed towards curing this evil. Its aim was to manufacture loyal citizens— men who would be externally content to remain loyal to the autocratic government in their country, without any desire for free citizenship. The movement of National Education was the people's reply to the official policy. It took definite shape and form as a result of the persecution of schoolboys, by the Executive in Bengal, for their participation in the new political movements in the country. But it had a more fundamental need. The officially controlled education had been condemned by both friends and foes alike. It was shallow and rootless. It imparted the shadow, but not the substance, of modern culture to the youths of the nation. It was artificial, because foreign in both spirit and form. It led to a fearful waste of youthful time and energy by imposing the necessity of learning a foreign language, to receive instructions through its medium in all the higher branches of study. It was controlled by an alien Bureaucracy, in the interests, mainly, of their own political position, and only secondarily in those of the real intellectual life of the pupils. It was excessively literary, and detrimental to the industrial and economic life of the country. The movement of National Education was started to counteract these evils of the officially-controlled system of public instruction. It proposed to promote—"Education, scientific, literary, and technical, on National lines, and under National control". But though owing its initiation to the threats of the Government to close the doors of the official schools and colleges and universities against those who would take any part—even to the extent of simply attending—in any political meeting or demonstration—the National Education
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Movement in Bengal sought to avoid all open causes of friction with the authorities, and preferred to work independent of but not in opposition to the Government. Political in its .origin it .tried to avoid all conflicts with the authorities by assuming an absolutely nonpolitical attitude.
The school of thought to which Aravinda belonged did not support this declaration of the National Council of Education, and could not appreciate this needless dread, as they thought, of offending official susceptibilities. But they had to accept the verdict of the majority. One of the most unfortunate things in modern public life is the dependence of all large public movement on the help and support of the wealthy classes in the community. Large and organised movements in our times cannot be carried on without large and substantial financial support; and the rich are not willing, as they were in the more primitive times, to lend their support to any institution without seeking to control it. This unfortunate condition lowers the intellectual and moral tone of many a public institution, which, though financed with the monies of the richer classes, would have been able, without their personal intervention or control, to keep up a very superior intellectual or moral standard. This is particularly injurious in comparatively primitive communities, where realised wealth has not yet had time to ally itself with high culture, and where, owing to the absence of a vigorous and free national life, it has but little incentive and lesser opportunities for cultivating such an alliance.
The Nationalists are a poor party in India, and the National Council of Education, though it owed its initiation to their efforts, passed, almost from the very beginning beyond their sphere of influence, and Aravinda's position as the nominal head of the National College, practically controlled by men of different views and opinions, became almost from the very beginning more or less anomalous.
This was, from the same point of view, very unfortunate. Aravinda had received the best modern education than any man of his country and generation could expect to have. He had for some years been a teacher of youth in Baroda and had acquired considerable practical experience in his art. He had clearly realised the spirit and actualities of the life of his nation, and knew how the most advanced principles of modern pedagogy could be successfully worked into a
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thoroughly national system of education in India. He went to Calcutta as an educationist. He knew that foundations of national independence and national greatness must be laid in a strong and advanced system of national education. He had a political ideal, no doubt; but politics meant to him much more than is ordinarily understood by the term. It was not a game of expediency but a school of human character, and, in its turn reacting upon it, should develop and strengthen the manhood and womanhood of the nation. Education could no more be divorced from politics than it could be divorced from religion or morals. Any system of education that helps such isolation and division between the various organic relations of life, is mediaeval, and not modern. It is the education of the cloister—abstract and unreal; not the education of the modern man, eager to realise his fullest manhood in and through every relation of life. Aravinda is an apostle of modern education. Indeed, his ideal of modern education is even higher than what is understood by modern education ordinarily in Europe. It is a supremely spiritual ideal. Its aim is to actual-ise the highest and deepest God-consciousness of the human soul, in the outer life and appointments of human society. It was the temptation of having an open field for the realisation of this lofty educational ideal which brought Aravinda to Calcutta. Had he been given a free hand in the new National College there, that institution would have opened an altogether new chapter not only in the history of modern education in India, but perhaps in the whole world. To work the realism of the spirit of modern culture into the mould of idealism of ancient theosophy, would not only secure for India her lost position as teacher of humanity, but would, perchance, even save modern civilisation from total collapse and destruction under the pressure of a gross and greedy industrialism.
But, unfortunately, neither individuals nor communities can easily break away from their own past. Most of the members of the new National Council of Education in Bengal were products of the old university. Some of the leading men in the new organisation had been
closely associated, for many years, with the actual working out of the old vicious system. Steeped in the traditions of this old education, they could hardly be expected to thoroughly enter into the spirit of modern pedagogy. They were willing to give fair room to
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the new principles, as an experiment; but could hardly give them their absolute and wholehearted support, as truths. It seemed to them like jumping into the unknown. While accepting the principle of National Education as education "on national lines" and "under national control", and consequently, pledged not to accept any official aid, they were not free from the fear of possible official opposition, which, if once aroused would make their work, they thought, absolutely impossible. They had real dread of the Bureaucracy, and strong confidence, really, in their own people. The dominating and declared ideal of the new Council, consequently, came to be not in any way to supplant, but only to supplement, the existing Government-and-University-system of education in the country. A timid, temporising spirit, so galling to the reformer and the man with new visions and large ideas, generally guided the work of the National Council, and it made it almost impossible for Aravinda to throw himself heart and soul into his educational work in Calcutta. His place in the National College, though he was its nominal Principal, was not really that of organiser and initiator, but simply of a teacher of language and history, even as it had been in the Maharaja's College at Baroda. He had left Baroda in the hope of finding a wider scope of beneficent and patriotic activity in the new College in Calcutta. That hope was not realised. Almost from the very beginning he saw the hopelessness of working out a truly modern and thoroughly national system of education, through the organisation at whose service he had so enthusiastically placed himself.
