February 1971
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.
THIS GREAT EARTH, OUR MOTHER
MAN'S soul is man's inalienable possession. And also it is his exclusive possession. He is the only created being that has a soul. It is, strange to say, an earthly gift and belongs to no other creature either in this world or other worlds and levels of existence. This earth is a miraculous object: it has qualities solely its own. A fundamental quality is that it grows: it is not static, it evolves, that is to say, changes in quality; it sprouts, germinates, brings forth objects and qualities that seem foreign, anomalous to its apparent and external nature. New modes of existence that were not there before appear as though from nowhere. Dead and dark soil or mud brings forth green shoots and that will grow in course of time into spreading branches and leaves, culminating in a beautiful panoply of foliage and fruit.
The soul grows out of the earth's soil, yet it is not a production
Page-5
or creation of earth. It is earth's gift, as I have said, but it is a gift to earth from somewhere up in heaven. However, it is inextricably woven into the very texture of earth and material existence. It is a spark of consciousness imbedded in an unconscious inert mass, the secret nucleus, as it were, behind the material sheath; from behind it enlivens, moves, directs, even illumines the apparently dead earth-element leading it towards a radiant destiny.
This growing embodied consciousness is, as I have said, earth's possession alone—growing, evolving, unfolding ever-new dimensions of existence: it is not found elsewhere in the material universe. The rest of the universe is a play of the very original, mere material elements—the cosmic and other invisible rays that are in vogue now-a-days with their multiple ranges have been acting in the same way since the beginning of the material creation till today. There is not another earth in this universe, materially because there is no water or water-vapour elsewhere: water is life, the sap of life, the creative element. We know now the nature of moon-dust,—it is dry as dust, arid and brittle. Indeed the other heavenly bodies seem to possess nothing of the kind of earthly atomosphere.
All other beings or creatures within the frame of this material heaven do not breathe air; all other heavens lack precisely this earth-atmosphere:-and they do not grow or change. Take for instance the legendary beings of the subtle worlds—fairies,
elfs, spirits, gnomes, goblins—all are types, definite species, they do not change, alter their character or nature: they remain themselves, true to themselves throughout from beginning to end, they come up to us today with the same features that they had to the eyes of the men of pre-historic ages. Even the gods belong to the same category of immutability: they are each an eternal reality, an unchangeable norm, an ideal petrified so to say. They are not inconstant and fickle and ever-changing as mortals are. Asuras also have the same character. All these typal beings have to be broken before they can be moulded into another pattern. If any of them wishes to change or evolve into something else he has to come down on earth, enter into a human mould or take birth as a human being.
Page-6
(2)
The soul, however, is not the self. We spoke of the material universe as something dead, unconscious and inconscient, but in reality there is a basic consciousness behind, upholding, maintaining all and everything. That is the Self, Sachchidananda, Brahman. It is the static consciousness beyond time and space but standing behind as a support. This here moves but That does not move—grow or evolve. That is fixed, stagnant. The soul comes out—out of That in the ultimate analysis—in the process of the creation, the material creation and evolution.
The ultimate particles of matter, all behave uniformly, there is practically no individual variation. It is all a common general universal movement. The individuation begins with the living cells. Each living form starts with moving and reacting in its own characteristic manner and style. The one transcendent Consciousness, Sachchidananda, that is behind all seems here on the life plane to gather to a point or points, becomes diversified and concentrated at many centres. This concentration effectuates a deepening into so many whirlpools, as it were, and instead of a lateral and horizontal movement, a mere expansiveness, Nature starts as though a vertical movement. The process continues: a light, a fire enters into the earthly material creation which grows and throws out units gradually with a more and more specialised character. Earth is no longer an element merely general or universal in character, there begins a particularisation and individualisation. The first step towards individualisation is what may be termed individuation. With life upon earth, with the appearance of a living organism there entered into it the rudimentary psychic element or entity: as it grows it achieves first of all, as I have said, an individuation, an elementary individual form, as in the lower animals, and then in the higher animals it arrives at individualisation. With the emergence of conscious will self-observation and self-direction in man, the mere psychic element or entity becomes an individuality, a psychic being, the person, the soul, and finally, a full-grown self-fulfilled person or personality, becomes a deity, the soul becomes the Divine.
Such is the story of the evolution in the inner core of things.
Page-7
Along with this inner growth there is or there is to be a growth in the outer material level also. The growth of the psychic being or the soul radiates its influence into the mind and life and body forming its outer instrument for expression. These too must partake of the luminous nature of the soul, be intimate and identified with it for the integral fulfilment.
(3)
The Veda draws a graphic picture of the eternal stability, the sameness, almost the oppressive monotony of the material universe through millions and millions of aeons of its existence. The eternal recurrence without beginning and without end of the rising and setting of the sun and the stars, the inviolable law of Varuna, suffers no break or change. But when we look near at home, turn from our father the Heaven to our mother Earth and look a little more closely, a different picture emerges here: for here is the arena of the Vedic progressive sacrifice.1
The earth is well-known for its force of gravitation, the force that pulls things downward and at best allows a horizontal trajectory, that is the apparent movement. But it also has another, a contrary movement, the anti-gravity force, the force of levitation and ascension. Earth, clay, never had a warm reception at the hands of spiritual persons or even of ordinary people who lay the whole blame upon this poor element for all the misfortunes of life here below—precisely because of the earth's gravitating pull. The earth is considered as the very nursery of sin; the consciousness of sin however began with the advent of man upon earth. The creation was governed at the beginning and for long by an eternal unchangeable law, and man came in as an intervention, a breach of the law. He came with the knowledge and force of division and distinction, that between the right
1 The rishi speaks of the young mother holding her child tight in her womb and not offering it to the father.* She does so as long as she is the inconscient Matter but as she grows conscious she starts making the offering and the child grows more and more conscious with the consciousness of the Father: and it makes the Mother also, in her turn, grow more and more conscious.
* The young Mother bears the boy pressed dozen in her secret being and gives him not to the Father. (V. r. 2. Sri Aurobindo' translation.)
Page-8
and the wrong. He brought in him the will independent of the eternal law—to discover a law of his own. That has been called transgression; in the popular style, that is sin. Apart from the obloquy that the term sin carries with it, it is at bottom, however, the sense of ambiguity, the sense of choice, the sense of liberty. Man has been given this sense so that he may find out that the customary, the habitual, the millennial is not the only rhythm or line of movement but that he may look beyond and find other fines which open the way to progress, which are not bound to mere reiteration. A new sense of direction is behind the spirit of independence that appears as transgression or sin—it is this which the human consciousness aims at in the movement. It is an opportunity to move away and upward, to fresh dimensions of consciousness and being.
Progress takes place through a process of dialectics, that is to say, by way of choice between two opposites. The established harmony and uniformity, becomes rigid and unalterable, has to be broken in order to start a move towards another harmony richer and higher, and this is done in the human consciousness by the growth of a free will in the individual that disobeys the established law. That is the great Disobedience of which Milton speaks so thunderingly in his famous epic poem and which is at the very centre of the Christian religion. It means a Fall: the sense of separation itself is a fall—a separate egoism standing out against all and every one, including God Himself. But this has been necessary to replace the blind obedience of an automaton by the willing and happy collaboration of a free being. That is the psychic with its free choice. The choice lies, as the Upanishad says, between 'shreyas'
and 'preyas'; the deliberate choice of the 'shreyas' by the psychic being at
every step is the great dialectic movement of evolution through which the
consciousness moves forward and upward towards the supreme reality. The initial
separation, disobedience or sin is the price that the individual human being has
to pay in order to move towards its final destiny, the freedom and the
integrality of its supreme divine fulfilment. Egoism, the fount and origin of
sin, is the mask, the camouflage over the visage of God, the Individual.
Page-9
(4)
I have spoken of the sprouting virtue in the earth-element, the same has developed in man, the earth's child to unforeseen dimensions. Earth's upward drive towards a greater harmony is in reality the working of the Godhead "Agni", the self-conscious energy that is secreted in the heart of all earthly existence. The Vedas say the earth is the own home of Agni. Agni is an earthly Godhead, even as Indra is a godhead of the heavens. We spoke of water being the characteristic element imbedded, inextricably mixed with the earth. Water gives the necessary condition or element for the sprouting movement; but Agni is the agent, the initiating executive force, it is the concentrated energy of consciousness: in man it is the individualised spiritual element, therefore Agni is said to be the leader of the progressive sacrifice, adhwav vojna, the journey of ascent and evolution towards the final destiny.
The Earth gives her material body, her substance for the incarnation and establishment of the supreme state of the Transcendent —the Self or Sachchidananda—here below. And for the manifestation and expression through life and the senses she offers her secret conscious-force, the light-energy to incorporate the supreme Chit-tapas; but the Ananda of the Supreme she realises in a strange and piquant way. The delight that earth offers or embodies is of a special nature. It is the delight of taste.
