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.

EDITORIAL

OUR FINEST HOUR

THIS is an age of deluge and devastation and decomposition. Is this also the Doomsday?

Nature herself has started the process and man has lent his hand to hasten it. Or did man start it and Nature is hastening the work? Perhaps it is a vicious circle, but the outcome is the same.

Anyhow the question now is whether there is a remedy. How can Nature be made steady and how can man come out of the muddle?

For man the root-cause is that he is being imprisoned more and more and circumstances of his life are such that he is losing all free movements and is being hemmed in on all sides. The walls are, as it were, pressing upon him, even to the point of suffocation. In all fields of life, rules and regulations, restrictions and impediments are mounting high and are becoming an unbearable burden more and more. Whichever way he turns, a few steps lead to a dead wall and he knocks

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Ms head against something hard and hostile and irremovable. Hence his natural urge is to knock more and more, to break and destroy and come out: that seems to be the only issue. Destroy and live dangerously—that is the one way left. In destroying what stands against you if you happen to destroy yourself, it matters very little, you will be destroyed willy nilly either way.

Indeed an urge to destroy pure and simple leads to self-destruction. Violence is a boomerang which turns back upon its own source. There is a joy in violence, perverse though it be, even when directed against oneself. Perhaps in the occult view it is the movement against oneself that is the secret source of the movement against others. The enormous increase in the incidence of suicides is a characteristic phenomenon of our age. It is not explained merely by the force majeure of actual circumstances. A dark spirit broods over the waters of existence today which aims at the annihilation of consciousness itself, the one source of life and creation.

But may we not pause a little and consider whether that is the only choice, or the best choice—the rush for destruction. The whole past construction that now stands against man, against his farther progress, it is agreed, has to be broken down, thrown aside, but in what way? By mere physical force, brute force, by pushing and dashing and ramming from outside—well, perhaps the thing can be done, but destruction of a form is not ehmination of the life or spirit behind it. The past stands in its present form and continues because it maintains its own inner life and spirit. So long as that inner spirit is there you may break one form but another or many others will appear inspired by the same spirit. That is why the French proverb says: "The more it changes, the more it remains the same." For the truth is that destruction is not the aim, not even the destruction of what should be destroyed, the aim is the creation of a new spirit, change of the inner nature. Our attention should be focused not on the outward form but on the inner norm. If there is a new norm within and a change of nature, the outer change of form will follow automatically. The old leaves will fall off, the dead branches crumble and new leaves and flowers appear with a new sap flowing in. The shell breaks off automatically when the living creature within grows and is mature enough to come out.

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On the contrary, the prison need not be altogether a prison, it may be an occasion, an opportunity for the human consciousness to make a break-through to create a new dimension. Here is then our immediate work—to conquer inner domains, the inner truths: for all truths are found first within the consciousness, established there before they become facts. So then let us harness our power and prowess, our aspiration and sincerity, all our life energy to the labour of the inner conquest. Let us stop awhile from the temptation and the urge for destruction and turn it round towards a higher inner adventure—that of construction. Yes, the truth that we want to see established in the outer world, let us establish it in ourselves, in each one of us, in our consciousness, in our impulses and activities. We always wanted liberty and equality and fraternity in the world at large, the ideal has not been realised because we did not care to realise it in the consciousness and life of each one of us. In the collective life of mankind that truth will alone become a fact which is a fact in the inner existence and consciousness of every human being.

The inner discovery is indeed a battle and here too a victory has to be won. It needs more than in any physical battle a complete contingent of courage and bravery, calm strength and persevering endurance, skill and energy to gain an absolute success. And there the field is free and vast, one can deploy oneself as largely as possible, move in any direction to any distance as one likes. It is no longer a prison—it is a region where one meets one's soul.

The individual seems always to precede the society. What begins in and with the individual is spread abroad and established in wide commonalty. But this individual self-concentration does not mean that one should withdraw from the world and its activities and sit and settle within oneself, apart and aloof. It does not mean while you are in prison, to accept imprisonment, dig a cave there and go into mere meditation. In other words, to find the inner solution it is not necessary to escape from the world, go into solitude of mountain tops or into the depths of the forests, take to the path of total renunciation till you attain perfect siddhi and then turn back and share your light and leading with humanity. Some great souls have done this-Buddha and Chirst and Vivekananda. But it is not for every man to try that path in the way they did. And even if the path is not easy, to some

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extent at least every one of us has to follow it; for we must remember our aim is not easy either. The pioneers have to accept the difficulty of the path. Pursuing the figure of the prison, of the dungeon, we may say, instead of trying to break it down because of the hopelessness of the attempt or as the alternative, to sit down quiet for the inner Uumination to come: instead of that one may cut a tunnel under the wall. That should be the nature of our activity in our present situation.

The new truth, the new capacity you have to acquire in and through the activities of the normal life. It was what Sri Krishna taught to Arjuna. Arjuna was a representative of the common man, Arjuna was taught to be always in the yogic consciousness even while he was engaged in battle:

Thus we are at the world's finest hour, for it shall find its soul.

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

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FROM THE KARMAYOGIN

NATIONALISM AND NATIONALISTS

BEPIN CHANDRA PAL (Continued)

MAZZINI'S definition of Nationality is a perfect definition. No more accurate or comprehensive definition of the term has yet been given. It is, he said, the individuality of the nation. The conception is, essentially, organic. The very first and fundamental pronouncement of modern Sociology is that Society is an organism. An organism means a thing that is an end unto itself. It is a thing, that essentially exists for itself. It may have a multitude of outer relations, and through these outer relations, it may serve other than its own organic ends also. But all these outer relations are more or less secondary, contributory to its own organic life and activities, and have their value not in themselves but in the fundamental life and activities of the organism. This organic conception of Society necessarily posits before each Society an aim to be reached. This is a specific aim. The essential aim in every evolutionary process is specific. In biological evolution, the development of the particular biological type represented by the organism, is this specific end. Similarly, in sociological evolution, the development of the particular social type represented by the social organism is this specific end. And it is the special and specific sociological type, which any particular group of humanity may represent, that constitutes Nationality.