But the man possessed by pure passion creates, where he cannot find them ready-made for him, his own instruments for the realisation of his supreme end in life. And wider fields of public usefulness were soon opened before Aravinda. The Nationalist School in Bengal was without a daily English organ. A new paper was started. Aravinda was invited to join its staff. A joint stock company was shortly floated to run it, and Aravinda became one of the directors. This paper— "Bandemataram"—at once secured for itself a recognised position in Indian journalism. The hand of the master was in it from the very beginning. Its bold attitude, its vigorous thinking, its clear ideas, its chaste and powerful diction, its scorching sarcasm and refined witticism were unsurpassed by any journal in the country, either
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Indian or Anglo-Indian. It at once raised the tone of every Bengal paper, and compelled the admiration of even hostile Anglo-Indian editors. Morning after morning not only Calcutta, but the educated community almost in every part of the country, eagerly awaited its vigorous pronouncements on the stirring questions of the day. It ever forced itself upon the notice of the callous and self-centred British press. Long extracts from it commenced to be reproduced week after week, even in the exclusive columns of the "Times" in London. It was a force in the country which none dared to ignore, however much they might fear or hate it, and Aravinda was the leading spirit, the central figure, in the new journal. The opportunities that were denied him in the National College he found in the pages of the "Bandemataram", and from a tutor of a few youths he thus became the teacher of a whole nation.
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NATURE has placed mankind in an incessant process of spiritual ~ evolution. She, Aurobindo contends, intends in the evolution of the spiritual man to awaken him to the Supreme Reality (i.e., Saccidānanda an equipoised unity of Transcendental, Universal, Individual and Supermind) by way of building ways, developing capacities to follow them and manifesting the goal. But she lea ves it for each individual to reach individually the right stage and turn of its development, enter into spiritual ways and pass by its own chosen path out of this inferior existence. What the Evolutionary power has done is to make a few individuals consciouss of their selves, conscious of the Eternal Being that they are, but it is not the complete and radical change which established a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. She has evolved the spiritual man but not the Supramental Being. It is left for the individual soul to transform this spiritual man into Superman by a different endeavour. As mind is grounded in this spiritualised mental stage of spiritual man on the foundation of Ignorance seeking for knowledge and growing into knowledge, so Supermirid must be grounded here in a supermen talised Gnostic Being on the foundation of knowledge growing into its own greater Light. But this cannot be accomplished, so long as the spiritual-mental being has not risen fully to Supermind and brought down its powers into terrestrial existence.
For the descent of the Supramental in the spiritual man, the chasm between mind and Supermind has to be bridged, the closed passages are to be opened and roads of ascent and descent need to be created. All this can be effected only by the process of the Triple Transformation—i) Psychic, 2) Spiritual and 3) Supramental.
1) Psychic Transformation
It verily signifies the conversion of our whole present nature— physical, vital and mental—into soul-transformation. Psychic Trans-
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formation, it must be noted, becomes possible only when man awakes to the knowledge of the soul and feels a need to bring it to the front and make it the master of his life and action.
2) Spiritual Transformation
It rests on or goes along with the Psychic Transformation. It signifies the descent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power, Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being, even into the lowest recesses of the life and body, even into the darkness of our Subconscience.
3) Supramental Transformation
Here the principle of spirituality affirms itself in its own complete right and sovereignty. After the Spiritual Transformation is effected, there must of necessity supervene the Supramental Transformation, —there must needs take place, as the crowning movement, the ascent into the Supermind and the transforming descent of the Supramental Consciousness into our entire being and nature. It signifies the integral transformation, and transformation of the whole being.
It is then evident from the above that to arrive at a widest totality and profoundest completeness, the Consciousness has to shift its centre and its static and dynamic position from the surface to the inner being. When the crust of the outer nature thus cracks, the soul, the psychic entity then manifests itself as the central being which upholds the mind, life and body and supports all other powers and functions of the spirit. It takes up its greater function as the guide and ruler of the nature. The first result of this is that every region of the being is purified, set right, put in spiritual order and the whole nature is harmonised. The second result is a free inflow of all kinds of spiritual experiences. The third result is the descent of the Supramental which is essential for bringing the permanent ascension, an increasing inflow from above, an experience of reception and retention of the descending spirit or its powers and elements of Consciousness. No limit can be fixed to this revolution; for it is in its nature an invasion by the Infinite. This is the process of Spiritual Transformation. It achieves itself and culminates in an upward ascent, often repeated by
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which in the end, the Consciousness fixes itself on a higher plane and from there sees and governs the mind, life and body. It achieves itself also in an increasing descent of the powers of the higher Consciousness and Knowledge. It should, however, be noted that this change might not be accepted as native to itself by the lower being. Had it been so, it would not be a total growth, an integral evolution but a partial and imposed formation. A descent of Consciousness into the lower levels is therefore necessary.
In conclusion, we can fairly confidently say that as the Psychic Transformation has to call in the Spiritual Transformation to complete it, so the Spiritual Transformation has to call in the Supramental Transformation to complete it. The Supramental Transformation is the final transformation which puts an end to the passage of the soul through the Ignorance and grounds its Consciousness, its life, its power and form of manifestation on a complete and completely effective self-knowledge.
R. K. GARG
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XXVI
shreds are collected into nothingness.THE cotton is beaten and beaten into fleecy shreds;
The shreds are beaten into nothingness:
Even then the source is not reached.
Shanti says, however much one may think of it,
The cotton is beaten into shreds
and the
Moving into nothingness I abolished myself.
The path is muddy, neither side is visible:
Shanti says, there is no passage even for a hair to enter.
It is neither the cause nor the effect—
such is the
argument,Shanti declares from his own experience.
NOTES:
L. 4 In spite of our efforts to think to the contrary.
L. 8 Narrow is the passage to Truth.
L. 9 Normally one argues from cause to effect, or goes
back from effect to cause. Here neither is there.
XXVII
rejoice.The whole midnight the lotus blooms:
Thirty-two sisters (yogins) are there,
their limbs
The moon follows the path of the Mother:
She indeed speaks to the One for the riches of delight:
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The moon moves on and enters into Nirvana,
The Goddess of the lotus bears the lotus on the lotus ten:
The delight of cessation carries no sign, it is all pure.
He who understands this, is the wise one here.
Bhusuk says he has understood, in the union,
In the play of the Great Delight, the Supreme Beatitude.