Tasting, drinking, eating are properties said to be fundamental to the body, and they are no less applicable in the case of the soul. The Gods are memorable eaters and drinkers and a whole family of Rishis has been called Atris, that is to say, 'eaters'. It is said that these physical properties are only metaphorical or symbolical, when used in respect of the spiritual principles and realities they are used as mere tokens or indices because of the deficiencies of language, language being built out of material symbols. It is not quite so, for, as I have said, earth itself is not a mere symbol but a special concentration of Sat and it includes also concentrated Chit and Ananda.
The soul that is imbedded in earth or wedded to it acquires and enjoys these gifts of the earth and carries them forward and offers to the Supreme. The soul is the efflorescence of the earth and in
Page-10
that way it adds a new quality of fulfilment to the fulfilment of the Supreme, the Sachchidananda.
Annam means both Matter and food. Matter is the earthly food for the Spirit Supreme who has become it, losing itself in it and regains it and enjoys it in and through His earthly delegate the human soul.
Thus to recapitulate, the transcendent Spirit came down from above and stood behind the creation—stood behind for long. And then it advanced towards the front here upon earth: life appeared, the inorganic material particles became organised cells with the first incidence of an incipient consciousness and will. With its growth and the appearance of mind there grew the psychic element, the beginning of the individual, in the higher animal for example. And the psychic element with the growth of consciousness and will and individuality in man, developed into the psychic being which moves on towards the Divine impersonation on the earth. This is Earth's divine fulfilment in and through her earthly son, man. She clothes herself more and more with the developing psychic consciousness of man meeting the Divine Consciousness—finally incorporating in herself and as herself her lord, the Supreme Divine and in her individual formations his parts and portions to make the whole a divine Play.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
Page-11
AS ISSUES OF WORLD PHILOSOPHY
CONTEMPLATION' and 'Action' are two distinct poises or attitudes of human mind. One drawn-in and gathered upon itself in reflection or meditation or quietude or silence accompanied by an urge to go deeper to discover or appreciate or assimilate a truth of existence. The other projected outwards, identified with environmental movements accompanied by an urge to participate in them, to know them increasingly and modify and control them. Both these attitudes are present in normal human nature universally in varying degrees, some men being predominantly of the one attitude, others of the other. Similarly there are peoples predominantly of the projective attitude or of the reflective attitude. That leads to cultural patterns of distinctive forms. But the two attitudes are interpenetrating or not exclusive and the cultural patterns too represent the working of both the attitudes.
Further, the two attitudes represent two approaches to truth and reality also. The one is as represented by the philosophical maxim 'Know Thyself and the other that of exploration and study of nature. Microcosm and Macrocosm, the 'Pinda' and the 'Brahmanda' are two striking parallel ideas of Western and Indian philosophy. And alike held by both systems of thought as mutually representative and as two facets of total existence. In these terms one could say that 'contemplation' means an approach to total existence through the microcosm, the 'Pinda', man's own nature and soul. And 'action' an approach to the same total existence through the macrocosm, the 'Brahmanda', the universal nature and the truth behind it. If the two approaches are thorough-going, they are bound to get united in the end. However an arbitrary limitation in either will delay and variously modify that consummation. We can thus get many combinations and adjustments between the two in Indian as well as Western thought. A philosophy that regards action as the fulfilment and culmination of inner realisation and another as a necessary evil that must
Page-12
be tolerated in embodied life. With these goes the view that all action is a means to inner growth and realisation or that some action must be accepted while action in general rejected.
The Gita, for example, holds all actions harmonious to a man's natural make up, his svabhāva, as his svadharma, duty, and thus conducive to his growth and development. The svabhāva, of course, includes all the constituents, the three modes of empirical life, sattva, rajas and lamas as also the Soul. But the philosophical trend, which predominantly relies on knowledge for an attainment of the life's goal, looks upon action as a source of distraction to contemplation and, therefore, accepts it in a limited measure and as a necessity of embodied existence. Sankhya, Buddhist thought and Adwaita Vedanta represent this trend.
Ultimately it all depends upon whether the world is found reconcilable to the spiritual reality or not. If not, the world-denying attitude will persist and action will be disparaged.
In Western philosophy nature and the world have largely been the running basis of reflection and thought and 'action' and activity have been the strong propensity of life. But it is interesting to observe how repeatedly this has led to something deeply mystic in the individual or universal existence or both. To Socrates reflection on human action is the main interest, but the deepest truth of "his life is his mysterious inner voice, which intuitively and most authentically tells him what is right and what is wrong.
Plato considered the sensible world as an imperfect representation of the perfect 'Ideas', which correspond to the spiritual reality of other systems and his treatment of the two worlds, this lower and that higher, is thoroughly rational and intellectual. But the highest activity of man is what has come to be known as Platonic love, the love free from all sensuality for the 'Ideas'. This is evidently a state of ecstatic contemplation.
Aristotle is very much rooted in nature and has laid the basis for modern scientific investigation and thinking. He also recognised the necessity of a study of human nature and wrote in Europe the first book on psychology, which study, however, was left aside and taken up again only in the nineteenth century. He is thoroughly rational and scientific in the modern sense. However his treatment of reason,
Page-13
the highest capability of man, is extremely interesting. Reason is distinguished as passive and creative. The passive reason depends upon sense-impressions. But the creative reason does not. It is a disinterested contemplation of the highest reality and the last ground of things. And this is affirmed to be similar to Plato's contemplation of the world of ideas.
In the modern period, Kant whose main preoccupation was knowledge, knowledge of nature, the sense-data and the categories of thought, was led to affirm, in regard to the things-in-themselves, which he found necessary, that they were not 'thinkable' (as objects of nature, of course) but were 'Knowable'. He was evidently led by some intuitive necessity to say so, though this was found contradictory by his critics. This knowability of things-in-themselves is a high contemplative status, one could say.
Hegel's commitment to thinking and reason is the very highest in Western philosophy. Philosophy itself is to him, 'a thinking consideration of things' and 'the real is rational and the rational real', yet he had the marvellous perception exceeding normal logic and rationality that contradictions can become complimentaries and that everything through an antithesis leads to a higher synthesis. These perceptions are essentially spiritual reflecting a profound appreciation of a higher unity. This again is a wonderful status of contemplation of self-sufficient intuitive perception.
Descartes' case is more obvious. Perplexed by the world, he discovers his certitudes within himself as being clear and distinct.
In recent times Bergson values so much his analysis of personal consciousness regarding his discovery of the superficial solidities and the deeper fluidities of existence. His 'Introduction to Metaphysics' presents a vivid picture of an inner exploration. And in Teilhard de Chardin strict scientific study culminates in that man must increase his capacities of knowledge and love to meet the tasks of the future.
Among the natural sciences, Physics, the most cultivated of them, is clearly overstepping its bounds suggesting things belonging to ultimate reality.
This rather long recapitulation of Western thinking would show that 'contemplation' and 'action' cannot be separated for long and basically, and that there is possibly an inherent unity in them. And
Page-14
if this is explicitly recognised, one will have to seek it and explain it understandably.
A reference to Chinese thinking may be further helpful. The Chinese philosophy presents a tradition of interest in a distinctive field of inquiry, namely, the social phenomenon. And the aim there is the discovery of the true social relations and a perfection of the same in actual life. This is predominantly a projective attitude. But the highest quality of personal living cherished traditionally in China is that of 'serenity', which is a status of contemplation, a self-possessed inner poise of consciousness.
Contemporary psychology has much investigated and characterised what it calls the states of 'Introversion' and 'Extroversion' and these are sometimes equated to the two attitudes considered above. But introversion is really the state resulting from a failure of adjustment with the environment. It involves a sense of failure, defeat, depression and an escapism. It is not a positive seeking approach to truth and reality by the gateway of microcosm, one's self. Similarly extroversion involves varying degrees of self-escapism, a failure in self-confrontation or an evasion of it. These are aberration of mental life. However, Extroverts and Introverts as two types of normal personality are valid concepts and then they represent the attitudes we are considering.
Right pursuit of action as also of contemplation, as pursuit after truth and reality would involve an awareness of both the fields of knowledge and existence while concentrating primarily on one of them. Action should then be accompanied by a positive self-awareness and self-possession as contemplation would be by an awareness of the world and what it is and there would be no fear of the one or the other. That would be the right attitude promising a discovery of the integral truth by both the approaches. Action that involves self-loss in its pursuit would lead to a knowledge in which man would not figure properly and an overall dislocation will result. And a contemplation losing sight of the world, while attaining inner bliss, will find the world a greater burden. If the element of fear is a handicap in the discovery of truth, then neither a fear of the world nor of the self can be permitted in life. And if that is done, then while we prefer one field for our inquiry, we will also take a due
Page-15
cognizance of the field we leave out.
It may also be considered here that action pursued in calm self-possession has a larger perspective and is better guided, whereas action carried on in loss of self-awareness would mean an involvement in the immediately given external situation. Contemplation too would be healthier and more effective, if the external facts of life are admitted and duly appreciated and deliberately adjusted suitably, permitting no fear, suppression or repression.