Any chance collection of human units or human families, is therefore, not a Nation. Even territorial unity would not necessarily make them a Nation. Nationality is essentially a question of race. A nation is a sub-division of race. Race is genus, Nation is species. A race may be spread over a widely separated area. It may occupy the most distant parts of the globe. But neither differences of climate and other physical and physiographical conditions, nor difference of language or religion, or of historical evolution, can altogether destroy the fundamental unity of racial characteristics. All that these do is to cause variations in the species, contributing to the different Nations, belonging originally to a Race, their special national characteristics, and,

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thereby, bringing out what Mazzini calls the individuality of these nations. Sometimes there are cases of social amalgamation, when people of different races, thrown into the same territorial unit, and brought under the same historical conditions either through conquest or colonisation, and perhaps even converted to the same religion, gradually grow into a mixed and composite nation. The growth of these composite nations is also determined by special conditions. As in biology cross-breeding is possible and successful under certain conditions only, and not universally or indiscriminately; so also in sociology. Two races, widely different from each other in physical, mental, and spiritual endowments and character, and occupying widely different stages of social and economic evolution, though they may be thrown into the same territory, and even be made to profess the same religion, and thought to speak the same language, will not necessarily form one Nation. Cross-breeding, under such circumstances, will not improve either of the races, but result is inevitable atavism and consequent racial degeneration and decay. In our own times, the impact of widely different races and cultures, as in America and Australia, has resulted in a gradual decay and extinction of the inferior races. But healthy and advantageous admixture of races is also not unknown in history. In Europe, we find examples of it in Portugal and Spain. We see it also in the general appropriation of the Jews by almost every European nation, even in our own day. Physical environments, historical situations, racial contacts and conflicts, all these contribute to the development of national peculiarities and thus help to differentiate the different branches of the same race, but they neither create, nor can they obliterate the original and organic structure and end of a nation.

It is comparatively easy to express the nation-idea in these general terms, but exceedingly difficult to specify it, in regard to particular nations, in a definite and concrete way. This specification can only be made through a very careful study and analysis of the course of past historic evolution of the nation. The specific national characteristics must be sought for and discovered (i) in the original racial structure of the nation, and (ii) in its physical and social environment, which working upon those original racial elements, gave a special tone and type to its thought and life, developing the peculiarities of its literatures,

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its arts, its philosophies and theologies, its social, sacerdotal, and economic, political economics and organisations. The history of a nation, using the term history in its widest sense, always supplies the key to its essential life and character.

Racial types are discovered mainly in three things, (a) the physical structure of the race, (b) its thought-structure, and (c) its social structure. These are fundamental factors of racial, and through the racial, of national differentiation. The ordinary European, while even dabbling in sociology, very rarely has the capacity and the culture to investigate and understand these deeper notes of racial or national characteristics. To him the nation-idea is essentially territorial and political ideal. The race-problem resolves itself, to his mind, into an essentially colour problem. The Oriental, for instance, is to him one type of humanity, and the occidental is another. He rarely stops to consider that a geographical term is not necessarily a racial or national connotation. But careful sociological researches, by the help of the dominant methods of modern culture, namely, the comparative, the historical, and evolutional methods, would reveal typical differentiations as between one nation and another both in Asia and Europe. The Orientals are no more representatives of one dominant type than are the occidentals. Indeed, racial distinctions are less marked in Europe than in Asia. This is due partly to the fact that most of the European races belong to one great branch of the human family and owing to this fact, the original physical and physiological structure, as well as the original thought-structure and social structure, is practically the same among the different European nations. The Christianisation of Europe has been another great factor in helping to minimise, though it could not obliterate national differentiations in the Western continent. But Asia is a land of many races The religions of Asia are not one but many. Owing to the peculiarities of Asiatic life and religions, intermixture between different nations has been more difficult than has been in Europe. Yet, in spite of it all, European ignorance, so frequently masquerading as culture, generally sets down the Persian and the Chinese, the Hindu and the Arab, the Armenian and the Egyptian, all as essentially one type of race and culture. In truth, however, leaving out of account the primitive Asiatic races, like the aborigines of India or the Pacific Islanders, Asia has been the home of three distinct and developed

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races and cultures, namely, the Aryan, the Semitic and the Mongolian, to which, perhaps, even a fourth though now merged into the Hindu race and culture, may be added, namely, the Dravidian. There are fundamental and structural physical, mental and social differences between these different branches of the great human family. The Hindu, though classed as an Oriental, is, in physiological, social and thought structure, more allied to the European than to many of the other Asiatic races. The Arab and the Armenian have greater affinity in physical as well as in social and thought structure, with the European Jew than with the Chinese or the Hindu.

For the understanding of the true philosophy of nationalism, an investigation into these racial characteristics and their place and significance in social evolution and history is essential. For it is such an investigation that can alone bring out what Mazzini called, the individuality of a people.

(Concluded)

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OLD BENGALI MYSTIC POEMS

XXXVI

The Void is my home,

the Truth is the sword:

I seized the whole treasure of illusion

and swallowed it.

He sleeps unaware of the rift between mine and others;

The nude Kanhu is full of the sleep of the Inner Being:

There is no awareness, no sensation;

he is gone into dead sleep.

He has accomplished all and lies happy in his sleep.

I saw in dream the three worlds a Void.

It is a wheel but it does not revolve.

Jalandhripada, my Guru, I have as witness.

The learned scholars are never by my side.

XXXVII

I myself am no more,—

whom should I fear?

My desire even for the supreme act has vanished.

O Yogi, forget not the simple perception;

Stand free, stand free full square:

As you have been, so be for ever.

O Yogi, make no mistake about the simple path.

When you swim then only you know the burdens you carry.

How to explain what is beyond the way of words.

Taraka declares there is no passsge to enter into it.

If you say you understand you are hanged.

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XXXVIII

The body is the boat, the mind the oar

And the word of the Guru the helm upon the seas;

Calm your mind and hold to the wheel:

There is no other way to cross over to the other shore.

The boatman tugs the boat by the rope:

Even so you must move on and merge into the goal:

go not elsewhere.

There is fear on the way, the brigand is strong;

In the high flood of the world all is lost.

Follow the coast-line, up the rushing current;

Saraha says, "Thus you will enter the heaven."

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

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THE ASIAN TRADITION

RUDYARD Kipling's facile generalisation about the East and West with its catchy rhythm and its half-truth has vitiated much of current thinking on Asia and its role. The time has come when the truth it contains might be separated from the falsehood, and the way prepared for a better appreciation of Asian history.

It is an obvious truism to say that "East is East." but it is a dangerous and false prophet who insists that the West and the East shall never meet. At the time when Kipling wrote, Europe was at the height of its power; materially, it held empire over the rest of the globe with the exception of the American continent, America had not yet shown what it was capable of doing and Asia had not yet arisen to assert with any confidence the greatness of its past and the promise of its future. To the average Westerner whom Kipling represented, the West was not only the West, it was the acme of human achievement and the East was for ever doomed to the political subjection and economic exploitation of the immensely more civilised nations of the West. Hence the Eastern peoples must remain what they apparently were, steeped in misery and darkness of mind and soul. The West must maintain zealously its separate existence, there could never be any question of their coming together except as eater and the eaten. The presence of Turkey on European soil was an anomaly that must be ended, the "Sick Man of Europe" should be killed and his carcass divided up among the Teuton and the Slav. The Berber in Algeria should be driven into the desert and the white colons rule supreme. In Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, the natives should be taught to adopt the Western dress and-languages - French, American and English lest they should contaminate the cultured nations on their passage to the distant East. In Iran, in the Levant and the vast spaces of China, the great European Powers had their "spheres of influence", primarily no doubt to "develop" the areas but ultimately to civilise the natives by means of such agencies as the Christian missionary and the Sunday school. In countries like India, Indo-China, Java and Central Asia where the civilisers were also political sovereigns, the ultimate goal was,

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at least in the initial stages of the civilising mission, to pass on to the benighted dwellers of these ancient seats of civilisation not only the Christian gospel of the one true God—this was nothing new, for the Muslim invaders had done the same thing some centuries age—but also the benefits of their recently acquired culture, their language and literature and philosophy and science, so that ultimately there should prevail, in place of the bewildering diversity of creed and cultural patterns, a single language and the one acceptable form of thought and social living which the European colonisers had inherited from the days of the Italian Renaissance.