NOTES
|
L. 1. |
Midnight: |
the absence of the ordinary daylight consciousness, entry into inner consciousness. |
|
Lotus: |
the inner consciousness and being. |
|
|
L. 2. |
Sisters : |
the powers that control the ādhāra: 32, perhaps body, life, mind, and each containing five jñānendriyas and five karmendriyas plus the one above and the one below (Purush a and Prakriti); the Vedas also speak of ten sisters. |
|
L. 5. |
Moon: |
the being of delight. |
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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FUTURE POETRY AND LETTERS OF SRI AUROBINDO: THIRD SERIES
QUANTITATIVELY speaking, there are not more than half a dozen or so published volumes which constitute the bulk of Sri Aurobindo's literary criticism. There may be one or two volumes more which may come out, in due course, in the form of his talks or letters. Except for the 406-page The Future Poetry which came out during the years 1917-20 in the form of a long, serially written essay in the philosophical monthly, The Arya, which was, strangely enough, mostly managed, edited and written out by him alone on a quite large variety of subjects in the sequential form, nearly all his critical literary opinions and views are to be found mostly in the form of letters. Among the four volumes of his letters so far published, the third series is exclusively devoted to his views on poetry and literature. These two, therefore, constitute his principal books of literary criticism, although our knowledge of Sri Aurobindo as a literary critic will not be complete unless we take into account two other small volumes of letters entitled Letters on "Savitri" and Life, Literature, Yoga.
The Future Poetry—published in book form in August, 1953— is, in my view, a work of as much importance in the field of literary criticism as The Life Divine is in the realm of philosophy, The Synthesis of Yoga in that of Yoga and Savitri; a Legend and a Symbol in that of poetry. The Future Poetry, though little known yet in the larger world, is not just an appendage to Sri Aurobindo's major works. As Dr. S. K. Ghose rightly says, "It is itself a major work and in its own way quite as essential."! While I don't quite agree with him that The Future Poetry is "perhaps the one original contribution to the subject of aesthetics in our times-there being other original contributions such as Croce's-Aesthetics, Ezra Pound's Literary Essays, Hulme's Speculations, L A. Richard's Principles of Literary Criticism, T. S. Eliot's Selected Essays, Maud Bodkin's Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, to name just a few outstanding one's,-one may
1 & 1 Sri Aurobindo Circle, Bombay, 14th November, 1958, p. 63.
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be justified in stating that Sri Aurobindo's book is the most outstanding and original of them all. It is, at any rate, the richest and most courageous possible synthesis of the critical genius of the East and that of the West. Sri Aurobindo, we know, was a profound scholar of the Western and the Eastern literatures, both classical and modern. His mind and sensibility were already deeply steeped in the literary riches of the East and the West before he took to a long, sustained as well as intensely concentrated life of spiritual discipline and realisation which brought about a considerable lifting of his consciousness and nature above the narrow racial or national or even purely human level. By the time, therefore, he came to write out the serials of The Future Poetry he had developed the sense of 'tradition' and literary 'history' in a much fuller, richer and more cosmopolitan measure than T. S. Eliot had advocated in his famous critical essay, called Tradition and the Individual Talent. The whole of the Western literary tradition, from Homer to W. B. Yeats, and of the Eastern literary heritage, ranging from the ancient Vedic and the Upanishadic poet-seers to the modern mystic poet, Tagore, had been splendidly assimilated in his own creative and critical consciousness and was at his finger-tips for use in his literary criticism. It was, thus, a richly synthetic and well compact critical mind, having at its command a wide and intimate knowledge of the literatures of India and Europe, and, at the same time, attaining a unique vision of a su blame order subgenres transcending the cultural genius of either, which he brought to bear in The Future Poetry. His spiritual attainment made an illuminative and transformative impact upon his literary knowledge and insight and gave him both a universal and transcendental outlook on all the significant aspects and problems of poetry and art.
Again, this notable book of literary criticism clearly and firmly tells us about the essence, as also the first and last aims of poetry. There is no confusion or contradiction anywhere about these essential aims and objectives of poetry. A critic of poetry gets a clear and consistent idea here as to the basic and ultimate purpose or function of poetry. What is more, with a similar clear-eyed vision which has almost the force of inevitability in it, he gives an indication of the direction in which poetry, in the English tongue at least, should and,
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even must, increasingly proceed in the years to come.
As far as we in India are concerned, Sri Aurobindo's book carries a special value of its own, inasmuch as it is most probably the one book of English poetic criticism which seeks to look at poetry in general and the evolution of English poetry and at the outstanding English and American poets with unmistakably Indian eyes and from the Indian point of view. In spite of so many years of quite intensive as well as extensive study of the English language and literature in our country and some of us even doing research on this or that aspect of it or this or that English author, it can hardly be said yet that we have been able to develop that precise particular sensibility and outlook which should enable us to cultivate a genuinely Indian approach and, consequently, produce an Indian terminology to understand English poetry as an enlightened Indian should. Hitherto, we have been taught to see and study English poetry through the Englishman's and English critic's spectacles and that is why we have practically failed to make a truly original contribution to the study of English literature. One of the reasons for this has been, I believe, that we have been so much governed by the aping mentality that we have not yet had the courage to feel and draw sustenance from our Indian roots. Instead of developing any living faith in our own 'Indian
ness' and thus turning to the contributions, say of" Sanskrit aestheticians and literary critics, for inspiration as well as knowledge of at least the literary principles, canons and terminology, we have but passively accepted the Western inspiration and knowledge, technique and tools, and thus followed in the footsteps of Western theorists and critics, taking all poetic principles to emanate from Plato or Aristotle. And though it can certainly be said to our credit that some of us have succeeded in assimilating these Western influences into our own literary taste to the extent of giving a recognisably good account of ourselves both as creative writers of English, and critics, it is doubtful whether we have yet been able to build anything truly and solidly English on Indian roots and values, drawing more and more upon a sound knowledge of the rich heritage of our Indian culture, including the literary culture, and applying our rediscoveries
fruitfully to an alien language and literature. First of all, our knowledge itself of our own culture is quite vague and inadequate, and secondly, we have
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had this feeling implanted in us in course of all these years of English education, that we need a knowledge of the Bible, of French, and Greek and Latin writers, if not in their originals, at least in their translations, and a few years' stay in England at one of the British universities in order to acquire a good and sound knowledge of the English language and literature. While the truth behind this attitude is certainly not denied, the time has now come when we Indians should start asking ourselves whether all this is worthwhile and whether, for all our best efforts so far, the English men are yet prepared to recognise our claims to the ability to write poetry or even original literary criticism in English. Even such a sensible poet and critic as Kathleen Raine stated recently that she found a sense of remoteness and strangeness—that is to say alien ness—in most Indo-Anglian poetry. In an article on The Future Poetry of Sri Aurobindo1 Kathleen Raine, in course of her reference to Sri Aurobindo's evaluation of A. E's poetic language as " rendered sometimes a little remote and unseizable by its immergence in an unusual light", says: "This same remoteness English reader s find in most Indian poetry written in English, even that of Tagore, where images, to the Western readers, make an impact only aesthetic, and fail to convey what doubtless their author intended. Doubtless Tagore's poems written in Bengali convey the total intelligible content of his thought, that is elusive in his English poems. The same. failure of communication I find in the poems of Sri Aurobindo himself and, to a greater and les s extent, in all the Indian poetry written in English known to me (I do not of course speak of verse like that of the young poet Dom Moraes, who has adopted a Western point of view together with the English language, and whose work is essentially indistinguishable from that of his English contemporaries-whatever at some future time it may become.)"2 And just as the typical British writer is apt to find fault with our writing poetry in English, so it might be doubted whether he would feel quite pleased with our attempt at English literary criticism as well. He is apt to dislike our poetry in English because its thought and imagery are to him much too remote and alien, being more Indian than Western; and he is apt to criticise our English literary criticism because