This appreciation of contemplation and action at the psychological level would show clearly enough that the two are essentially complementary poises. An action involves a contemplative state of self-awareness and a contemplation cannot ignore the external situation and must in its own interest of successful pursuit modify the external in the light of the internal.
In ordinary life, no doubt, the two are at much variance. The projective attitude being stronger in human nature, contemplation comes to a person with effort and training. And in this process the demands of action are insistent and are felt as obstinate distractions. Hence arises the attitude to reject action. But while external action can be rejected, the inner impulses for external satisfactions cannot be so easily done with. They are then sought to be suppressed or kept apart so far as possible. That also does not mean complete peace for contemplation. The real solution consists in a transformation or spiritualisation of the part of the nature concerned with outer action, so that the inner contemplative spirit can use it as its instrument for outer life. Then does a true reconciliation become possible. It is the egoistic nature of the outer life, which militates against the life of the spirit. That eliminated and the part spiritualised, a unification of the inner and the outer can take place and therewith can come about a unification of contemplation and action.
But the possibility of such a transformation has to be recognised, pursued and achieved. In the Nirvanic ideal of life, for example, the cessation of hankering and other restlessness and agitation of life is the aim. Positively it leads to a status of tranquility. All this involves a good measure of modification of the ordinary nature too, but a transformation of it as a conscious aim is a different matter. The result is that a dichotomy of the spiritual and the non-spiritual
Page-16
persists. Similarly when the Brahman is conceived as sheer oneness, absolute and simple and without qualities, an unbridgeable gulf between this unity and the multiplicity and activity of the world. The Gita posits a parāprakrti, a spirital nature, above and behind the phenomenal nature and that makes spiritual action possible for man. But otherwise and for the Nirvanic ideal and for the stillness and the self-absorbed peace and ananda of the unqualified Brahman, the life of plurality and activity will remain basically unfounded and unreconciled.
The One and the Many or the World and God or the Absolute have been the most difficult problem of philosophy and religion in the East as well as the West. In this connection the contemporary thought of Sri Aurobindo is a new orientation. His approach is that of the
development of integral personality through yoga and thereby finding access to wider, deeper and higher fields of knowledge. The ordinary personality is outward oriented. But there is also an inmost spiritual self-hood, self-poised and self-complete and also a higher dimension of consciousness of many ranges, wide and luminous. Through the yogic practice involving self-widening, self-deepening and self-heightening, new possibilities of life and action open out to an individual. Through an integration of the outer personality and the inmost self a transformation of the outer takes place and action becomes an expression of the inner self and it ceases to be egoistically self-asservative and a distraction. Through the development of the higher ranges, at the level of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind, Unity and Plurality become co-existent facts. As we come lower to the mind plurality becomes dominant, but at the Supermind both of them are experienced together. This delineation of the process of graded relations between the unity and plurality is a most illuminating part of Sri Aurobindo's system of yoga and philosophy. When mind seeks the Absolute and gets it, the contrast between unity of the higher and the plurality of ordinary is too sharp and by the side of the unity of the absolute the plurality of the world becomes inexplicable. But the mind ascending to the supramental level is able to see plurality emerging out of unity and activity proceeding from silence and peace. The plurality of the ordinary level thus becomes reconciled to the unity of the Absolute
Page-17
through the discovery of an intermediate plane of consciousness and being where they actually meet. The Brahman then becomes a unity including within it the potentiality of plurality. Sri Aurobindo accordingly distinguishes in Brahman two poises, one of status, of self-absor bed peace, and the other of dynamis, of self deployment in activity and plurality
Action then would become a necessary expression, a Becoming to the Being of God. And that is the ideal state of the unity of contemplation and action, which means a concrete possibility for man to seek, realise and enjoy.
And Sri Aurobindo does recognise the validity of both the approaches, which he has called the subjective and the objective approaches. But he insists that the integral whole must be kept in view, the subjective must maintain its balance with the external reality and the objective must not limit itself to the phenomenal, but seek the deeper universal truth. In this scheme action will be pursued as an offering to the whole, as in relation to total existence, which by itself would imply a constant contemplation of the One and the All. Action becomes distractive and limited when it is all lost in the phenomenal plurality.
The meanings of the terms theoretical and practical are a source of some confusion in our contemporary thinking. In the West in the pursuance of a strict intellectualist tradition (theoretical) means in intellectual pursuit of truth for its own sake disinterestedly. In India and Eastern tradition generally disinterested and selfless pursuit of truth is demanded even more strictly, but the personality of the seeker has to be cultivated as a whole, in thought, feeling and action, more or less, in order that it may be able to attain to the spiritual truth of life and existence and enjoy it. The pursuit of philosophy, therefore, in the Eastern tradition as also in Christian tradition in the West and the Greek life too in a measure, has to be accompanied by a large and a wide discipline of life, a practice of appropriate yoga. It is intellectualist tradition of Europe in the modern period, which has determined the new meanings of the terms theoretical and practical. But contemporary psychology is now demonstrating to what a large measure our reason is governed by our emotions and attitudes, conscious and unconscious. A fuller discipline of life including that
Page-18
of emotions and will is, therefore, becoming imperative for a truly disinterested pursuit of truth. Besides, it is now easier to recognise that the ultimate truth must not be intellectually limited and determined, that its form may be different and being rich and multitudinous perhaps more appropriately recognisable intuitively.
This might enable us to reorient ourselves as to the terms theoretical and practical and get a clearer and a fuller horizon for the pursuit of philosophical truth of life and existence, integral and whole.
If it can be recognised that the cultivation of the integral personality is necessary for an effective pursuit of truth and reality, that a discipline of intellect but also of feeling and will as also the activisation of the wider, deeper and higher dimensions of consciousness are also needed, then surely we get a new prospect, a new perspective for philosophy. Integral personality opens up a new vision of integral truth and a possibility of new instrumentations of knowledge as also of feeling and will. Our ontologism, episteme-logies and axiology are partly intellectualist and partly involving a spiritual experience. The basis of integral personality is yet another and is capable of reconciling all these and transcending these. The new basis would be essentially one of wide unity in place of that of plurality and separation as now. It would, therefore, possess a new possibility of reconciling older diversities as also providing a richer ground for new perceptions of truth and reality. Our antinomy of contemplation and action gets reconciled in this as we have already considered. It would be most interesting to anticipate the ontologies, epistemologies and axiologies that might be stimulated by the wider experiential basis of the integral personality and surely they will be varied, more varied than they are on the basis of mental experience or certain spiritual insights, since here the basis is much richer.
The standard of integral personality will affect and influence the practical living of man and even more. With larger capacities of knowledge, emotions and will or even a recognition and appreciation of them, our narrowness of view and vision and selfishness of life are bound to undergo a change. And then our issues of war and peace and international relations and general human living will come to be viewed in a larger way. Unity of man and of his varied cultures and
Page-19
philosophies can then become more vivid than they are today.
The Integration of personality is already a dynamic issue in education and life and this is a movement in the direction of the ideal of integral personality and the new developments in incipient forms are noticeable too. A fuller development of the same can, therefore, be hoped for.
INDRA SEN
Page-20
CHAPTER I
AN HISTORICAL SURVEY
I
THIS survey of societies and civilisation is based on the psy-chological aspect of human development, rather than in economic and political movements on necessities. There is a theory first enunciated by a German historian, Lamprecht, and later elaborated by others after him, which states that human society progresses through certain distinct psychological stages. First there was the symbolic mentality in which symbolism is mixed with an imaginative religious feeling. It is the age of the myths and the gods which were the chief features of the dawn of many civilisations —Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Scandinavian, as well as many African and early American tribes.
The second stage is called the typal, which is a more psychological and ethical stage. At this stage society is ruled by strict religious laws—such as was the case with the early tribes of Israel, or Judaen as it was called. This stage has produced ethical laws of conduct, such as the idea of social honour. The idea of the hero, knighthood and chivalry, in the Europe of the early middle Ages, also belongs to this stage of human progression.
The third stage is the conventional stage, when the outward expression is more important than the ideal. The tendency of the conventional age of society is to formalise society and erect a system of rigid grades and hierarchies. It is the age when the king has the divine right. And under him the aristocracy were the lords of the social life. It was the period when members of the aristocracy were the patrons of the arts—of painting, drama, poetry, as well as architecture
* Based on The Human Cycle, by Sri Aurobindo.
Page-21
and music. But side by side there was the oppression, cruelty, ignorance and folly which is associated with medieval feudalism.
The fourth stage is the modern development, characterised by the revolt against all this convention and rigidity, the coming of the age of Reason.
It is marked by the rise of champions, individuals who are imbued with the sense of individual freedom, liberty, progress and revolt. It begins with scientific inventors, such as Galileo, who faced prison and social ostracism rather than give up his search for truth. The individualism of this new stage is an attempt to get back from conventional beliefs and practices to some solid bedrock of real and tangible Truth. This stage brought forth the discoverer and the pioneer. In Europe it was only when feudalism was beginning to decline, that the first adventurous seamen began the search for new lands—the New World, as it was called.