But fairly early in their victorious career most of the European Nations discovered that the East was inclined to remain obstinately Oriental, attached to its religious forms, its social codes and habits of thought. Some like the upper classes in India and Java and West Asia accepted the languages of the West as their media of expression. A small minority in China and even in independent Japan had become Christians. There arose even in backward Iran and Turkey a demand for some form of democracy. But in practically every other sphere of life, the East refused to change. The instance of Japan is not evidence to the contrary; for as we shall try to show later, the so-called "renaissance" of Japan and its frantic attempt at quick change were superficial movements designed more to hoodwink the European Powers into believing that Japan now deserved to be treated as their equals and had a right to denounce the unequal treaty rights imposed on her at a time of weakness, than to make any considerable change in the national character and attitudes. Long before the West decided to retreat politically from their vantage points in the East,— this did not come with any real earnestness till after the Second World War when the victorious march of Japan all over the Far East, the growing insolvency of the once great Powers as a result. of the War effort, and above all the pressing demands of the young American democracy made this retreat inevitable—long before this retreat, most of the Western occupants of the East had resigned themselves to the reality that the peoples of Asia and of North Africa which is a cultural annexed of Asia were stubbornly opposed to serious change and that they had best be left to themselves as long as they provided the needed markets for the West's industrial and commercial ventures. Kipling's well-

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known verse reflects this attitude of the disillusioned West.

It is well to inquire why the East refused to change. If we get the right answer to this question, perhaps we might be in a better position to judge the prophecy of the English poetaster. Is it a fact that Asia and Europe—we shall for our present purpose use them as synonymous with East and West in spite of a different connotation given in current political controversy—is it indeed true that the two continents are essentially different in their cultural attitudes, and has it been always so? On the answer to this question would depend to a large extent the possibility of a true rapprochement in the near future.

An answer that has often been given, especially in the heat of controversy during the period of Asia's subjection, was that Asia had been primarily spiritual; hence it could never accept the materialist-minded Europe. But this can hardly be the right answer. For in the first place, spirituality is not the monopoly of any particular nation or continent, nor is there any historical ground for believing that there has been a dearth of saints and spiritual men on the Western continent; even a casual glance at the Christian calendar would dispel the doubts on this score. It is no doubt true that all the great religions of the world had their birth in Asia and thence they have covered the globe. It is also true that the religion of Christ has been greatly modified and often ignored in practice in the course of its long history; but that can be equally said of all the other religions including Buddhism and Islam which never won many adherents outside Asia or Africa. But the real difference between Asia and Europe, or perhaps we should say between the Asia of yesterday and the Europe of the twentieth century, is the difference in their general attitudes to life. Asia has for long remained cut off from the movements of thought that shaped the life of Europe in modern times. This thought emphasised the importance of the individual, his reason, his rights, his claim to self-satisfaction even at the expense of others, his challenge to established custom and authority. All this has been till recently rather foreign to the Asiatic mind. Asia, like the nations of Europe, passed through the stages of the human cycle which Sri Aurobindo describes as the symbolic, the typal and the conventional. But the next stage, the individualistic, did not come to Asia except indirectly, through its contacts with the thought of Europe, nor has it yet quite made its own this the individualistic

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attitude of the West. It is this difference in the two attitudes that accounts for much of the misunderstanding. This incidentally explains the astonishing rapidity with which Europe could establish its domination over the slumbering masses of Asia. It was, as Sri Aurobindo points out, "due not to any original falsehood in their ideals on which its life was founded, but to the loss of the living sense of the Truth it once held and its long contented slumber in the cramping bonds of a mechanical conventionalism" (The Human Cycle, Chapter 2).

What, we must know, were the ideals on which the life of Asia had been founded? These ideals are written large in her ancient religious texts and her books of philosophy, in her literature, art and music, in her social organisation, in her ideas of government. "The true mind of Asia," he gives it in a nutshell, "has always remained, behind all surface appearances, not political but social, monarchical and aristocratic at the surface but with a fundamental democratic trend and a theocratic spirit." (The Ideal of Human Unity, Chapter 23). To the Asian mind, religion remained if not the whole of life, at least the major influence. Whether enshrined in a Bible and Talmud, a Quran and the Shariat, a Yi-King and Tao-Te-King, Buddhist Sutras and Puranic texts, it was religion that governed the thought and aspiration, the social and political organisation, even law and economic life. No doubt to the vast majority of people, this meant a routine worship and mechanical prayer for the fulfilment of their daily needs. It also meant a quasi-permanent scheme of social and economic organisation in which the priestly and learned classes enjoyed along with the powerful Kshatriya or warrior class the highest position and the best advantage, whilst the artisan the merchant and the cultivator stood barely above the, serf and the slave. Nevertheless, there was a certain discipline which helped the spiritual seeker and produced a plentiful crop of mystics, saints and Sufis throughout the long ages. Religion moreover gave a specific colouring to philosophy, for it seldom indulged in sheer word-spinning high up in the clouds with no reference to a base of concrete spiritual experience or the touch of earthly reality. Religion or rather the religious spirit invaded the domain of the aesthetic as well. Asia has produced a secular literature of high quality-witness the Shah Nama of Firdausi, the Tang poetry of Li Po and Tu Fu, the

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Manyoshu Collection of early Japanese verse or the later drama of the Far East—but seldom has the religious spirit been absent. There is behind all this literature a background of myth and legend, a feeling for the supraphysical, even a vague wistfulness that yearns for the Beyond. This is much more clearly felt in almost all oriental art, as even the average Western connoisseur has now come to recognise. But perhaps it is the music of Asia that gives the most powerful expression to its religious aspiration. Asia lives naturally by a spiritual influx from above, that alone brings with it a spiritual evocation of her higher powers of mind and life.