1 Published in the 15th Number of Sri Aurobindo Circle, Bombay, 1959.
2 Ibid, p. 34.
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it is more Westernised and, therefore, imitative than Indian and original. He would like us to contribute an Indian interpretation of Shakespeare and Milton and Shelley rather than a more or less soulless reproduction, howsoever brilliant and lively on the surface, of what the Western critics have said on them. Not that all the Indian literary criticism in English is poor and merely derivative. The Indian temperament being by nature a quite catholic and easily and widely assimilative one, can achieve the qualities of brilliance and excellence even when it imitates something foreign to its own genius and life. But for all this the inescapable fact remains that our performance is sure to be much better and more enduring and appreciable if, instead of erecting something out of the merely imported and laboriously learnt materials from the West, we go back to the undying roots of our own luminous spiritual and literary cultures, and drawing not only inspiration and sustenance from them but also the technique and terminology, all of which has not yet become outworn and moribund, we produce something which is of the nature of a genuine synthesis of the old and the new, the Indian and the British. It is in this way more than any other that we are likely to make some truly original contribution of lasting value. And it is here that Sri Aurobindo's The Future Poetry
But when we speak of an Indian point of view in connection with The Future Poetry,
it should be made clear that it is in no narrow sense that we do so. Indeed, the
genius of Sri Aurobindo, whether spiritual or political or literary, was not the
product of any particular geographical area, nor was it meant for any particular
people or community. It was ever global and meant for the whole of mankind.
Transcending the peculiarities of nationality and race and yet deeply instinct
with what we know as Indian culture and vision and experience, his was a genius
which was truly and widely cosmopolitan in the largest and subtlest sense of the
term. Moreover, the very spirit of the Indian mind or genius is something so
assimilative, broad
Page-29
minded and human that it tends to become cosmopolitan without much difficulty. Sri Aurobindo's genius richly and freely partook of this catholic aspect of the Indian mentality and this fact subtly coloured and modified all he thought and wrote.
But there is a further importance of this critical literary contribution by Sri Aurobindo. It is, as has been stated before, not one of his side works written during any periods or moments of leisure snatched from his main yogic or poetic activity but a major work itself. That is to say, it is as good a channel of communication of his rich spiritual experience and teaching, in brief, his message, as The Life Divine or Savitri or Th e Synthesis of Yoga. It, thus, occupies a veryimportant and distinctive position among his other works. It may be stated without any hesitation that in all hi s works Sri Aurobindo's chief concern is with the " vit al question" of the future of man. It is in course of the examination and solution of this vital question that he reveals to us how the present mental consciousness of man can be exceeded and expanded, and inspired by a new synthetic vision of his future. And like The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and The Human Cycle, The Future Poetry is also concerned with this very fundamental problem of modern man. It is not merely a book about poetry, traditionally understood and treated as such, but a work where Sri Aurobindo really examines and expounds something of the rationale of that synthetic unitive vision which we find in his other major works. Only this vision is now sought to be perceived the rough the rationale of the inspired poetic word. Poetry is now virtually seen as one of the signposts and leaders of human evolution. The nature of hi s faith in man and hi s spiritual evolution almost demands a defence of poetry such as is to be found in Th e Fu ture Poetry .Also, when we put it beside Savitri, it is clear to us that the two works are very closely, almost integrally connected. Savitri, it appears, is the very concrete embodiment of not only all the basic poetic principles enunciated in Th e Future Poetry but the very poetry of the future visioned therein. The two works are like the legislative and executive aspects of the same living body politic, as it were ; the soul and body of a single, though highly complex creative activity or genius. And thus, Sri Aurobindo succeeds in demonstrating without any shadow of a doubt that his theories of poetry are not just
Page-30
theories i.e., mere ideas and visions in an unrealisable, insubstantial form but living practical idealities realised by him in his monumental epic of about 24,000 lines of sustained poetic power and splendour. This is something remarkable about Sri Aurobindo as a literary critic or aesthetician. Others like Croce, or Dr. I. A. Richards, or Dr. F. R. Leavis can mostly theorise and hardly poetise; practitioners like Hulme, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot can but partly and
fragmentarily realise through actual verses all that they have theorised about poetry. On the contrary, the picture of poetry, as given by Sri Aurobindo both in theory and practice is more total, comprehensive, forward-looking, vivid, real and convincing than any provided by these theorists and poet-critics. Shall one, on the basis of it, hazard the guess that Sri Aurobindo would like the literary critic or, for the matter, life-critic or Yogic and philosophic thinker not only to theorise and speculate but also realise the ideas, conceptions and visions in actual practice and, thus, make them truly real and concretely practical and of solid enduring value and force ? Indeed, we find that when Sri Aurobindo, with a new notion of quantity proper to English, theorised
about the possibility of the use of the classical hexameter in English poetry,
he did not leave the matter there but pursued it to its logical conclusion and
actually demonstrated through several verses, and one whole epical fragment of
4,000 lines, that the thing was more than possible and need not be regarded any
longer as outlandish, as had been done mere such experiments as those of
Spenser, Sidney, Tennyson, Clough, Longfellow and Bridges before. Above all, Sri
Aurobindo's whole life itself was a practical demonstration of the truths which
he sought to reveal to us through words and writings. And it is this which,
above everything else, gives so much of irresistible power and validity and
originality to all that he said and wrote. He was not merely the author of The
Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga, for he lived them every moment of his
life; and so when he wrote of the future poetry of man, with particular
reference to the English language, he actually lived every line of it not only
as an aesthetician but as a poet too and poured out whole seas of it with such
sonorous splendours and reverberations through his highly diverse varieties of
songs, sonnets, lyrics, poetic plays and narratives, that they continue to
produce thrilling effects
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of the power and beauty of both an opulent, aesthetic and spiritual tradition and a magnificent, original 'individual talent'.