II
This fourth stage culminated in the 19th century in the triumphal progress of physical science. It is under the progress of physical science that the habit of blind reliance on fixed authorities—whether religious or political—has been largely banished from Progressive society. The idea of the divine right and established privileges have given way to democratic and socialistic ideas. At first, however, religious reforms were brought about, in which the dictates of those in authority or established by tradition had to give way to enlightened experience. This latter sought to bring back the original foundations and source of inspiration of religion. Earlier, such reforms occurred in Europe under Luther and Calvin, and later, the Puritans and Quakers.
But the greater changes had come from the Renaissance, rather than the Reformation. On the one hand there was the influence of the ancient Greek mind, its eager search for first principles and rational laws, its intellectual scrutiny of the facts of life by direct observation and reasoning. On the other hand there was the Roman influence—his practicality and sense for the ordering of life in harmony with a robust utility, which was coupled with the idea of just
Page-22
principles. From the Greeks the first principles of Science were born, and from the Romans the first principles of law and order.
The irresistible victory of Science in nineteenth century Europe explains the great psychological need for a general standard of Truth to which the individual judgement would be compelled to subscribe. And at the same time it helped to establish some social order founded on a universally recognised truth of things.
Science appealed because it did not depend on doubtful Scripture or fallible human authority, but on the eternal book which Nature herself had written. With patient observation and intellectual honesty one could here verify the laws, principles and fundamental facts of the world, as well as of our being. These could guide the free individual and at the same time control the claims and desires of the individual human being. It provided a rational basis for life, and a sovereign means for the progress and perfection of both the individual and the race.
But yet this discovery by individual free-thought of universal laws, by which the individual is governed and is subordinated, only led to the suppression of the very individual freedom which made the discovery. It is the collectivity, the mass, which later dominated the individual, from the beginning of the 20th century. The result of this is a new ordering of society by a rigid economic or political socialism, in which the individual must have his whole life determined for him at every step from birth to old age by the well-ordered mechanism of the State.
In such a strictly economic and rigorously scientific and unitarian society, a fixed system of social morality and custom is inevitable. It was a social system which one could not be allowed to question, since that would soon shatter or undermine the whole structure. A new individualistic age of revolt would have to rise up to break these inhibitions on individual liberty and its rigid system of rationalistic conventions.
But before these disastrous consequences could assume widespread proportions, these were the changing developments within science itself which compelled quite a new view of the human being. This happened after the shattering consequences of the first World War. In these we see a mounting tide of psychological and psychic,
Page-23
or spiritual, knowledge which has brought about a tendency to acknowledge a suprarational faculty and a suprarational order of truth. It has given birth to the vague science of parapsychology, as well as the Uncertainty Principle in the physical sciences.
All this points now to the beginning of a subjective age, which may well open up a new era in mankind. For it is evident now after two World Wars that these could not be a retrograde step to a. new typal order or ethics (as in an earlier phase of the human cycle). There are latent inner forces taking part in this reversion, or backward serving. The ancient knowledge of the East, particularly India, which has been released to the world, is also influencing these trends in the direction of subjectivism and a practical spirituality.
III
But this individualistic movement had already produced two powerful ideas by the beginning of the 20th century, which cannot be eliminated easily. One of these is the now universally accepted democratic conception of the right of all individuals as members of society to the full life and the full development of which they are individually capable. This social development and well-being means the development and well-being of all the individuals in the society and not merely a small section of the community flourishing within the mass. If applied to an elite, this movement would only resolve itself into the splendour and power of one or two classes, as it has happened in the past. It is the collectivity as a whole which must be uplifted; that is the forceful trend.
Secondly, it is acknowledged that the individual is not merely a social unit. His existence, his right and claim to live and grow are not founded solely on his social work and function. An individual is something in himself, who has to fulfil his own individual truth and law, as well as his natural or his assigned part in the truth and law of the collective existence.
The individual demands freedom, space, initiative for his soul and for his nature. But in the past, society had laboured either to suppress this freedom altogether, or to isolate such individual thought, will and conscience.
Page-24
While the individualistic age is a radical attempt of mankind to discover the truth and law both of the individual being and of the world to which the individual belongs, the modern subjective age needs a deeper knowledge which will turn man to the discovery of new powers and means within himself. This man can do by putting himself into conscious harmony with that which lies behind his superficial mentality and psychology. And by enlightening his reason man makes his action more dynamic though the deeper light and power to which he thus opens. These tendencies are now growing with increasing rapidity, especially with the coming of the new spiritual knowledge.
The materialism of the nineteenth century has therefore given way to a much deeper psychological science, as well as to free investigations into the biological sciences not wholly based on the materialistic outlook. For it is now fully realised that the ways of life are subject to laws which cannot be predicted or explained by the mechanical laws of Matter alone.
The subjective tendency is even more striking in the creative fields of art, music and literature of recent times. Although much of this work has been superficial and tinged with personal maladies, some few have discovered a new world within—a world of harmony rather than of chaos—which must have its effects in balancing the chaotic state of affairs which characterise the surface life.
N. PEARSON
Page-25
XXXIX
Even in dream, O my mind, you roam and revel in your ignorance;
it is your own error.
How can you then take delight in your voyage
through the words of the Master ?
Strange it is, this heaven born out of the mystic sound!
When you lost your wife in Bengal,1
then your illusion broke down.
O strange is this world illusion
that marks out oneself and others.
This world is but an image upon water—
empty yourself in the mystic consciousness.
The nectar is there and you swallow poison;
your own mind is a slave to others.
When I come to understand what is here at home and what is there abroad,
then I eat up all my wicked kins.
Saraha says: Better an empty stable
than one full of wicked bullocks.
All alone I have annihilated the world and now I wander free.
XL
What the mind perceives is the maze of illusion—
Scriptures and books, beads and rosaries,—
Tell me, how can the simple truth be uttered ?
The body, the word, the consciousness cannot enter into it.
In vain does the Guru teach the disciple.
That which is beyond the way of speech,
1 The old ignorant life. Why Bengal ? Perhaps he is now up somewhere else—in the Himalayas?—leaving the plains of Bengal.
Page-26
how can it be expressed?
The more you speak, the farther you go astray;
The Master is dumb, the disciple deaf—
Kanhu asks, how is the supreme conquest like ?
It is like a colloquy between the dumb and the deaf.
NOLINI KANTA GUPTA
Page-27
THE MEANING AND AIM IN HISTORY
HISTORY teaches us nothing".
With these challenging words, Sri Aurobindo proceeded to expound, in two long series of essays in the Arya what hi story does and ought to teach provided we study it deeply enough. We have in the last issue touched briefly on the main theme of the first of these series, The Ideal of Human Unity , and are presenting in this and subs equent issues a more detailed analysis of it s contents. In this article we propose to give the purport of the second of those series, since published in book from as The Human Cycle; the main theme of this book is the meaning and aim underlying the history of civilisation.1
What is Civilisation?
To apply this term, as in popular usage, to a state of civil society governed, policed, organised, educated, possessed of knowledge and appliances, would be to bring in the barbarian or '-'savage" races as well, for they too enjoy these possessions; the difference is only one of degree. On the other hand, to arrogate the term to any particular pattern of social organisation and regard all else as "semi-civilised" or barbarian would give it no fixed sense at all. We should certainly make a distinction between "barbarism" and "civilisation", and apply the first to that state of society in which man is almost entirely preoccupied with his life and body, his economic and physical existence, and has few means and little inclination to develop his mentality. In contrast, "civilisation" should mean that more evolved state in which to a sufficient social and economic organisation is added the activity of the mental life in most if not all of its parts.
1 Editor's Note: We are beginning in this issue another series giving a detailed summary of The Human Cycle.
Page-28
CIVILISATION AND CULTURE
How then shall we distinguish the term from "culture", by which we ordinarily mean the pursuit of the mental life for its own sake ? Our mental existence is a very complex matter. We have the mental life of the senses, sensations and emotions, and standing at the same level, the active or dynamic life of the mental being; these two between them form the basis and occupy the major part of the normal domestic economic and political life of "civilised" society. Rising higher in the scale, we have on one side the moral being and its ethical life concerned primarily with character and conduct and the pursuit of an ideal Good, on the other the aesthetic being whose objective is joy and beauty. And we have above both of these, trying often to govern them entirely, man's highest accomplished range, the life of the reason with its dynamic power of intelligent will. There is, besides, the religious spirit and the spirituality of man, which however deformed or disguised in its forms, has ever been in pursuit of a supra-rational Something overtopping all the other normal aims and activities. It is to these higher fields of activity, the activities of knowledge and reason, the cultivated aesthetic being, the enlightened will which make for character and high ethical ideals, the aspirations and achievements of religion and spirituality, that we shall give the name of culture. The rest is either barbarism pure and simple, or philistinism which, though deserving the name of civilisation perhaps, is far enough removed from true culture.
THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION
History, a record of man's progress from barbarism to culture, bears the impress of this complexity of man's makeup. Rooted deeply in his vegetable and animal past, his mentality has been struggling to illumine and harmonise the demands of the body, the instincts and impulses of his life, the ideas and ideals of his mind into ordered movements of an intelligent will. It is not only that he has to contrive continually some new harmony between the physical, vitalistic, practical and dynamic, aesthetic, emotional and hedonistic, ethical, intellectual and religious elements in his nature, but each of them
Page-29
again has to arrive at some order of its own disparate materials and the conflicting ideals they present to the intelligence of man. Behind all this striving is the stress of the hidden Spirit, the Over soul that guides the steps of his evolution, unknown to him for the most part. Moving thus between the triple world of the infra-rational, rational and the spiritual or supra-rational, with no sure basis of knowledge, he has had to proceed by partial experiments, by a constant swinging backward and forward between the various possibilities. In this uneven march there have been tracts of slow and courses of rapid expansion which the strong semi-divine individual may overleap, but not the still half-animal race.
CULTURE PATTERNS
The evidence of this uneven march is everywhere. The ancient civilisations of Asia and Europe regarded this life as an occasion for the development of the rational, the ethical, the aesthetic, the spiritual being, although they recognised the immense importance of the social and political activities as man's first business but not his chief business. Ancient Athens laid most stress on beauty and rationality; Sparta with its sole emphasis on character building, and Israel on righteousness of conduct typify the ethical preoccupation; ancient India glorified the spiritual endeavour above all else. In medieval times, there was a deep attachment to an ardent religiosity and other wordly endeavour to the exclusion more or less of the other elements of culture, although the religious spirit has been a notable part of all human societies except in relatively brief periods of their history, in one of which we find ourselves today. The aesthetic and the ethical types reappeared in the Renaissance and the Reformation periods of Europe. The modern age has been an age of rationalism and Science, but a Science devoted largely to the satisfaction of the physical and vitalistic needs of man; the modern world is proudest of its economic organisation, its political liberty, order and progress, the mechanism, comfort and ease and efficiency of its practical life.
Page-30
THE STEPS OF CHANGE
Taking an overall view, our evolution starts with an infrarational state in which men as a whole—there are always the exceptional men —still act principally out of their customary responses to desire, need and circumstance; it is these things that are canalised or crystallised in their social institutions. Man proceeds by various stages out of these beginnings towards a rational age in which his intelligent will more or less developed becomes the judge, arbiter and presiding motive of his thought, feeling and action, the moulder, destroyer and re-creator of his leading ideas, aims and institutions. Recently there has intervened a new age of subjcetivism which tends to look beyond reason to a deeper and a higher source of light than the rational intellect. If the new tendencies fulfil their promise, there is bound to come another, a more luminous age which we may call supra-rational or spiritual, for which all our past history has been a slow preparation.
AESTHETIC DEVELOPMENT
These three elements, the infra-rational, the rational and the supra-rational, have played a significant part in the history of all the varied activities of man: in his aesthetics and ethics, his religions and thought, even in the domain of his life-being, the dynamic physical and sensational part that governs most men in their normal activities. In his aesthetic life, man starts with a crude instinctive feeling for beauty and joy which finds expression in his art creations and literature. These are in course of time subjected to the scrutiny of the reason which seeks to understand intellectually the elements that make for aesthetic satisfaction, discards those that do not suit its taste, even seeks to lay down norms for the artist and the man of letters. Thus come into existence ages of what is usually described as "classical" art which glories in a rational perfection of form and technique. But the creative faculty in man tends to overpass the limits set by reason. And the highest levels it reaches are attained by an influx from above the reason, the divine enthusiasm that creates the highest art and poetry surpasses all that the normal sensational
Page-31
emotional or rational faculties can produce. The keenest appreciation too of beauty in all its forms comes not by a rational analyses but by an inner intuitive identification with the object.
ETHICAL GROWTH
So too, with the ethical endeavour of man ethics is at first an instinctive desire for the right and the true, an infra-rational feeling for the "good", that something within him which man can transgress only at his peril. When the reason begins to play, it seeks to lay down standards of conduct, explains why one should follow the ethical rule. But the reason's explanations whether they be "utility", or hedonistic satisfaction, or the necessities of social existence, or any other, are always defective, for they do not touch the heart of the ethical motif. The urge towards the Good is the true meaning of ethics, not any rational calculation. It is a seeking towards an absolute purity, right and truth, an absolute strength love and self-giving, which are not bound by the limitations of reason. They have their origin and support in a suprarational ether. The ethical being in man is most satisfied and finds its fulfilment: in proportion as it approaches this divine level.
ASPECTS OF RELIGION
Religion was in its beginnings and for long periods has been an instinctive feeling out of man for the supraphysical Infinite and Absolute that is called God. This aspiration for God has often enough been mixed up with many crude superstitions, has been crystallised in creeds and dogmas, canalised through ceremonies and churches. It has led to violent and sanguinary oppositions, even retarded the free development of the human spirit. Reason has come in here too, has sought to purify religion of its crudities, sometimes reforming it out of recognition; the negations of reason have helped in ridding religion of its
reparatory force. But in the main reason has failed to grasp the religious spirit in its true sense, except where it has tried through theology or spiritual philosophy to state as best it could to the intellect the truths of spiritual experience. For in its essence,
Page-32
religion is an endeavour of man to reach the suprarational, its highest attainments are spiritual in their nature and not amenable to reason; it is the spiritual element that gives it its true value.
REASON'S ROLE
Reason itself, as it is used by the majority of men, very often serves as a justification for the infrarational urges—the prejudices, desires, emotions of the life-being in man. These in so far as they play any part in the operations of the reason vitiate its true function. That function is to seek after the truth for its own sake and not for any ulterior purpose. So long as reason performes this function to the best of its ability, it is a precious instrument. But as it advances in its work, it begins to feel its inadequacy even in its proper field. There are many realms which it feels it has yet to conquer; the ultimate truths seem always to escape from its grasp; it is never certain of the truths which it has found. All this happens because the true truth of things can be found only on over passing the reason; its seat and origin is in the suprarational realm from which come the intuitions and illuminations and reason itself takes them as its starting-points in its own highest flights. Reason acts best when it serves as an illuminer of the infrarational life-impulses and is itself illumined by the suprarational.
THE DOMAIN OF THE LIFE-BEING
These three elements are at work in like manner even in that life-being of man, the dynamic, practical, sensational and emotional parts in our being, which is the very domain of the infrarational. It is a power that exists by its own right, has its claim to self-satisfaction like all the other parts of our complex being; to refuse it its right to exist and self-fulfilment is to invite the final atrophy of these higher parts themselves. This life-being in us works through its two primary instincts of self-affirmation which leads to competition and struggle, and of self-negation making for cooperation and oneness. Power and unity are the two divine directions in which it moves. The higher parts of man, his reason and aesthetic sense, his ethicality and religion,
Page-33
try to curb and shape in their own way those primary instincts of man. To an extent they succeed, but in the end the life-being escapes this tutelage, asserts its right to be, so much so that sometimes civilisation itself is declared a failure. But this need not be. For the infrarational contains within itself as in a seed the means of its own conversion into its divine elements. What life is blindly striving to achieve is not a complete rationalisation and a wholly rational, life is neither possible nor desirable, but a spiritual change which will bring out its divine potentialities and offer it the means to its own salvation from within itself and not by the imposition of an alien rule which is all that the reason of man can effect.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Man's historical growth, passing through the infrarational and the rational stages and culminating finally in the suprarational is thus a logical necessity of his complex being and its evolution in time. These stages, psychological in their essence and chief motive power, are equally discernible in the development of his society as a whole; they are in fact much more inevitable than the stone and other ages of his environmental culture on which the modern mind lays so much stress, for these latter depend more on the accidental discovery of the implements of production than on any inherent necessity of his being. It is to be noted however that none of these psychological stages has been entirely exclusive of the rest; each contains the other elements in varying degrees. It is only the predominance of one element over the others that gives it its characteristic stamp. The different stages may in the same manner be found to coexist at the same time in the different parts of the world.
THE INFRA-RATIONAL STAGE
In this stage, the people, with rare exceptions, live and act principally out of their instincts, impulses, spontaneous ideas, vital intuitions, vita and physical need; the society persists and alters partly under the pressure of an internal impulse, partly under that of the environment; it is not yet a thinking collective being trying to govern
Page-34
its whole communal existence by the reasoning will; reason and spirituality develop at first through exceptional individuals within the community, later through exceptional communities or nations. The infra-rational stage has three successive periods in its growth, the symbolic, the typal, the conventional, before it can pass into the rational stage of social development.