East and West "are two sides of the integral orb of humanity and until they meet and fuse, each must move to whatever progress or culmination the spirit in humanity seeks, by the law of its being, its own proper Dharma. A one-sided world would have been the poorer for its uniformity and the monotone of a single culture; there is a need of divergent lines of advance until we can raise our heads into that infinity of the spirit in which there is a light broad enough to draw together and reconcile all, highest ways of thinking, feeling and living." (The Foundations of Indian Culture, Book II, Chapter 4)

This then gives us the luminous clue to a reconciliation between East and West. But certain experiences were obviously necessary both for Asia and Europe before they could advance to meet each other in the right spirit. Asia had for a long time neglected her outward life as of secondary importance. She had been dreaming her dreams and lay in the dust while Europe victorious with its new-found energy and its strength of the flesh set out to subdue and "civilise" the nations of Asia. Both had to find disillusionment. Europe discovered to its surprise that a small insignificant island people could beat down the mammoth Russia, and in the space of another half-century drive the other European nations from their fiefs in China and South East Asia. The shock of the two World Wars left them powerless in the rest of the continent, and they decided to retreat. Their occupation of Asia and this retreat were both equally necessary. Without the occupation and the offence it gave to their sense of self-respect, the nations of Asia might never have awakened from their self-satisfied lethargy. Without this retreat, they could never hope to meet the West on equal terms. "There can be," as Bandemataram wrote in its forceful language

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of more than sixty years ago, "no European respect for Asiatics, no sympathy between them except the "sympathy" of the master for the slave, no peace except that which is won and maintained by the Asiatic sword European prejudice will always refuse to regard Asiatics as anything but an inferior race and European selfishness will always deny their fitness to enjoy the rights of men until the inevitable happens and Asia once more spews Europe out of her mouth..........¹ Asia must be tyrannised over until she asserts herself and regains her rights. It is only by determined and bold action that she can secure the respect of the nations. The nettle yields only when grasped boldly.²

Now that Asia is free and Europe begins to change, there is hope that the twain shall meet some day.

SANAT K. BANERJI

^{1 ''}The Secret Springs of Morlcyism", Bandemataram, Daily Edition, 28.6.07.

² ''Passive Resistance at Johannesburg", Idid, 9.7.07.

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SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM AND INTEGRAL YOGA

IT is a common notion that yoga is a movement away from life. Life as it is, is imperfect, enveloped in ignorance, a field of endless labour and suffering. That is so, we are told, because this world has no' basis in Truth. The Truth is beyond. And wisdom lies in a conscious withdrawal from this life and attaining union with the Reality that is supra-mundane. Yoga is the means to this end.

In the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, this world is as real as the Divine whose creation it is. The whole universe is a progressive manifestation of the Spirit and life is the field of this evolutionary effort. If life is imperfect, unhappy, painful, it is because we do not know how to live it. If the key to right living is found, life changes its hue. And this key lies in the discovery of the source of all life—the Divine.

The centre of each existence is the soul which is an individualised form of the Divine consciousness. The soul is a growing flame of Light. To discover this true centre of oneself is the first object of yoga. Having discovered it, to make the soul effective in one's life by organising all the parts of the being around it is the next step. Thus yoga is the science of discovering the true centre of life and the art of building that life around it.

The Yoga that is practised in our Ashram has this integral object in view. No part of nature is left out of this scheme as false, inferior or incorrigible. All is recognised to be potentially divine and a conscious effort is made to change the whole in terms of the divine. It is this totality of perspective that gives the title of integrality to our Yoga.

Broadly, the being of man is constituted of the physical body, the life force that activates it, the mind that governs both and the soul which presides over the entire organism. Each of these parts is taught to develop and perfect itself in this scheme of Purna Yoga.

To begin with, the physical body is recognised to be the base of the whole edifice of the perfect man. The body is looked upon as a vehicle of God and cherished as such. It is part of this yoga to train the body to become more and more conscious and develop into a

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vibrant vehicle of the spirit within. By a judicious combination of physical culture and psychological cleansing, the body is taught to divest itself of the retarding elements of inertia, obscurity and disease.

There is then the sphere of vitality, the life force, that demands fulfilment. Normally it is driven by desire and spends itself in the satisfaction and aggrandisement of ego and the lower self. In our Ashram a field of work has been organised where this energy of life is yoked to an object higher than the satisfaction of the desire-self. Each one undertakes to do some part of the community work in a spirit of disinterested service. No service is paid for, because the monetary motive is totally absent within the Ashram community. Each sadhak is provided for by the Guru once he is accepted as a disciple. He works in the spirit of the Gita to consecrate himself to the Divine and grows in his consciousness according to the sincerity he brings to bear on his effort. Apart from being a means of inner growth, work is also a testing ground for him to develop relations of harmony, spiritual good-will and unselfish love.

Then there is the mind which, of course, comes in for a good deal of attention. There is a vast literature written by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother covering an incredible range of the higher interests of man. Members are encouraged to study this literature which is not by any means religious or credal but universal in its range. Philosophy, history, mysticism, polity, sociology, culture linguistics are some of the faculties that are being built up in the Library and the International Centre of Education that is developing under the aegis of the Ashram. Study groups at various levels are active and care is taken to see that the mind grows with the growth of the inner consciousness in yoga. The higher Knowledge, parā vidyā, is first imbibed and the lower knowledge, aparā vidyā, is then assimilated on its true value. The mind is cultured and prepared to exceed itself.

At the centre of it all is the soul-culture on which all else depends. It is accepted that in each person there is a divine presence. If man is not conscious of it, it is because his awareness is always turned outwards. There are veils of desire, ego and ignorance intervening between the surface consciousness and the divine Centre within. A continuous effort is called for to break through these barriers and shift one's centre of consciousness from the surface to the soul level. For

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this purpose there is an elastic scheme of inner discipline that is presented to the aspirants. Meditation, concentration, prayer, aspiration, rejection, self-surrender to the Divine are the main lines on which this yoga proceeds. There is no hard and fast system of rules which everyone has to follow. It is recognised here that human nature is extremely variable and each nature should be helped to proceed in the way that suits it best. Each one starts from where he is, chooses the line that is most natural to him—the way of Works or the way of Meditation, the way of Knowledge, the way of Life or combines all of them in some measure. Further, the living guidance of the Guru, the Grace of the Divine and the Yoga-Power specially active for the purpose, are all kept at the disposal of the sadhak.'

Thus the yoga that is practised in our Ashram under the guidance of the Mother is not a technique to achieve a limited result, whether it be a silencing of the mind or immergence of the being in Brahman. It is a fourfold way of life by which the physical body, the vital force, the mind, the psychic being are all simultaneously developed in the figure of a greater, a divine consciousness, with a view to integrating them around the awakened soul and lifting them into a new dimension of spiritual dynamism that beckons to the mature man. The Ashram aims to evolve a total man whose perfection includes the perfection of his outer life and ensures an effective participation in the universal movement as a centre and channel of the Divine Puissance.

(Courtesy: All India Radio)

M. P. PANDIT

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TOWARDS A NEW WORLD ORDER

WE propose in the sequel to begin a series aimed at giving an out-V line, chapter by chapter, of Sri Aurobindo's major work on international relations, The Ideal of Human Unity. It might be useful here to bring out within a brief compass the general purport" of that work, so that one is enabled to follow the argument without lo sing hold of the main thread.

The Ideal of Human Unity, which came out in book form for the first time in 1949, was originally planned as a series of articles in Sri Aurobindo's monthly Review, the Arya, from September 1915 to July 1918; these articles were revised and brought up to date, and a postscript chapter added, during the late forties before the book was published.