But the story of his remarkable originality as a literary critic does not end here. He has revealed to us the relation of poetry to human life and human progress in a way hardly seen and realised by others before or in the contemporary world. Here, too, he richly combines the powers of tradition and individuality and finally exceeds both. Nearly all the serious-minded critics of the East and West have realised the vital role which poetry can play and has played and must be always made to play in human life and civilisation. But it is doubtful whether all of them have clearly and convincingly realised the power of poetry in human life, particularly the power of what Sri Aurobindo terms as 'mantric' poetry. By the way, we can see here an example of a felicitous and original application of the Indian literary terminology to English poetic criticism, just as the Indian aesthetic term 'Rasa' can convey a whole world of meanings if applied with knowledge and discrimination to English literarature and made a part of English literary criticism. To realise and evoke the power of 'mantric' poetry in human life is to lead it always from progress to progress, from one evolutionary step to another. It is to achieve a very living and uplifting linkage between ourselves and the supreme Reality above and around us, to effectuate a happy marriage between matter and spirit, the word and the Word. No wonder, then, if Sri Aurobindo tries to impress upon us as gently and persuasively as only a Yogic poet and critic can do, that the future of modern man is very closely linked with the future of his poetry. Poetry properly understood holds the key to the future. "For", as Sri Aurobindo says, "the great poet interprets to man his present or reinterprets for him his past, but can also point him to his future."1 Nay, in all the three aspects of time—the present, the past and the future—the great poet can also "reveal to him the face of the Eternal"2. The poetry of "the intuitive reason, the intuitive senses, the intuitive delight-soul in us"3 which is bound to be written in the new intuitive age, dawning upon us, and finally rising "towards a still greater
1 The Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, First Edition^ August 1953, pp, 285-86.
2 Ibid, p. 286. 3 Ibid, p. 291.
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power of revelation nearer to the direct vision and work of the over-mind from which all creative inspiration comes",1 would really mean "putting the poetic spirit once more in the shining front of the powers and guides of the ever-progressing soul of humanity."2 It is poetry which will once again "lead in the journey like the Vedic Agni, the fiery giver of the word, yuvā kavih, priyo atithir amartyo mandrajihvo rtacit rtāvā, the Youth, the Seer the beloved and immortal Guest with his horned tongue of ecstasy, the Truth-conscious, the Truth finder, born as a flame from earth and yet the heavenly messenger of the Immortala.''3 This naturally implies that if the poetry of man is one of the true reflections of the level of consciousness and culture he has attained at any period of time, it is also one of the unmistakable indicators of the level of consciousness and culture he is likely to attain in the future.
As far as Sri Aurobindo is concerned, he has hardly any doubt about the truth of the fundamental power of poetry and its future. But like a true divine seer, he does not impose his vision of the future upon us. On the contrary, he speaks to us gently, detachedly and modestly, and, at the same time, leaves ample room for other, even contrary, points of view to state their case. As Dr. S. K. Ghosh rightly says, "The exposition is so full and varied and suggestive, so fair to other points of view and other possibilities that there is little left for the critic to add or to take away."4
(To continue)
SRI KRISHNA PRASAD
1 Ibid, p. 291 2 Ibid, p. 292 3 Ibid, p. 292 4 op. cit., p. 62
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THE DIVINE GIVES HIMSELF
THE aspirant to the Divine life has to give himself to the Divine, entirely, in every part of his being, in every movement of his nature. And this self-giving should not be grudging or afflicted by the sense of a constraint or compulsion. There must be no sense too of a deprivation. It must be a voluntary, free, resolute and joyous self-giving. This is the initial, indispensable, condition for progress in the Integral Yoga—surrender to the Divine Mother—and it is not unknown to those who practise it or are preparing themselves for practising it. It is also well known that no decisive progress can be made in this yoga without this unreserved surrender and self-giving.
It is true that there is a great stress laid upon personal effort at the beginning of the Yoga, and the effort consists in the triple act of aspiration, rejection and surrender, as Sri Aurobindo has said. Aspiration one can expect in a sadhaka, and, if there is a sincere aspiration, rejection of much, if not all, of what conflicts with it can also be expected. But surrender is the major and most important part of the personal effort. And it is not an easy thing to do. For, it implies the giving up of all that one considers oneself—one's mental, vital and physical ideas, desires, habits, tendencies; all, in fact, that makes up the present personality. So long as the ego is dominant in the being, personal effort must be concentrated upon its dislodgment. Its desires and insistences have to be ferreted out from every part of the nature and offered to the Mother's Force for transformation. There can be no relaxation in this effort, for the ego, which is the sole cause of ignorance and bondage and suffering must go, once and for all. This effort, in proportion as it is sincere and sustained, is aided from behind by the Mother's Grace.
There is the reverse side of the medal, and we must be aware of it too. It is not only that we give ourselves, the Divine gives Himself to us. With the progress of our surrender, rain or shine. His Presence
Page-34
is felt enveloping us, fortifying our faith, supporting our faltering steps, and leading us towards His Love and Light.
But so long as surrender is not total, this feeling of His giving Himself to us will be faint or flickering and intermittent. When the surrender is complete, it will be felt, constantly and intensely, that He gives all of Himself to us. It is the self-giving of the Infinite to the finite, of the limitless ocean to the tiny, trembling drop. "But for that you must give yourself entirely, absolutely, exclusively, refusing nothing, keeping nothing for oneself, holding nothing back, not throwing away anything." What we do not give becomes a barrier between Him and us, what we hold back holds us back from Him. It is not a matter of barter, or of a hesitant, trepidantes, stinted giving. If the puny, frail mortal clings to his blind, suffering littleness, he forfeits his own blissful infinity and immortality. For, to give oneself to the Divine is to recover one's own deathless divinity, it is to return to one's real Self. ''स आत्मेति विघात्'', says the Upanishad, know Him to be your own Soul and Self.