THE AGE OF SYMBOLS
This is represented by existing savage societies, and in the past, by the Vedic age in India, the beginnings of Greek civilisation, and the traditions of the Mysteries elsewhere. The only method of self-guidance in life available to the infra-rational masses is through the symbols and forms of an occult Reality which they cannot grasp but feel as determining all objects, happenings, idea-formations, life-formations; hence arises the supreme importance of religion in this age, the attempt to find a religious sanction behind all social activities and institutions. True spirituality, often of a very high order as in the Vedic and Upanishadic periods, remains the possession of a growing number of mystics. Rational thought develops, as in ancient Greece, but cannot yet be generalised in the mass.
THE TYPAL AGE
This grows out of a tendency towards fixity of the loose and flexible social economic and political ideas and forms, and religious cult and ceremony prevalent in the Symbolic age. It seeks to base its idea of self-guidance on the psychological and ethical type each person or class in society is supposed to represent. Hence arose the four-fold order of society in ancient India, representing respectively the spiritual and intellectual man, the dynamic man of will, the vital hedonistic and economic man, the material man, each assigned his moral code, his training, his social occupation, his spiritual possibility, according to the psychological type he was supposed to represent. The idea of the Divine Being expressing Himself through man and his society recedes into the background, finally disappears; what this age leaves behind are the great social ideals.
Page-35
THE AGE OF CONVENTIONS
The fixity of a typal order naturally gives way to a system of rigid conventions. The process is hastened by an external factor and an internal. The exceptional nations which developed the reason or spirituality to a high pitch are surrounded by barbarian peoples who invade and submerge the cultured nations; and within these nations themselves, the elite cannot wholly escape the belittling influences of the infrarational mass. Hence there comes the need to restate the old truths in new, more acceptable but less living forms, their encrustation by dogma, authority, infallible rules, their ultimate petrification under a mass of code and conventions. Even the appearance of great reformers cannot stem the rot. It is the growing falsity of the accepted forms that finally induces a new spirit of revolt, hastens the coming of the age of reason.
THE AGE OF REASON
The age of reason is born of a revolt of the individual against the falsities of a petrified typal order; it is necessarily
individualistic because of the bankruptcy of the old general standards. In the first stages of revolt, individual illumination in matters of religion and a crude insistence on "natural rights" in society and politics were taken as the only guides; these were in time replaced by speculative and scientific reason aimed at discovering general laws of Nature and their practical applicability to the ends of social justice. A
constant root questioning of the practical foundations and the central principle of the established society (as opposed to minor adaptive changes as in the
earlier stages) is the heart of its method. It follows a typical course: first, a luminous seed-time and a period of enthusiastic effort and battle, next, a partial victory and achievement, a brief era of possession, then disillusionment and the birth of a new idea and endeavour. This course is inescapably bound with the very nature of the reasoning process.
Page-36
THE PROGRESS OF REASON
In Europe where it took birth, the age of reason, as a social innovator and creator, has passed or is destined to pass, through three distinct phases: first, individualistic and increasingly democratic with liberty for its principle; second, socialistic with equality and the State for its principle; third, if that ever gets beyond the stage of theory, anarchistic, a loose voluntary cooperation or a free communalism with brotherhood or comradeship and not government) for its principle. In Asia the age of reason has come not from an original impulse but only by contact and influence, but it is more or less rapidly breaking down the old conventional order. The signs are that the individualistic period in Asia will be neither of long duration nor predominantly rationalistic and secularist as in Europe. Asia may as a result of the awakening follow its own bent and evolve a novel social tendency or culture, after adopting for a brief period European forms of democracy and socialism.
THE WORK DONE
While it sought to dethrone God, minimise faith and erect the fallible human reason as the one godhead, gave a tremendous impetus to a new scientific materialism with a glorification of the life and the body and the satisfaction of their needs as the main aim of human existence, the age of reason has to some degree humanised society, humanised law and punishment, raised those who were depressed and fallen, gave large hopes to humanity, stimulated philanthropy and charity, encouraged everywhere the desire of freedom.
AGE OF SUBJECTIVISM
A dissatisfaction of reason with its limitations, the attempt to find a surer more intuitive means of knowledge and live according to the veiled law will and power active in the inner and outer life of humanity in place of the manifest laws of physical Nature: this is the basis and aim of a subjective age. It looks at things from within and works towards a synthesis, in place of the objective and
Page-37
analytic standpoint of the intellectual reason. The signs of its coming are apparent in philosophical thought (Bergson and Nietzsche), literature and art (the turn away from a mere objective rendering), the psychological approach to the education of the child and the treatment of criminals, the feeling out for the "soul of nations" as a distinctive characteristic of the new nationalism (in India, Ireland, Germany, etc.). It is quite possible however that the new turn may easily miss its way by a wrong identification of the "soul", as happened in Germany; it can develop safely only under conditions of the widest freedom for the individual and the race. Even then it is by no means certain that it will culminate in a true suprarational age with spirituality as the dominant motif.
COMING OF THE SPIRITUAL AGE
For the spiritual age to arrive and progress with any chance of certainty, two conditions have to be fulfilled simultaneously, a simultaneity that has never yet occurred in the past. There must be the individual and the individuals who are able to see, to develop, to recreate themselves in the image of the Spirit and to communicate both their idea and its power to the mass. And there must be at the same
time a mass, a society which is capable of receiving and effectively assimilating, ready to follow and effectively arrive. The individual or individuals may not have waited long enough to wholly become the thing they have seen. The mass mind, again, may not be ready to receive the new Light in its true sense. It is the readiness of the common mind which is of the first importance. And here the first essential sign must be the growth of the subjective idea of life,— the idea of the soul, the inner being, its powers, its possibilities, and the creation of a true helpful environment for it as the one thing of the first and last importance. But the mere holding of these ideas or ideals in the mass mind is not enough to ensure the corning of a spiritual age. There must supervene a dynamic re-creating of individual manhood in the spiritual type, before the race could arrive. It is the individual who sets the pattern for the race; as will be the spirit and life of the individuals constituting it, so will be the realised type of the collectivity. And for the spiritualised individual too, there
Page-38
will be no end to his progress; for the Divine, the Spirit is infinite, and an infinite progression must be the rule of a spiritualised humanity.
CONCLUSION
A straining towards the Absolute and Divine has been the sense of all man's past endeavour. The individual has been the pioneer of all change, has stood in the vanguard of progress. He determines the destiny of the race.
SANAT K. BANERJI
Page-39
AN OUTLINE
CHAPTER I
THE TURN TOWARDS UNITY: ITS NECESSITY AND DANGERS
THE surfaces of life are easy to understand. On the other hand, its potent secrets, its great hidden all-determining laws seem to us a vague indeterminate movement, from which the mind of man well-nigh recoils to play with the fret and foam on the surface. Yet it is these depths and their unseen forces that we must know if we are to understand existence.
Nothing is more obscure to humanity, whether in the power that moves it or the sense of the aim towards which it moves, than its own communal and collective life. Sociology and History do not help us much. Our whole thought and action with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical. What we do seize and act upon are current or recurrent phenomena, partial ideas. We advance hasty generalisations, espouse ardent enthusiasms only to discard them for others. This imposes the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its true law and aim.
Today the ideal of human unity is more or less vaguely making its way to the front of our consciousness and must certainly be attempted. It is likely to figure largely among the determining forces of the future. The emergence of an ideal in human thought is always the sign of an intention in Nature; but sometimes it indicates only an attempt which is predestined to failure.
The intellectual and material circumstances of the age have prepared and almost impose the ideal. But the heart and mind of the race are not really ready. The revolution is likely to be attempted
Page-40
principally or solely through social and political adjustments. But it is not mainly through these means that the unity of the human race can be enduringly or fruitfully accomplished.
A greater social or political unity is worth pursuing only in so far as it provides a framework for a better individual and collective life. Hitherto the experience of mankind has shown that collective life is more genial, varied, fruitful when it can concentrate itself in small spaces and simpler organisms rather than in huge aggregations. Modern Europe owes two-thirds of its civilisation to the religious life of the little nation of the Jews, the many-sided life of the small city-states of Greece and medieval Italy. So, in Asia the age most productive of the best work was that heroic period of India when she was divided into small kingdoms of the size of a modern district; the second best came afterwards in the still comparatively small nations and kingdoms like those of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras. In comparison, she received little from the great empires of the Mauryas, Guptas and the Mughals. Nevertheless, there were certain defects in the small city-state or regional cultures,—their impermanence, frequent disorder, defenselessness, and incapacity for widespread material well-being,—which made them give way to larger organisations.
Even among larger organisations, it was the smaller nations rather than the colossal empires which have had the most intense life, witness England, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the small States of Germany, as contrasted with the Holy Roman or the Russian empires. So, while the nations of Europe progressed by rapid bounds, the great masses of Asia moved towards an increasing isolation and a final stagnancy of the outward life. Within the nation itself, the vigour of life was gained by a sort of artificial concentration in some centre, head or capital, London, Paris, Rome. The rest of the organisation, the district, the provincial town, the village, was condemned to a dull petty and somnolent life.