In a letter dated September 16, 1915, addressed to the Mother who was then away from Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo explains in brief the purport of his work: "I have begun in the issue of the Arya which is just out a number of articles on the Ideal of Human Unity. I intend to proceed very cautiously and not go very deep at first, but as if I were leading the intelligence of the reader gradually towards the deeper meaning of unity—especially to discourage the idea that mistakes uniformity and mechanical association for unity..." (The letter was published for the first time in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Bulletin of Physical Education in April 1954). A little earlier, in the August 1915 issue of the Arya itself, Sri Aurobindo concludes an article entitled Our Ideal, thus:' 'What then shall be our ideal ? Unity for the human race by an inner oneness and not only by an external association of interests; in the resurgence of man out of the merely animal and economic life or the merely intellectual and aesthetic into the glories of the spiri- ' tual existence; the pouring of the power of the spirit into the physical mould and mental instrument so that man may develop his manhood into that true superman hood which shall exceed our present state as much as this exceeds the animal state from which science tells us that

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we have issued. These three are one; for man's unity and man's self-transcendence can come only by living in the Spirit." (This article appears as the last chapter of the book, Ideal and Progress).

Here, in these two extracts, we find the keynote to The Ideal of Human Unity.

This concept of unity is fundamental. In the ordinary mental view of things, unity reposes on an impossible unanimity of thought and feeling; the mind attempts to create unity by establishing uniformity; a precarious adjustment of conflicting egos has been its cherished method. The true unity is of the soul; it permits of an endless variation of detail, harmonises all differences. To find the true unity, therefore, man must abandon the ego pivot and learn to live in his soul; the collectivity has to find its true being as a particular expression of the universal Soul of humanity, cease to regard the collective ego embodied in the State as its soul. Thus alone can there be a true and lasting world order.

For man as a race to five in the Spirit and feel his oneness with the All does not come normally except through a very slow process of self-unfolding. This is what Nature has been preparing secretly or half-unknown to man, through the centuries of our historical evolution. From family to clan and tribe, city-state and regional kingdom, to the modern nation and empire—this has been the main line of her advance. On the way she has experimented with the pre-modern nation, the pre-national empire; when these experiments seemed to fail, she has reduced all to the chaos of the feudal age. Out of this chaos has arisen the modern nation-unit, firmly assured of continuance. Beyond the nation she has dared man again to try the empire-unity; but the unit created by the modern empires proved to be unreal and has therefore disappeared. She is at the moment tempting man with the prospect of a bigger union, of the two great ideological groupings or Power blocs that have emerged from the second World War, through an Organisation of all the nations united for the common purposes of mankind.

The question for man to decide now is whether the present unsatisfactory state of international relations can be replaced by a willed

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and planned order, in other words, whether the nation-unit is the last word in man's collective living, or it can be replaced by a larger aggregate embracing in some sort the whole of humanity. This ideal of human unity has already attracted some minds. Internationalism was for some time during the last century a powerful force and produced considerable results; its impetus persists. Its first visible form was the League of Nations, which in spite of its many weaknesses and. final failure had to have a sequel. The United Nations Organisation, whose coming to birth was a crucial event in the history of man, remains in spite of the many malignancies that threaten it, a sign-post to the future.'

What will be the shape of that future? Who or what will determine it? What will be the steps of change, what the ultimate result? These are questions that demand an answer. The questions are urgent, because too long a postponement might mean irretrieveable loss.

The shape of the future cannot be determined with any precision, because there is a multitude of possibilities in a future so fruitful of new subjective developments and objective mutations. All that can be done is to indicate certain broad lines based on the experience of the past and the present trend of forces, as well as the general laws of life and Nature. It is indeed possible to build Utopias but that is not the aim here. But it is necessary and desirable to indicate at the outset the conditions that must be fulfilled by any world order that is likely to be durable or useful. It must, for instance, include within its scope all the peoples of the world irrespective of their present status and political or economic power; it must ensure their harmonious growth, through freedom, diversity, order; it must be made acceptable to all because of the visible benefits it confers and the justice it ensures; it must also be in possession of a permanent authority, strong enough to ensure obedience and wise enough to be the faithful dynamic expression of the corporate life and being of mankind.

Two alternative forms are possible: one, a stringently organised world-state with the nations as its provinces as distinct entities retained only for the sake of administrative convenience, and resting on a

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uniform system of political, economic, social and cultural organisation; and two, a looser form of world-union, of the confederate or federal type, with a minimum of centralised control and a very large measure of autonomy left with its constituents, the existing nations or other group-units that may form voluntarily in future. Of these two alternatives, the second is obviously the better. It is demanded by justice, is supported by the best thought of mankind, is nearest to the ideal, with the greatest chances of enduring success. But the hope of its realisation in any foreseeable future seems remote, for the necessary preconditions are lacking. A free world-union implies the abolition or at least a considerable modification of all existing disparities between nation and nation; the bigger nations must entirely renounce their claim to dominate or otherwise exploit the weaker nations; war among nations must become a thing of the past, for the fear of war or the desire to settle claims or grievances by means of force, and a free consent to unite are incompatible things.

And yet, a world government of some sort has become imperative if mankind is to survive. All other means of preventing or eliminating global war have proved their failure. It was hoped at one time that the growth of democracy or socialism might discourage wars; the democratic or socialistic state might be less prone to take to arms than the older autocracies, but once aroused it stops at nothing short of "total" war. Compulsory arbitration enforced by the might of the Big Powers might stop minor wars, but would be wholly ineffective when the Big Powers are themselves involved. Collective sanctions envisaged by the League and the UNO have not so far worked in practice except in the case of weaker nations and are not likely to operate against the biggest of the Great Powers. A stronger international law administered by a World Court with universal jurisdiction remains a chimera in the absence of an enforcing authority which makes the writ of the Court operative in fact. Security pacts revive the old Balance of Power system which did not prevent the Great War. Disarmament is a futile endeavour, for even if it succeeds on paper, it will leave open the possibility of an unscrupulous Power arming in secret; when war breaks out, mobilisation

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and rearming can be under modern conditions only a matter of months, as was shown in the case of Britain in 1914. National egoism remaining, the means of strife remaining, causes and opportunities or excuses for war will never be wanting. The only true preventives are either a general change of heart in mankind making war psychologically impossible and until that arrives, making it physically difficult or impossible, as in the case of civil strife within nations, by the creation of a world authority powerful enough to cow down all opposition and discourage all velleities of revolt or armed action. Such an authority must possess either a monopoly or an undoubted superiority of armed strength over all the nations big and small, in order to be really effective. This implies the creation of a world-state.

A world-state of this nature might have come into existence soon after the first World War in any of the following ways. The great empires surviving the War might have joined hands with the free nations of Europe, America and Asia, the last two possibly forming continental combinations of a confederate type, and all finally coalescing peacefully into a world-state. Socialism might have triumphed in all the nations of the two hemispheres as seemed likely at one time, and provided the necessary bond of unity for a socialistic world-state of the future. An imperial nation like England with long experience in successfully federating constituent units, allying itself with other progressive nations, might possibly under new circumstances become the nucleus of an effective world-government. Or else, a veiled oligarchy of Great Powers might take the management of the world's affairs into their hands through a system of mutual adjustments and compromise. This last was the final outcome of the War. The League of Nations was hailed at the time as the precursor of such a world-state ruled by an oligarchy of Great Powers.