When the self-giving is unreserved and total, "He is with you, entirely, constantly, every minute, in all your thoughts, in all your needs and there is no aspiration which does not get an immediate answer; you have the sense of a complete, unbroken intimacy, an integral closeness." He is, then, always with us, within us and without, embracing our whole being with His unfathomable love. "You walk, He walks with you, you sleep, He sleeps with you, you eat, He eats with you, you think, he thinks with you, you love, He is the Love which you have".
The supreme illustrations of aspiration, love, absolute self-giving and union are found in the Prayers and Meditations of the Mother. She aspires, aspires to show to the world what aspiration is in its most flaming intensity and what it can lead to. "Thy Light is in me like a vivifying fire and Thy divine Love penetrates me. I aspire with all my being that Thou mayst reign as sovereign Lord in this body whose will is to become Thy docile instrument and Thy faithful servant." The Mother's love for the Divine glows in the following words, "Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee..." Her "Radha's Prayer" is the acme of self-giving:
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"O Thou, whom at first sight I knew for the Lord of my being and my God, receive my offering.
"Thine are all my thoughts, all my emotions, all the sentiments of my heart, all my sensations, all the movements of my life, each cell of my body, each drop of my blood. I am absolutely and altogether Thine, Thine without reserve..."
And this absolute self-giving culminates in a total union and identification with the Divine:
"O Love, Divine Love, Thy fillest my being and over flowest to every side. I am Thyself and Thou art I..." "...Thou hast taken my life and made it Thine; Thou hast taken my will and united it to Thine; Thou hast taken my love and identified it with Thine; Thou hast taken my thought and replaced it by Thy absolute Consciousness"
What a beatific state it is to be always in the Divine, living and moving and acting in the Divine, in the Light and Peace and Power and Bliss of His Presence of Love! The Divine gives Himself eternally, infinitely to those who give themselves utterly to Hin.
RlSHABHCHAND
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The Bhagavad Gita By K. V. Iyer. Pub. E. G. Paul & Co. Madras I. pp. 87 Price RS·I.50 .
THE Bhagavad Gita has been an unfailing source of inspiration and guidance to seekers all over the world. We know how, in their early days, the Gita was a chosen reference book to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It is happy that Sri K. V. Iyer's simple book serving as an introduction to the great text is now available in its second edition. In this book the essence of the teachings of the Gita is given with sufficient background material.
It opens with Lord Krishna's assurance that he would be born in this world as an Avatar whenever conditions of extreme neglect of Dharma are seen—for the protection of the good, the destruction of the wicked and the re-establishment of Dharma. Next, the present chaotic conditions of the world are described and it is shown how the Gita could give solace to the distressed of this age.
When Arjuna sees before him his parents, grand-sires, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, comrades, in bath the armies, his mind is filled with pity, his eyes grow dim with .tears. His ever victorious bow, Gandiva, slips unawares from his hand. He finds that he cares nothing for the glory of victory in a battle involving the destruction of his kinsmen. He is even anxious that the sons of Dhritarashtra should kill him when he is unarmed. Confused, Arjuna asks Krishna to initiate him into Dharma.
Krishna speaks to Arjuna about the immortality of the soul. Like childhood, youth and old age, the taking of a fresh body is also a natural process. Just as a man rejects his old clothes and wears new ones, the soul sheds the old and takes new bodies. The Lord makes it more certain that Arjuna should fight by telling him about Karma-yoga. Being a Kshatriya it is Arjuna's duty to fight and he is fortunate that he is engaged in a war for Righteousness. By failing in his duty, Arjuna would invite infamy which is worse than death. Do thy duty, Arjuna is told, without attachment and thine will be the
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Truth. When the doer views success and failure alike, he is not bound by the karma of his deeds. Even if one fails in this yoga of disinterested action—or for that matter in any yoga—one is born again in favorable environments where the yoga is resumed from the stage reached in the previous birth.
In Jnana Yoga one sees the Divine in all the manifest things of the world. Like water drops on the lotus leaf, the Jnanins lead their lives with supreme detachment. Having realised, as a first step, that everything is Brahman, the Jnana yogin identifies himself with the Brahman in all.
Bhaktiyoga enables the aspirants to have a personal contact with his ista devatā, the chosen Form. By intense devotion he finally merges into the Divine.
On receiving this Knowledge, Arjuna's ignorance is dispelled. He begs of the Lord to reveal to him his imperishable form. And when the Lord assumes that terror-striking form, Arjuna beholds in that mouth the sons of Dhritarashtra, the monarchs, Bhishma, Drona, warriors and others already killed or being killed. They enter into the furious mouth with irresistible speed like fireflies into the fire and rivers into the sea. Sri Krishna declares to the bewildered disciple: "I am Time who wastes, and destroys the people; lo, I have arisen in my might, I am here to. swallow up the nations. Even without thee all they shall not be, the men of war who stand arrayed in the opposing squadrons. Therefore do thou arise and get thee great glory, conquer thy foes and enjoy a great and wealthy empire. For these, they were slain even before and it is I who have slain them; be the occasion only, O Savyasachin!" (Sri Aurobindo's translation, )
The author surveys the entire teaching, through a study of selected two hundred verses, in a pleasing manner. He gives helpful notes on such topics as moksa, jīvanmukta, discipline etc. Appropriate references to Bhagavata Purana, Adhyatma Ramayana, Vivekachiiddmani etc. are given. The treatment leads the reader to study the original.
S. MEERA
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Vol. I N. 3
August 1944
CONFESSION AND CONFESSION
THE Practice of confession—confession of one's errors and lapses and sins—is usually considered necessary as part of spiritual discipline. In the Roman Catholic system it has a very special and important place. Here the confession is made to a particular priest, the father confessor. The penitent opens his heart freely and frankly and the confessor receives the secret as a sacred trust, and gives absolution in return. In India and in older disciplines generally the confession is made to the Guru.
A modern version, however, of the rule is found sometimes in certain groups of spiritual seekers. The confession is made not to a particular person considered fit and worthy and not in secret, but in an open session of the group to which one belongs: it is made to one's comrades, co-practitioners, to each other. The result, it is alleged, is quite hopeful and helpful. One derives real .benefit. One feels, at least, relief from a pressure and pain, even if one does not] get a complete cure of the distemper itself.