The advantages and disadvantages of an organisation of unity transcending the limits of the nation are perfectly typified in the historic
Page-41
example of the Roman Empire. The advantages are admirable organisation, peace, security, order and material well-being. The disadvantages are that the individual, the city, the region become parts of a machine, lose their freedom and creative impulse; eventually by the smallness and feebleness of the individual the huge organism inevitably dies of an increasing stagnation, dissolves at the first shock from outside. Such organisations are immensely useful for consolidating the gains of the past, but they arrest life and growth.
A social, administrative and political unification of mankind is likely to produce similar results. Both individual and regional life would be crushed under the tremendous organisation, deprived of their necessary freedom. This would mean for humanity, after perhaps one first outburst of satisfied activity, a long period of mere conservation, increasing stagnancy and ultimately decay. Yet, the unity of mankind must come about. Only, it must be under other conditions and with safeguards which will keep the race intact in the roots of its vitality, richly diverse in its oneness.
CHAPTER II
THE IMPERFECTION OF PAST AGGREGATES
There is in Nature a constant tendency to a balancing and harmony between the individual and the aggregate. The elaboration of this as yet unaccomplished harmony must therefore be the goal of human life. The perfect society will be that which most entirely favours the perfection of the individual; the perfect individual will help towards the perfect state of the society, and ultimately of the whole of a united humanity.
Between the individual and the vast totality of mankind, it has been necessary to erect, partly as aids, partly as barriers, larger and yet larger aggregates to train the individual gradually for the final universality. The family, the commune, the clan or tribe, the class, the city-state or congeries of tribes, the nation, the empire are so many
Page-42
stages in this constant enlargement. But Nature, instead of wholly destroying the smaller aggregates she forms, usually only effaces the dividing lines sufficiently to allow of the larger unity she is creating. Therefore at every step there arise the problems of accord not only between the individual and the community but also between the smaller aggregates and the larger whole.
.There are in history instructive instances of failure and of success in this travail of Nature. The Semitic nations, Jew and Arab, only partially or temporarily succeeded in their struggle towards the aggregation of tribes. The Celtic races failed entirely in Scotland and Ireland, and succeeded only at the last moment in Wales, in combining their clan life into an organised national existence. In Greece there was failure of the city-states and small regional peoples to fuse themselves, while Roman Italy registered a signal success. The whole history of India has been a fruitless attempt to harmonise an extraordinary number and variety of disparate elements, a problem finally solved as usual by the instrumentality of a foreign rule.
But even within the nation, the largest unit successfully developed by Nature, among the elements of discord the conflict of classes is always possible. This points to another very important rule of this gradual development of Nature in human life. In the march towards the perfection of the individual in a perfected society which is the inevitable aim of Nature, all do not advance at an equal pace. Hence the emergence of a dominant class as of a dominant nation becomes inevitable, their predominance depending on the particular type most needed at the time by Nature for her progress.
But this can never be more than a temporary necessity. Such dominations must end, as in Europe and America the dominant Brahmin and the dominant Kshatriya have ended, either by abolition or by an equalisation with the rest. All the most significant movements of the day are aimed at abolishing the still remaining superiority of the dominant propertied class over the labourer. In this persistent tendency Europe has obeyed one great law of Nature, her trend towards a final equality,—an equality which will render the play
Page-43
of true superiority and difference inoffensive.
A dominant minority must therefore be prepared to abdicate at the right time and impart its qualities and experience to the rest of the aggregate. Where it omits to do so, the worst of destinies is likely to overtake the social aggregate, as in India where the final refusal of the Brahmin and other privileged classes to call up the bulk of the nation to their level has been a main cause of her decline and degeneracy. For Nature inevitably withdrews her force from the offending unit seeking to thwart her aims.
Similarly, the social aggregtes which seek to coerce the individual within their limited mould must inevitably change or be destroyed under the irresistible impulsion of progressing Nature; for the individual's tendency to exist in himself is an essential element of his perfection.
CHAPTER III
THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL
Nature has its own way of reconciling apparent contradictions: it seeks to arrive at harmony by a clash of opposing forces. It encourages sometimes one sometimes the other of the discordant elements; often they arrive at a temporary compromise. But there is an innate tendency in things to assert themselves to the exclusion of all else, so that strife does not and cannot lead to a stable harmony. All it can do is to prepare for such a harmony by an increasing mutual comprehension.
This tendency of Nature can be seen in the relations between the group and the individual. Throughout the ages, the collectivity has sought to dominate the individual and the individual has revolted against this domination. The size of the collectivity makes no difference to the essence of this strife. At first it was the family, the city, the clan, the caste, the class; today it is the nation; tomorrow it may be the entire human race. But that would still leave the problem of the individual's right to free growth unsolved.
If we are to judge by the available facts of history and sociology, we have to concede to the collectivity a prior right as against the
Page-44
individual. Man in his struggle for survival and growth had at first and for a long time to subordinate himself to the dictates of the collectivity. If again, we consider the principles underlying evolution—the evolution of life and mind with all their variety and freedom out of the uniformity of matter,—then also we have to come to the same conclusion.
'But we cannot ignore the ancient traditions of a golden age in which man lived freely without the restraints imposed on the individual by society. We may, if we like, discard this idea as an attempt to read into man's primitive isolated and anti-social animal existence the growing ideal of a free, unorganised, happy association. But it is also possible that there was at least a partial realisation of the dream of philosophical anarchism in an earlier cycle of human progress, when man was enabled to live freely according to an inner law of love and light without any kind of coercion by the group. Perhaps our original state was an animal spontaneity of free and fluid association, and our destiny may be to evolve into a community of gods.
Nevertheless, in the historical period of our evolution, man has always, except in rare cases, formed part of an organised group. Three types of groups may be distinguished. The first, typified by ancient Sparta and modern Germany, seeks to dominate the individual. The second, of which ancient Athens and modern France are examples, asserts the supremacy of the group but at the same time allows the individual as much freedom as is consistent with its control. A third type is that of England, which until recently has insisted on giving the individual the utmost freedom and relegated the state to the background,—with results that have been immensely fruitful; one wonders if the recent adoption of the Germanic idea of state control has not been purchased at too great a cost.
It is to be noted that it makes no difference to the problem whether the state is an absolute king or a majority in Parliament under a democracy. The principle is the same: in both cases there is the assertion of the state of its right to dominate the individuals constituting it. In doing so, the state is merely expressing the
Page-45
truth underlying its existence. But the idea that the state is something greater than the individuals constituting it and has therefore the right to rule supreme over them is in itself a falsehood.
This idea of state supremacy is now after a long eclipse again dominating the world. The idea seeks justification on two grounds. There is the moral claim that to ask the individual to sacrifice his egoism at the altar of the group is in his best interests. And there is the suggestion that for the state to organise all the details of the life of the community would make for the highest efficiency and progress of the group. The state idea is fast capturing the nations of the world to the exclusion of other human tendencies. The idea is a dangerous mixture of truth and falsehood; and unless the falsehood is exposed, there is a chance of our losing the way.
(To be continued)
SANAT K. BANERJI
Page-46
ENGLISH
Psychic Research, Occultism and Yoga: By V. Varadachari. Available with Sri S. Venkataraman, Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam, Madras 18. Pp. 257. Price: Rs. 5/
IN this interesting and informative book the author gives an exhaustive account of the investigations and research that are going on in the field of psychic phenomena in the West. In the first section, he discusses hypnosis, hysteria, apparition, bilocation, somnambulism, out-of-body experiences and many other parapsychic manifestations. The nature and characteristics of parapsychic faculties which potentially exist in man; the conditions in which they can be induced to manifest in a subject, either by spasmodic self-suggestion as in the case of 'mediums' and 'sensitives', or by hypnotic influence or psychedelic drugs; the uncommon powers and perceptions which the subjects display in clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, psychometry or object reading, psychokinesis (causing movements of material objects mentally) anaesthesia (absence of pain) etc; the extent to which these powers could be gainfully employed in medicine and psychiatry—all these are set forth in meticulous detail supported by an astonishing number of quotations from over 200 authors including doctors, psychologists, mystics, like William James, C. G. Jung, McDougall, Freud, Aldous Huxley, Annie Besant, Sir John Woodroffe, Sri Aurobindo, to name only a few.
The large number of revealing case-histories described in the book on different aspects of parapsychic phenomena will no doubt serve as proofs to those who need such testimony of the existence of higher and deeper levels of consciousness beyond the mental and physical planes. But, insofar as these perceptions and manifestations are not consciously controlled by the subject himself but are brought about by an outside agency or 'by upsurges of violent emotions or
Page-47
through a tendency of the subject to fall into a hypnoidal state', there is always the risk of things going out of hand leading to a possible impairment or even disintegration of his personality.
In the later sections of the book, the author deals with the same psychic phenomena from the viewpoint of Yoga. Citing the experiences of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Lahiri Mahashay, Yukteswar Maharaj, Sri Aurobindo and many others, he shows how by the practice of Hathayoga, Rajayoga and other systems of Yoga, one can acquire the knowledge and power of these supraphysical planes and consciously control and use them in the world without endangering oneself or others.