With the second World War, the picture has changed in some important respects. No longer is there a chance of the old empires dominating the world, although a nation like England forming the nucleus of a world state in the manner indicated above still remains a possibility. Socialism is no more likely to triumph all over the globe.

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The unification of the world on the basis of continental unities becomes impossible owing to the communist bloc cutting across continental unities in Asia and Europe. The League system having failed, the only peaceful way to unity now would be for the two new Power blocs to agree to a modus vivendi under a system of world government: of which the UNO might provide a first sketch. Such an agreement and the possibility of coexistence do not seem to be altogether remote, considering that the deep animosities created by the violent revolution in Russia are showing signs of abatement. Failing such an agreement, we may trust to Nature creating the necessary circumstances "and opportunities for a super-Power; like Russia for example, combining with its allies and reducing part of the world by force and bringing the rest to a condition of dependent allies. This possibility, however remote, is not altogether chimerical; it may be remembered that Germany has twice within a generation made such an attempt and came on the last occasion within an ace of success. Science has put immense possibilities of surprise in the hands of an unscrupulous Power, and Nature can be trusted to devise her own means to carry out her purpose.

Of one thing we may be certain. Any form of world state immediately practicable will not come as a result of the idyllic schemes of intellectuals, because the general mind of the race has not been prepared by them for an enthusiastic reception of their ideas. It is likely to come as a result of confused experiments, recoils and returns, according to the desires passions and interests of great masses of men and guided by no better light than the opportunism of the world's statesmen and politicians. The devastations caused by War and the consequent dislocation of the economic life, the fear of their recurrence and the demand for a better order of things will be the main driving forces. And attempted as it will be through mechanical administrative and political means, it must necessarily follow the pattern on which the modern nation-unities have been built.

These began with the loose chaotic formations of the feudal ages and ended with a more and more stringent organisation of the national

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life around the pivot of the state, represented in the earlier formations by an autocratic monarchy and in the more recent instances by a more or less oligarch cal or democratic authority. The first form of the world body may accordingly be a loose kind of union growing closer knit with time and experience. But the nations may be rapidly moved by the pressure of the many problems which would arise to convert it into a more stringent form of world-state, with a permanent centre of authority. This authority will be called upon to act more and more frequently and assume always increasing powers, partly impelled by the desire of powerful nations to use it for their own purposes, partly by the utility for weaker nations of appealing to it for the protection of their interests; the need to avert the recurrence of troubles by timely intervention, and to bring about a coordination of activities for common ends will be the other determining factors. These powers will in course of time embrace all the functions now performed by the State— functions legislative, executive, military, judicial, economic and cultural. If the process goes on unchecked, the entire life of the world's peoples will come under its scrutiny and control, as in a socialistic state. Uniformity will be its watchword.

A world state of this nature, however remote from our present expectations may come about within three or four centuries, if the present trends towards uniformity in all aspects of national life under the aegis of the state continue, without the intervention" of counterbalancing forces. But we may almost as certainly predict its dissolution after the first flush of enthusiasm that its benefits may create. The benefits will be peace, order, general well-being, the efflorescence of intellectual and other cultural activity made possible by the worldwide organisation and cooperation. It may even accustom the race to the idea of a common fife, to its habit, to its possibility; it may render the habit of war somewhat otiose. But it will break down unless something more profound and real develops within the mechanical frame of outer unity. For man may tire of peace —he always feels the need of combat; uniformity of economic well-being and cultural growth may not satisfy his natural urge for variation; above all, the need for freedom,

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national and personal, will finally assert itself against the unavoidable tendency of a dominant state to curb it. Anarchistic thought will provide the necessary leverage; the old Asian idea may take possession of the mind of man and relegate the state to its function of protection and reduce it to a position of secondary importance. This may pave the way for the loose World-union, which we have seen is the more desirable form of human unity.

But a loose form of World-union will always remain subject to the danger of breaking apart, unless there grows up within it the true psychological and spiritual elements of unity. What is needed is a religion of humanity that may take the place of religion of country that now unites the nation. An intellectual religion of humanity exists, born of the thought of eighteenth century Europe. But an intelletual religion is not strong enough to capture the whole being of man; it may be combated by other tendencies that arise. This intellectual religion has to spiritualise itself, if it is to serve its true purpose. It must take its stand and find its secure basis in the deepest heart of man, the soul in him. For liberty, equality and fraternity, the triune base of human , unity, are of the soul and cannot otherwise be real. Whether such a religion of humanity is possible for the race to develop is the question of the future. On it depends the fate of the ideal of human unity.

SANAT K. BANERJI

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REVIEWS

(1) Joy, (2) Showers of Delight (3) Samadhi By K. K. Pradhan. Pub. Mrs. L. K. Pradhan, 147 Rajaram Buvan, Shivaji Park. Bombay 16.

WHATEVER his stage and sphere of life, man is in incessant search of happiness. And that is but natural. For, the author points out—in line with the ancient Upanishad—the basic truth of all existence is Ananda, Bliss. Nothing could exist but for this underlying Bliss. If one misses it and has to strive to get it—in however diminished or deformed a measure—id is because one seeks in the wrong way. Man is lost in the maze of a pervading Ignorance and wanders about as one blind. If one turns one's faculties inward for a while there comes a perception of a fount of Joy within oneself. Sri Pradhan has had access to this source of Joy within and calls upon all awakened men to turn to it. He discusses various ways and means of becoming conscious of this inner Joy and the discipline to make it a permanent force in life.

Showers of Delight is a collection of his prose poems on various topics from the vantage position of inner Delight. All life is to him an ocean of joy, even pain and struggle are malformed currents of that surge.

How to arrive at this state of bliss? The author prescribes the Raja Yoga of Patanjali with a special emphasis on the cittavrttinirodha, suppression of mental activities. He describes the process leading to the entire silencing of the mind, step by step, with telling illustrations and informed knowledge. What is noteworthy about this exposition is the postive note that runs throughout that the efficacy of spiritual attainment is to be tested in the field of life, not in hours of solitude. One must be able to live in the midst of the world and act but without being involved in it. It is possible to live thus from the level of the Self and that alone ensures a perennial flow of Delight from within.