That confession, that is to say, admission or recognition of one's fault or error by itself brings some relief is a simple psychological fact. Modern psychotherapy, as practised by psychoanalysts, is based upon this principle. But the crucial problem is to whom should the confession be made—kasmai devāya? For that makes considerable difference in the result achieved.
First and foremost, naturally, the confession should be made to one's own self—that is the deity who requires propitiation at the very outset. To see and recognise an error committed is the initial step that one has to take to correct and rise above it. But there are circumstances when it may not be easy to detect one's error or wrong knot, when one may not have at all the will to do so. Apart from what may be habitual and ingrained to perverse and hardened natures, there
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are movements, it is pointed out, in our being and consciousness— primitive and aboriginal—which one naturally and stubbornly shrinks from facing. The psycho-analyst volunteers in such a predicament to help and collaborate: he endeavours to make the subject conscious, bring to the surface an imbedded and unrecognised complex that does not like the light of day. His function is that of a physician or surgeon.
The utility of group confession, it is contended, is precisely this that it encourages one to confess, to be frank and open. Usually one seeks to hide and is reticent about one's faults and slips, but when one sees and hears another, one is emboldened to speak out. What the psychoanalyst would find difficult to bring out, could be more easily laid bare in this collective or mutual confession. But there are certain dangers which seem to us not only to neutralise its utility, but warn us to avoid it.
First of all, it may lend itself to dramatisation and fixation. That is to say, one gets a pleasure in recounting one's lapses; in blackening oneself one feels as a sort of hero, and that instead of curing serves only to stabilise and eternize the thing one seeks to get rid of. From that standpoint perhaps the Christian way is a better system, in that it serves to limit the contagion, as it were, and also to inculcate real contribution and humility. Secondly, admission of a wrong movement may be the first step, a
necessary and indispensable step, but it is only just the first step, it does not by itself automatically eliminate the undesirable complex, as even psychotherapy seems to assume. The second step is to tackle, to come to grips with the knot. How can that be done securely and successfully ? It can be so done only if you are put in contact with a higher consciousness, either within you or outside you, rather both within and outside you. Any other person or persons standing level with you or perhaps even on a lower consciousness—cannot do the thing, they are likely to do the opposite, pin down the consciousness to the normal ignorant level or even bring it down still lower. The psychoanalyst may have a subtler or more detached consciousness, as a clever physician, but that is not enough, something more is necessary to cure the malady of the soul. The confessor is usually only a repository: he can be a true healer if and when he is one with the Christ consciousness.
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The real Redeemer, however, is the Guru; for the Guru is the embodiment of the Divine and one's deepest self. The unfolding of oneself, laying oneself bare to the gaze of the Guru is a divine mystery —it is what we call "opening" in our terminology.
Confession then is to be made first to oneself, that is to say, you must sincerely and genuinely ask for purity and light, for confession is nothing but that at bottom. If you are not conscious or sufficiently strong in the beginning to do it, you must have the good will, must call for the light. The light shall be given and the necessary strength; the Grace will be there automatically if we are open to it. Finally, the process takes a direct dynamic form and effectivity, when it is dedicated to the living personality of the Guru, who concretise the Grace from above and our aspiration from below.
PATTERN AND PLAN
A distinction has been brought out between pattern and plan by some Christian thinkers who seem nowadays to be coming back to their own once again even in Europe. The distinction is, we agree, very fruitful and immensely significant. Planning, they point out, is only a construction made by man's finite mind, it is arbitrary and artificial, whereas pattern comes from God, it is the design revealed by divine Dispensation in the cosmic purpose. So long as man takes to mere planning, endeavours to fashion himself or the world according to some pet ideas or notions of the limited and narrow and superficial human understanding it is sure to lead to frustration and nullity. There are many such brilliant plans, neat and even plausible, eked out and elaborated by the brain, but divorced from the living reality. For when they are brought forward to be applied to life, life has to be mutilated to fit into their frame; they are like the Procrustean bed. Especially in these revolutionary days when everything is sought to be built up anew from the very bottom of the foundations, planning is the slogan in the air: we have political, social, moral, religious, spiritual plans even, all the "isms" and "logies" that pullulate the atmosphere of the modern age. We have seen practically none of these nostrums are of much avail when pitted against facts of life. Nay some are even positively harmful. All have to be amended, modified,
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corrected both by the pressure of circumstances and an inner necessity. The rigidity of a Marxian frame, the intransigence of a Puritanical moralism, the sweeping arrogance of a totalitarian dispensation, all, all have to bend down to the force of life and give place to a growing revelation of the Divine Pattern.
The Divine Pattern has two elements in it which lend it its authenticity and absolute effectivity. First of all, its transcendent nature, that is to say, it is based on eternal realities, because it is the expression or formulation of the Divine Consciousness. The pattern is, according to us, the formation of the fundamental Idea-Forces of the Truth-Consciousness that stand at the base of Manifestation. Secondly, the Pattern is the dynamic un fold ment of that basic scheme, the general outline, through the mosaic of the evolutionary process. Human mind, itself a product of evolution, attempts to get at this pro-founder scheme—the real life pattern—of things, but oftener than not succeeds in arriving at a "sorry scheme"; for man's ignorant and impure nature, his uninstructed and unilluminated mind, his very zeal and impatient eagerness produce an aberration, a blurring of the truth. These attempts show only an urge, an aspiration towards better things and a partial—and very often distorted—glimpse of the shape of things to come. But in order that our urge and wish may be fulfilled we must adopt. the-right attitude and the right approach. We have to seek to mould the earth not simply after our heart's desire, but after God's will and the processes of the cosmic Purpose.
An integral spiritual consciousness that supports, illumines and inspires the mind and the life and the body can alone reveal the Pattern that the Divine Shakti harbours in her secret bosom and gradually develops and elaborates in the major lines of world progress. To leaders of men it is this divine wisdom that is necessary, especially in an epoch when a world is crumbling down and another has to be recreated.
ENEMY NUMBER ONE
He is not far to seek. He is near at home. He is within us, he is our own self. Whenever we look for the enemy outside and away, we shall surely find a good number of them and big ones too. But the
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arch-enemy will have escaped. We throw the blame on others, on circumstances, on fate, on Nature's perversity or God's partiality. But the real cause is elsewhere. The outside is as is the inside—the macrocosm is an echo or projection of the microcosm.
