The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda. - Sri Aurobindo.

EDITORIAL

THE GOLDEN CHAIN*

YOU have been here for many many years, isn't it? — many many years. From your childhood you are here, isn't it? — perhaps all of you. Some of you are going out, some are likely to stay, some still undecided. If you are asked : 'What have you gained here by your long stay, for some a very long stay?'... I can tell you what you have gained. It is not any outward thing, nor any of the things that you have learnt at school, the knowledge that you have gained here, it is not that, but something else. Be sure of that. You don't know perhaps yourselves, but that thing is there, within you. You have not passed your time in vain here: you have the Mother's touch. Mother said many many times:

"Whoever gets my touch, whoever has a second of true aspiration, true love for me, he is finished for this life, for all lives — he is bound to me. I have put a golden chain round his neck, his heart is

* Talk addressed to the Final Year students of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

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bound eternally to me."

It is a thing nobody can see, you yourselves don't see; but it is a fact, it is there. The golden chain is there within your heart. Wherever you go, you drag that chain, it is a lengthening chain. However far you may go, it is an elastic chain, it goes on lengthening, but never snaps. In hours of difficulty, in hours of doubt and confusion in your life, you have that within you to support you. If you are conscious of it, so much the better; if you are not conscious, believe, that it is there. The Mother's love, Her Presence is there always.

That is the thing I wanted to tell you.... In the Upanishads there is a story. Once Narada — I suppose it is Narada — went to a Rishi to get initiation. The Rishi asked him: 'What have you learnt? What have you learnt in your life of a student now that you come to me?' Narada began to narrate all the vidyās that he had learnt during his education as a brahmachari - all the shastras, even Dhanurvidya, all kinds of learnings. Then the Rishi said: 'All that is aparā vidyā, the inferior knowledge. Do you know Brahman?' 'No, sir, I do not know.' 'That is the thing to be known. Once that one thing is known, everything else is known.'

So I tell you, that one thing needful you have acquired, you have not to attempt to get it. You are fortunate, you are lucky, we are all very lucky; Mother called us here and She has given it of Her own Love, infinite Love, unasked, unconditionally. Whatever you are in your outward character and activities, that is not affected at all by the outer nature; it remains as it is, pure, unsullied.

Some of you were present at my talk on Dante I spoke of Dante's vision, it is a wonderful vision — the vision of the mission of the Divine Mother. I read out the Vision there, I may read it now here. I won't read the Italian, for I can't read Italian in the Italian way, I read it in the English way. However ... here is my English translation:

THE VISION OF DANTE

( I )

Madonna, all my hope reposes in thee;

For my redemption thou didst leave

The traces of thy footsteps through hell.

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In all things that I saw

I recognise thy power and solicitude;

It was ever thy grace and thy force.

From bondage thou hast pulled me out into freedom.¹

(2)

O Light Eternal, alone thou dwellest in thyself;

Alone thou understandest thyself, and known to thyself

And knowing thyself, thou lovest thyself and smilest to thyself alone.

 

That circling was self conceived,

It appeared in thee as a reflected gleam,

As I was dwelling upon it for a while.

 

Within itself, in its own hue

It appeared to me as a painted image of me;

So immersed I was in it, whole and entire.²

Dante saw a globe of light in front of him. As he was standing before the Divine Trinity in the Empyrean, suddenly he saw revealed to him a luminous globe and, within that luminous globe, as if its reflection, its reflected image, circling, moving. And as he gazed into that circling light, he saw himself. He saw himself in that circling light : himself not as he saw himself, but as that circling divine Light saw him — its own image. T was there in the image as conceived by Him, not as conceived by me.'

In our language we can say that the luminous globe was the supreme Divine and, then, within it, the whirling circling light — that was the Creative Power, the Divine Mother in Her creative mood. And, within that, I was there as Her child, in my true reality, not as I see myself but as She sees me; in that image I saw myself.

Dante says that it is an experience as if he was looking into an Eye, a big ball of Eye; and in that Eye he saw reflected his image

¹ Dante, Paradise-, Canto 31, lines 79-85.

² Ibid., Canto 33, lines 124-132.

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as the Divine sees him, not 'as I see myself', but my true self'. I say, that is the Image the Mother has left to you, within you. However much you may try, you can't lose it; it will be there — till its fruition. Whenever, as I said, you feel discouraged, — naturally when you look at the world and its happenings, you feel very much distressed, disgusted, — but there is another reality behind it, it is the Mother's Presence that redeems all that. In any mood of depression, dejection, difficulty, always know that it is there in you to support you, to bring you peace and strength, and it is never failing. So many times She has said:

"Everything else fails in this world, I will never fail you."

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

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THE MOTHER AND HER WORK

A Homage

EARTH will soon resound with the Great Mother's Name, and any small tribute we pay to her will bear its fruit. Who she was, what she represented in the scheme of things, what her accomplishment and the purpose of her incarnation, what she might be doing after she left the physical frame, — for the Mother is not "dead", she cannot die, — these are questions to which full answers could be given only by herself and by one who brought her down on earth from her inaccessible heights. All we can do is to glean a few pearls out of the heaps she has scattered, and present them to her adorers for their delectation.