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The Day of Judgment By Jatindra Mohan Ganguli. East and West Publishers, 19 Park Side Rd. Calcutta 26, Price Rs. 5.00

How far is man responsible for his actions? What role do the environmental factors play? Who is responsible for these external agencies ? If it is Nature that determines everything why should poor man be made to pay the consequences ? If it is God whose Will is sole and entire, why should He make his creatures suffer? The author of this book raises these inevitable questions and seeks an answer. The discussion is in the form of a story. Sick Ajoy suddenly finds himself bereft of his physical body and taken to the Court of God for his trial. His passage from the earthly world to the subtler heavens above, his feelings and reactions, his wanting to go back to his physical body etc. are described with accuracy of informed knowledge. The limitations of Heaven and its pleasures are underlined. The hero refuses to admit his responsibility, declines to pray for forgiveness for actions into which he was led by causes over which he had no control and arraigns God instead! Needless to say, God—God of the Popular religions— has to admit the logic of the situation.

The moral? The author points to it in his dedication at the beginning of the book. There is a Supreme Divine of whom the Gods of Religions are simulacrums. That Divine is not sitting above the universe playing the judge. He is in the universe, immanent in it, immanent in its creatures, undergoing all experience in a million forms. The Divine dwells in man and grows in man, suffers in him in order that he may be redeemed.

M. P. PANDIT

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Nath Aur Sant Sahitya By Dr. Nagendranath .Upadhyaya. Pub. Kashi Hindu Vishvavidyalaya, Kashi. Pp. 699, Price Rs -, 10.00.

An elaborate thesis on the literature of the Natha and the Santa tradition that has had a considerable effect on the growth of Hindi literature in the middle period. The learned author describes the agreements and disagreements between the two traditions and evaluates them from the standpoint of Bhakti, Yoga, Mysticism and Poetry.

History seems to repeat itself but it is not really so. It does mark an advance from height to greater height, from lesser to greater truths. This is specially so in the line of Yoga. The Buddhist Siddhas, points out the author, discovered some inner truths; they were developed by Natha Yogis and then they came to be synthesised by the Saints. The Saints gathered up the truths discovered by the Siddhas and Nathas and gave them a new form with the magic touch of Devotion and Love.

Dr. Upadhyaya studies also the effect of the Shaiva, Shakta and other Tantric traditions on these two literatures. The Yoga and Philosophy of Patanjali, Vedanta, the System of Chakras etc. come to be described in detail in the course of the discussion.

Though it is true that spiritual truths are best lived rather than discussed in the dry way of the logical intellect, it is necessary to acquire first a mental grasp of the higher truths of consciousness that have been so far experienced by adepts. That provides a spring board as it were for further enquiry and experience. From this standpoint the present thesis is very valuable.

SADHANA

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PAST EDITORIALS

Vol. HI (1940) No. 2. (April)

COVET NOT OTHERS' RICHES-NOR DENY YOURSELF

A MAN has a right to those things alone which he trutly needs: much more it is so in the case of a sadhaka. A sadhaka cannot demand or even ask for things, I am referring chiefly to the physical needs and necessities of life. He can accept only what is given to him. That was the discipline called ākāśavriti by spiritual practicality in India, the ideal expressed in the well-known rule, yadrchhālābhasantustih, to be content with whatever happens to come on one's way. That was the training the older systems enjoined, not to go out of one's way but to receive whatever comes automatically without one's asking. The motto of the wandering sannyasis is: eat wherever and whatever you can, sleep in the market place. The purpose evidently is to cultivate and develop the basic quality of non-attachment, get rid of the sense of egoistic possession. This discipline, it goes without saying, is salutary and it is helpful to a large extent. Still it is a negative process and often leads to helpless passivity and inertia, slovenliness and lack of control and order in behaviour and action, as well as in temperament and character. And there is from such a course but one step to the ideal of ascetic denial, of poverty and self-maceration.

The sadhaka of the integral discipline of the life divine, who seeks not the negation or diminution of life but the enhancement and fulfilment of life, must have a more positive and dynamic attitude, a more ample and organised conscious power over things of the earth. True, he must not demand things, that is to say, must not ask, driven by his desires, his vital greed and hankering, his bodily hunger, nor even by his mental notions, his personal egoistic preferences and repulsions. These elements in him should be trained to fall silent, to remain quiet and unobtrustive. And one method of the training is provided by the discipline we have been describing; for usually our needs are measured by the greed of our desire-soul; they are not true necessities and it is

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better and safer to put a curb on them, to minimise them as much as possible. And yet there is a higher need, the need of the spiritual soul, the Divine in you. The Divine is not merely ascetic renunciation, Shiva, he is also plenty and fullness, Vishnu. And the human being too in his inmost nature need not be made of simplicity and bareness only—like that of St. Francis of Assisi: it need not always prefer the minimum value as regards the externals of life, it may choose to build itself, to express itself in richness and complexity, in volume and amplitude, in wealth and splendour in various degrees. The grand style, for example, in artistic creation, as is well-known, can be simple and severe—as in the supreme utterances of Dante or Wordsworth: it can also be ample and gorgeous and colourful, as in Milton or Victor Hugo. A Narada, again has his need confined to a strip of loin-cloth, but Janaka must have his palace and his whole regalia—the crown and throne and mace and-purple, the Kingdom and the people. And both are spiritual masters.

Only one must be careful. One must not mistake one's desires for one's soul-needs, make the convenient confusion between the two souls. The divine soul and the desire soul are very different things and one must have the clarity of judgement, the honesty and integrity of consciousness and heroic straightforwardness so as to distinguish the two and choose the better part.

What the Divine needs or asks for in you—great and small, simple or luxurious and in whatever degree—that is your true portion. If you cast about for other things, things that are of other kind or quality or degree or value than that warranted by your soul nature, then you become a thief or Pani, as the Vedic Rishis named him. It is against such an attitude and movement that the very opening Mantra of one of the earliest Upanishads utters a caveat: Never covet others' riches. In your eagerness to possess what belongs to others, you only dispossess yourself of what rightfully belongs to you.

ACCEPTENCE-OF THE MASTER AND BY THE MASTER

Often, especially in certain broad and fundamental movements of nature and consciousness, it is the interaction and commingling of two forces that bring about a given result. In the path of spiritual endeavour,

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at the beginning and throughout the journey, two conditions need to be fulfilled, two sources must unite and collaborate. There must be a demand, a sincere and genuine demand (or aspiration, as we term it) on the side of the seeker and then the answering gesture from the Divine. Likewise, when you choose your master (who is essentially for you nothing but the Divine incarnate), the Master also has to choose you. Your choice must be agreed to and confirmed by the Master. That is the truth behind the image of the Covenant spoken of in the Bible.

Confirmation is necessary, from outside yourself, from a source of truth and certitude. One cannot rely too much on one's own personal perception, which is always subjective and so often, oftener than not, coloured and qualified by one's wish and imagination or by extraneous suggestion and influence. One may feel one has the call, one may believe one has made the final choice of one's Guru, still there is always just a chance of having miscalculated, of having overshot the mark. That is the whole difference of outlook between Protestantism and Catholicism. The former places individual judgement as the highest tribunal, whereas the latter denies that high prerogative to the individual and places above him the corporate body of the Church, which is the embodiment of God's own revelation. But as we said, according to us both the terms of the equation are necessary, the individual reason and judgement of the seeker on one side, confirmed and supported by the supreme revelation of the Master.