Modern psychology has familiarised us with what has been described as the phenomenon of transference or objectification. One ascribes to an object outside movements and happenings in oneself. This is not only true of the dream world—which was the main field of inquiry of the psychologists—but true also equally of the normal life. Whenever there is anything amiss—even though it may look that the cause is in outward circumstances and in others—it is always wise and it pays in the end to take it for granted that the central, the original cause is within ourselves. Not only so, one must be able to spot the source, otherwise how can there be a cure ? If one is sincere, if one develops the right consciousness, one is sure to find out. This, however, should not be confounded with what is termed vicarious atonement or expiation for the sins of others. For that is a question of taking the burden of others on oneself. But sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, if we are concerned with our own burden only and try to dispose of it. Once the inner knot is straightened out, the miracle is sure to happen; there will be no knot outside, even as the Mayic world dissolves directly one finds die Brahmic consciousness within. As the poet says, to the good soul all is propitious, for him horizons clear up, the winds blow smooth. The force of consciousness has this natural and inevitable effect: if it is obscure and wry, it will draw around it men and things and circumstances constituting a similar texture. Circumstances become difficult for him whose inner consciousness is blocked with pill boxes of egoistic arrogance and ignorance. Clear the consciousness, externally also Nature's course will run fair and even. It is for this reason that the common direction is given to spiritual seekers: liberate thyself, that is the only way to liberate the world.
What we say is true not only of the individual but of the collective or group consciousness also. It is a familiar spectacle to see nations and peoples blaming each other, pointing out the mole in another's eye, not the beam in our own. We, for example, in India, are never tired' of making the demand that there must be a change of
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heart on the part of the British, then only, we declare the whole Indian riddle will be solved at a stroke. There may be need of that, but we must not forget that there is a greater need of a change of heart on our side too. If each nation turned to change its own heart, instead of being anxious for the soundness of the heart of others, politics would be a harmonious divine play, and earth itself a heaven.
INDEPENDENCE AND ITS SANCTION
Independence is not a gift which one can receive from another, it is a prize that has to be won. In the words of the poet Bhasa, used in respect of empire, we can say also of liberty:
Talloke na tu yācyate na tu
punardīnāya tad dīyate.
it is not a thing to be got for the mere asking, nor is it a thing to be made over to a weakling.
The lead Sri Aurobindo gave in this connection has not, sad to say, sufficiently attracted the attention of our people. Indeed what he suggested was exactly, under the circumstances, the best way to acquire the necessary fitness—organised strength, capacity, the might and consequently the right—just the sanction, in other words, that can uphold a demand. We are always ignoring the broad fact that we have not the wherewithal to fight the British, even if it is found necessary to do so for our purpose. We cannot meet them openly and squarely: a "Quit India" programme is sure to end in a fiasco. It was foolishness and foolhardiness that believed we could as easily manage the British as the Japs or the Germans did (once upon a time we should add at this hour). A revolution, meaning a chaos and confusion, is not the best means to drive out the "die-hard Imperialism" as we choose to call it. Nor can cunning or expediency or legal jugglery be of any avail, nor work that is perfunctory, desultory, scampy. The force that can compel a change in the British has got to be of a different character: neither emotional excitement nor anger nor spite (nor a philosophical or moral vindication of our cause) can be an adequate lever. We declare it is a war: well then, we will have to arm
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ourselves as in war. That is to say, we must command a strength that is calm, collected, poised, organised—objectively acquired and marshaled, not simply subjectively thought out or taken for granted. That can alone be the imperative sanction to all our claims and demands, our wishes and aspirations.
Precisely, the present war brings to our door the opportunity most suited to the acquisition and development of this power and strength. The very things the Indian temperament once had in abundance but now lacks most and has to recover—discipline organisation, impersonality and objectivity in work, hard and patient labour, skill of execution in minute details—qualities by virtue of which power is not only acquired but maintained and fostered—are now made more easily available. These qualities cannot be mastered and developed with such facility and swiftness as under the pressure of the demands of a war. This does not mean that we have got to be militarists. But the world is such that if we wish to live and prosper we must know how to make use of the materials and conditions that are given to us. Many good things are imbedded among bad ones and wisdom and commonsense do not advise us to throw out the baby with the bath-water. That is another matter, however.
If we had joined hands with the British in the war work on their own terms (to try to compel them to our terms is to put the cart before the horse), we would have seen that as we proceeded with the work, more and more of it came automatically under our charge, however small or slight it might have looked in the beginning. In the end or very soon we would have found that our possession of the field was an accomplished fact, there could be no question of denying or refusing, the fact had to be accepted—admitted and ratified. It is the well-known policy of the camel which Aesop described in one of his Fables. We have to establish the inexorable logic of events which definitively solves the riddle, cuts the Gordian knot as it were. A theoretical that is to say a moral and legal pact or understanding is but a dam of sands.
Power is best gained and increased in this way, viz., through work, through practical application of it, in its painstaking execution —no matter with what insignificant fund we start with. Let all power come into my hands, let me be legally and verbally recognised as free and invested with plenary power, then alone I can exercise
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my power, otherwise not—this is the cry of romantic idealism, of sentimental hunger: it has all the impatience and incompetence of visionaries—illumines it is not the clear and solid wisdom of experience.
We consider the British as our enemy and in order to combat and compel them we have been trying to bring together all the differing elements in our midst. Close up the ranks to fight a common enemy—that is our grand strategy. It is an effort that has not succeeded till now and is not likely to succeed soon. We should have looked a little farther ahead: with a longer view we would have spotted the greater enemy, a vastly greater immediate danger. Against that common enemy a larger and effective unification would have been quite feasible and even easy. Indeed, if we had taken the other way round, had first united with the British against the greater common enemy, our union with ourselves—our own peoples and parties— would have been automatically accomplished.
That is how to read the situation. When it looked as though there was no way left at our disposal to compose the acute and bitter differences among the multifarious Indian collectivities and also between the Indians and the British or foreigners, precisely at that critical hour appeared the war bringing an unique opportunity, a call and a message, as it were. There is certainly clash in Nature, but always there is an effort also in her to turn that clash into concord. India had too long been the field par excellence of discord and it was time that a movement for real harmony should come. Yes, we say, the war was providential to us, a God-send, offering the chance of centuries. But blinded and perverted our human intelligence refused to take it at its worth.
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