The author pleads for a synthetic development of man and an integration of his personality which combines a psycho-physical-spiritual culture with a fruitful material life. His thesis is that man should direct his attention God-ward; he must realise his spiritual possibilities through Yoga and employ the knowledge and power of his attainments, siddhis, consciously, responsibly and purposefully in the service of humanity-in the service of physical science itself, for instance. For he notes that material life can and should be a complement, and no more a contradiction, of spiritual life. If the phenomenal development of science and technology which the world is witnessing today has any meaning, it is an indication that the Spirit is increasing its pressure on Matter and the latter is opening itself more and more willingly and joyfully, as it were, to the gaze of the Spirit. This is nothing else than a stage and a process in the eventual spiritualisation and transformation of Matter visioned by Sri Aurobindo whom the author quotes:
"The aim of Yoga is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant World-consciousness into the divine consciousness but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body; to transform them to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter..."
KESHAVMURTI
Page-48
KANNADA
Patanjala Yogadarshana: By Svami Adidevananda. Pub: Sri Ramakrishnashrama, Mysore. Pp. 248. Price: Rs. 7.50.
Though the yogasutras, aphorisms on yoga, are ascribed to Patanjali, it is understood that the yoga system as such did not commence with him. As Swami Adidevananda points out in his comprehensive introduction, the origins of yoga are to be traced to the Upanishads, especially in the Katha, the Mundaka, the Svetasvetara and the Maitri Upanishads. In fact there are hints of yoga in some of the hymns of the Veda, e.g. one hymn speaks of the inability of the system which is not purified in the fire of yoga to contain the charge of the Divine. Mention of Yoga--of different types-is more explicit in some of the texts of the Agamas which are as old as the Veda. Be that as it may, one line of yoga came to be systematised by Patanjali in a series of aphorisms (195) which are grouped into four sections: the first dealing with samadhi, its nature and form; the second with the means therefore, restraint, observance, posture, discipline of breath, withdrawal of mind, study and consecration to the Divine; the third with concentration, meditation, trance and the psychic powers attainable by these means; the fourth and the last with the state of emancipation. It is difficult to follow the purpose and drift of these cryptic sutras without aid. For this purpose the commentary of Vyasa, sānkhya pravacana, is invaluable. There is a further gloss, tattva vaiśārada, on this commentary by Vachaspati Mishra. Swami Adidevananda has done priceless service to the Kannada public by rendering the text of the sutras and the commentary into Kanada and adding notes thereon wherever necessary.
In the course of his introduction he clarifies many issues over which there is considerable confusion. Is Patanjali, the author of the yogasūtras, the same as Patanjali the author of the Mahabhashya, the celebrated commentary on Panini sutras on Grammar? The writer is not inclined to disbelieve the tradition that both are the same. He, however, refuses to accept that Vyasa the commentator is the same as Vyasa of the Mahabharata. He points out that while on 111.53, there is mentioned of one Varshaganya who was a contemporary of
Page-49
Vasubhandhu (420 AD). There is also, in the commentary, a statement and refutation of the Buddhist position.
What is Yoga? Yoga, explains the Swamiji, is samadhi and samadhi is one pointedness of the Chitta, not union. And what is chitta? It is the basic stuff of consciousness.
Five are the planes of the chitta. He explains:
the first state is ksipta, wandering, common to men in the world. Rajas is active in this condition driving the mind towards its object. Rajas is active in this condition driving the mind towards its object.
The second state is moodha, forgetful. Due to the activity of tamas sleep predominates.
The third is viksipta, distracted; though the mind is normally unsteady, at times it gets into some stability.
The fourth is ekāgra, one pointed; in this condition the mind can be concentrated on one object.
The fifth is niruddha, restrained; all mental modifications are restrained and only their potencies are left.
In the fir st three conditions no concentration or yoga is possible. It is only in the other two that yoga leading to liberation is practicable. Arising in one pointed state, yoga throws light on the real nature of things, destroys afflictions, loosens the bonds of Karma and leads to the state of restraint, samprajñāta samādhi.
Speaking of samadhi—a subject over which there is so much want of clear understanding—the writer makes a lucid analysis of the various types of samadhi. First there is samprajñāta samadhi,
vitarka—when the mind rests on one object and gains knowledge of the gross nature of that object. In this condition the yogi gets knowledge of the past, present and future of objects.
vicāra-when the knowledge obtained is of the subtle kind, relating to the subtle nature of the object. In this state the yogi sees the normally invisible nature of things.
ānanda-when the sattva guna predominates and the senses feel an elation. The yogi experiences bliss.
asmitā—when one begins to experience the self in spite of the veil of the ego intervening (or the sense of oneself as the knower predominates over the knowledge of the object).
Page-50
Four are the siddhis, attainments, possible in this samprajñāta samādhi:
The first is called madhumatī. The yogi is extremely happy in the predominance of sattva following the suppression of rajas and tamas; his consciousness is filled with truth and hence it is known as rtambharā,
The second is madhupratika. The consciousness manifests special powers.
The third is viśoka. There is no trace whatever of sorrow. The fourth is atikrāntabhuuana. The yogi realises that his self is separate from all material objects
When all the modifications of the chitta are destroyed and only the subtle impressions remain, it is called asamprajñāta samādhi, no cognitive trance. With the steady burning out of even the impressions the roots of Karma are loosened and the chitta sinks into its origin. The self comes into its own, swarajya.
Among the many concise explanations given of important concepts is one of Karma. Karma is of three kinds:
prārabhdha—that which has ripened and started working itself out in the present life;
sañcita—that which is now potential and preparing to fructify later on;
krīyamāna—that which is being forged now.
An authentic and satisfying guide for the study of Patanjala Yoga.
M. P. PANDIT
HINDI
Tanmatra Tatha Vishwa Ka Manomaya Mul: By Shri Ram Shankar Bhattacharya. Published by The Astrological Research Hall, 135, Hauz Katra, Varanasi.
Students of ancient Indian philosophy are familiar with Pan-chbhuta and Panch-tanmatra. But those who have just a nodding acquaintance with the subject have misinterpreted this scientific knowledge and tried to ridicule it by saying that the ancients regarded
Page-51
earth, water, air etc. as elements because they did not have the necessary means to analyse these things—none of which is an element. These difficulties come from a superficial knowledge of the ancient terminology. The word Bhut is used in Nyaya, Vaishaishik, Yoga, Ayurveda, etc. but it is not always the same thing.
The learned writer of this book has tried to study his subject from various points of view, and he has made a good collection- of the matter scattered in various shastras. The book could have been written in a little less difficult and more interesting style.
RAVINDRA
The Liberator — Sri Aurobindo, India and the World by Sisirkumar Mitra. Published by Jaico Publishing House, 125 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bombay I. Pages 307. Price Rs 6/. Also available at The Publication Department, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 2.
In view of Sri Aurobindo's first Birth Centenary celebrations all over the world on 15 August 1972, the author and the publishers have done great good to readers by timely producing the second Edition of this book enlarged by hitherto-unknown elevating matter, enriched by revealing facts, inspiring and illuminating.
Let the chapters of the book speak for themselves: Chapter One—Perspective—says how divine souls come and work for man's liberation at critical times. Nineteenth century's achievements and problems are seen from a larger vision pointing out the importance of Sri Aurobindo's advent. Chapter Two—Prophetic Dawn— describes India's Past and Present, and Sri Aurobindo's early life in England where he had intimations of his future work. Chapter Three —Light Grows—narrates his life at Baroda preparing for his political work, and his first revolutionary move. Chapter Four—Towards India's Liberation—is on that light and force which burst into that Swadeshi revolution of which he was the acknowledged high-priest. He was the first to declare openly: "Complete autonomy free from British control is our aim" and that India should be free not only for
Page-52
her own sake but for the whole world for which she has a work to do. When assured by the Divine that India would be free he left the outer field in order to concentrate on his spiritual work for India and the world. To this also he was directed by the Divine. Chapter Five— A Larger Liberation—studies that important period during which Sri Aurobindo revealed through the Arya new truths of man's future. The .Mother comes as hi s collaborator : the Ashram grows: the Second World War ; Free India; visions of Supermind descending. Chapter Seven-Light Widens-surveys how Sri Aurobindo is influencing the mind and heart of humanity the world over. Chapter Eight-'Everlasing Day'-is on the Supramental Manifestation and on the Mother leading man to 'a perfect world'.
For most of his statements on Sri Aurobindo's life and work the author quotes the Master's own words. He quotes also Nolini Kanta Gupta on some very significant aspects of Sri Aurobindo. In fact, the title of the book seems to have derived from Nolini Kanta's words to the author: "Sri Aurobindo liberated man into a new world with a new consciousness."
The book throws revealing light on India's past, present and Future. It is a luminous exposition of how the spiritual force of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo has been at work to prepare man for his divine destiny.
The book has a Bibliography, a Glossary and an Index.
B. G.
Page-53