It must, however, be understood that acceptance (of the disciple by the Master, as of the seeker by the Divine) is not a thing done once and once for all, a definite act or gesture at a particular place and time: for that would make it merely a formal mechanical ritual. It is something dynamic: not a ready-made finished product, but a growing progressive organism. In other words, there are no such exclusive alternatives, that either you are accepted or you are not accepted, something like the division. of mankind into two groups, according to the Calvinistic theology, those who go to eternal hell and those who are meant for heaven. Even the refusal of the Divine Mother, as Sri Aurobindo says, means-only a postponement. All human souls are essentially and potentially divine, and as the soul grows and develops in his external being, externally too it is accepted and

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included by the Divine in himself according to the nature and degree of that growth and development. And what is in the beginning an acceptance on trial may end almost automatically into the definitive and irrevocable thing. All depends on the line and manner of growing.

There are other mysteries more mysterious. Sometimes it is the Divine that first chooses and accepts the seeker like the Hound of Heaven pursuing the fleeing human creature in the famous poem, and the seeker (now he is the sought) cannot but submit and yield and give his consent and acceptance. In such a case the tables are turned, as it were; Vivekananda used to say at times, it appears, that he would have gone other ways of life but that the old crazy Brahmin had got hold of him and there was no escape. However in reality the two ways or lines are not exclusive of each other, they run pari passu. It is after all a game of hide and seek, and the roles of the hidden one and the seeking one are often reversed.

THE IRON AGE

The world has been atom-bombed morally, much more than materially. The result is disintegration and annihilation of old-world and age-long standards and values. Human consciousness has gone into shreds, as it were, has lost cohesiveness, organisation, enlightenment. Man has become small, an animalcule moved by the most obscure petty primitive impulses. There may not be absolute lack of good intentions, at least among some, but these have proved helpless and abortive in the overbearing sway of what appears to be non-human forces surging from below and sideways. It is the profiteer that lives and lives upon starving and dying millions. It is the State armed with the Atom-bomb that defies and dictates. And man thinks of eating only, how best to eat and most to eat and that at the expense of his fellow-beings. Man's name today is Cain.

The old-world values and verities—freedom, justice, harmony, solidarity, culture, enlightenment, spiritual elevation, growth of consciousness—have all been put into cold storage. Qualities of the Asura and the Rakshasa—egoism, ambition, lust; violence, cruelty, things and manners loud and blatant and intransigent—have occupied the human heart and become almost the sole motives of human action. The

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picture is not an exaggeration. We have only to look about to convince ourselves of the dismal tragedy that human life has become today. It is as if all the Erinyes have been let loose upon earth and mankind is lost in a mad orgy worse than the worst confusion that the poet imagined—

We are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle

and fight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

What is the remedy? The remedy rests with the individual, primarily, at least. Out of the general deluge the individual has to be salvaged and saved. For it is the individual that can initiate and create, at least it is through him that a new creation can come about. I mean a conscious creation, a planned remodeling and revaluation of the natural forces. It is such souls who see and feel something of the truth and light that must live and act up to that truth and light and force a » change in the actual circumstances, in men and things of the normal run. Whether a few individuals of the kind would be enough to bring about the change may be open to doubt. And yet, when we look at a Hitler or even a Stalin and see what they have done or could do or, on the other side, what a Gandhi is capable of, we need not minimise the capacity of the individual. The greatness of the individual is the greatness of the Time Spirit that moves him. He concentrates and canalises a force which would otherwise be diffused and dispersed and act in a slow and in direct manner. Apart from the Avatara or Vibhuti, beings from elsewhere who humanise themselves in order to hasten and shorten the process of new creation as much as possible, there are human beings, representative men, pioneers and leaders—Śrestha— who are so precisely because they are in touch with the new truth that is to become, and are instruments for effectuating the New Order. And they bear a heavy responsibility; it devolves upon them to be alert and vigilant, always endeavour to live the truth which they are privileged to envisage, not to yield to compromises and falsifications. And if there are groups and associations of individuals who are quickened with that zeal and vision, they are an additional help, they can be centres of

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crystallisation, hearts where the fire is kept pure and ever burning and from where the light and energy can generate and radiate when darkness and disintegration seem to engulf everything about.

THE GOLDEN AGE

The Hope, the expectation the premonition of a New Age—the Golden Age—coming upon us poor earthly creatures has been a very ancient and ever recurrent phenomenon of the human consciousness since almost its very dawn. In this case, however, hope deferred has not sickened the heart: on the contrary it seems to have grown and become more and more enlivened with the march of time. And at the present moment, there is an especial stirring in it, a sense of urgency and imminency the like of which was not experienced before, even as on the eve of spring-tide, the bare, gaunt, tragically poised branches of winter-struck trees are inwardly moved with the rise of the new sap and the oncoming burst of green shoots.

All over the world, among various peoples, of different cultures and persuasions, we find remarkable examples of speculation or vision, of a characteristic welcoming spirit in regard to the great event. We cite one instance here which has particularly struck us with its simplicity and appositeness. It is a Persian sage who has written a book named "Man and the culture of the Future (1939)". The central idea of the work, the image in which the sage sees the ideal is that of a passage, a journey, a migration from one country to another, and it is not the transfer of a few people, but of a whole population en masse. The idea of course is Biblical. The chosen people is being led by its chief out of the land of captivity into the land flowing with milk and honey, its holy homeland. Mankind is imprisoned in its normal consciousness, small and narrow and egoistic, barren and arid; for here his higher and ampler movements cannot find scope and fulfilment. Out of this cabined unproductive land we have to go out, take ourselves bodily to another country, into another larger and more fruitful domain of consciousness made of the spirit's light and delight. Not here, not here, as the Upanishads also declare. But in spite of the imperative demand of the inner consciousness, the bonds that tie us down to the old habitat are not easily cut—their names are a million, viz., all the vested interests

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of egoism and the separative individualistic consciousness. So naturally the population divides itself into two groups: those that have felt the need and call to move out and those who cling to the old moorings. And even among those whose spirit is willing a good part find their flesh is weak; being unable to take the total plunge, they choose a path of compromise, seeking to put the new wine in old bottle. These shall go nowhere: half torn from the past, they are yet unable to strike roots into the future, they will wither and end in frustration.

The image of the migration does not necessarily mean escapism, running away from earthly life altogether in order to dwell in another world, made of only inner contemplation, and peace and bliss or en-joyings of a less terrestrial order. The migration is of the consciousness, not of the vehicle enshrining the consciousness. As the consciousness transplants itself the vehicle also will change and become purified and plastic, no longer rigid and narrow and obscure but radiant and supple and varied so as to be able to mirror exacdy, to incorporate, to incarnate the whole empire of the New Consciousness. The Kingdom of Heaven is within, certainly; but that does not mean that it is not without. The consciousness that rules the outside, the actual should move and migrate, naturalise itself and become citizen of the divine world within and beyond and then return and liberate and incorporate the external too remoulded and re-created in its new divine status.

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