The Great Holocaust

II

Sri Aurobindo has told us in detail who the Mother is, in her Reality and in her Manifestation. She is the Supreme Creatrice, "the Supreme and Original Mahashakti; all proceeds from her, all lives by her, all lives in her, even as she lives in all Mother seldom speaks about herself, that is, about what she really is. But here are some stray glimpses. The Mother is the "Divine Consciousness manifested upon earth."² She is the great dispensatrix of the Divine Grace.³ She is Savitri of the great Poem. She is the great miracle of the Divine Holocaust which was meant to redeem the earth and free men from its all too human sufferings. "She has come down on earth in order to participate in their nature. For, if she did not participate in their nature she could not carry them farther.... If she did not adopt their consciousness, if she did not suffer from their pains, she could not help them.... By taking on a human body, one is obliged to take on the human nature, partially. Only, instead of losing one's Consciousness and losing the contact with the Truth, one keeps that Consciousness and one keeps that Truth, and it is by joining the two that one can in fact produce this kind of alchemy of transformation, for which the Descent takes place."⁴

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One would recall Sri Aurobindo's lines in A God's Labour;

He who would bring the heavens here

Must himself descend into clay

And the burden of earthly nature bear

And tread the dolorous way.

How one wishes it could be otherwise and she were spared the immense sufferings she took upon herself in order to help man ! But it would seem that it was inevitable; Sri Aurobindo is emphatic that it could not be otherwise.⁵

Her Mission on Earth

What, in its essence, was the particular mission she had come to fulfil? To put it in a word, it was simply to end all suffering for good : "with all my will I am working to make suffering disappear from the world"; she wrote to a young girl in 1933 ^6, and that has remained the object of all her work throughout. In broader terms, to help man realise divinity, not in his inner life alone but in all the parts of his external being and nature, in his life and works in the world as a thinking, living body, in all his activities, and not merely in the life of the individual but also and equally in the life of the human collectivity in all its multifarious organisation and action, in his society and economics no less than his politics, in his philosophy as much in his science and art and aesthetics, in his education as in his organisation of toil; nothing must escape the sea-change. Thus alone would man move towards the fulfilment of the purpose for which she took birth on this unhappy earth.

This could be done rightly only on one condition. The thing would become possible only if man consented to obey the Will of the Divine that is within him and around him and above him, and express Him in his life and thought and action, always and without deviation into the ways of his ego that normally governs his surface being. This is no easy task so long as he lives mainly in his ego. The thing becomes easy if he can manage to find his soul and live in it and make its voice prevail over the outer confusion. To help man find his soul, to bring it forward and help him keep it there, this was the

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Mother's method of work. "All my work consists in that", as she has said in one of her Talks. She explains: "When I see people and when I attend to them, I have the will, — I do not say that it is always possible, but, that is another matter, — I have the will to see in them their psychic being, their ideal, what they have the will to do, what they will to be, and keep it, draw it out to the surface."⁷ If everybody expressed the Divine Will, things would go very well, "there would be no more any conflict anywhere, everything would be in harmony. It is this that one is trying to do, but it is not very easy."⁸

But there is also the external being of man and his external life. These cannot be neglected if the soul is to express itself freely and fully. Man has to move towards perfection in his mind, in all the activities of his vital nature; he must make his body strong and healthy, harmonious and beautiful, agile and plastic to all the demands that a higher aspiration makes on-it. He must alter his environment in line with a more harmonious ideal of collective living. This he cannot do without the help and cooperation of his fellow-beings. Hence the need for creating the nucleus of a small community where the ideal could be progressively realised in actual fact — a sort of "pilot plant" which the Ashram represents. The Ashram, the Mother says in a Message, "has been founded and is meant to be the cradle of the New World."⁹ That is why all the activities of man, "whatever they be, including those that are considered the least spiritual" are included, simply in order to change their nature. "But I must admit", says the Mother, "that it is very difficult to change their nature. But anyhow, we are trying, we apply to it all the good will possible,"¹⁰ Where is the necessity? Why should we bother that things should change in the world? Why not be happy with them as they are? The Mother answers, with a slight touch of irony, "it is perhaps just because there is a Will higher than that of man, which wants that things should change. And so, there is nothing but to obey and make them change. That's all."¹¹

The Years of Preparation

It has been almost an axiom with the Mother that no one can change the world unless one changes himself first. And this dictum

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she has applied all her life, to her external personality, to serve as a living example of what can be done and how to do it. All her life has been a long preparation to this end.

She chose for herself a milieu at birth, the upper bourgeoisie in Paris, which would provide her the best opportunity for acquiring all the intellectual and aesthetic training that the modern civilisation at its best could offer, an access to the social, economic and political problems at close range, - and many more things besides. She made the fullest use of that .opportunity . She learnt all that there was to learn, through book knowledge and through personal observation and experience. She applied the knowledge and the experience to her own life at first. Then she took up the problems of others, the world problem, after getting for herself an adequate foundation in the external being. "It is now approximately fifty three years," this was said in 1953, "that I have been attending to people, their yoga and their inner efforts."12 That is to say, from about the turn of the century, when she was barely 22 years old. By 1912, she had already anticipated "the whole programme of what Sri Aurobindo has done and the way of doing the Work on earth. I met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914, that is to say, two years afterwards, and I had already made the whole programme."¹³ A sketch of this proggramme has been given in the second part of her Entretiens suivis de Quelques Paroles.

The Intellectual Training

She had seen early in her teens, indeed it may have been much earlier than that, that life gets more and more sour as one progresses in age, — unless one prepares himself in time to make the most of it. This was the substance of the School essay that she wrote in 1893 and which brought her commendations from the teacher.¹⁴ One way to prepare oneself for a decent living is to enlarge one's consciousness as much as one can. And studying as many subjects as one can is one of the best ways of doing that. She began doing that almost since the beginning. "To be able to think about many different things, gather in very different kinds of knowledge, consider a problem from many different sides, opposed to each other, not to think along one and sole line, — to be like a fan,"¹⁵ — that is her idea of a

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"rich" mind.

"It so happens that I had some philosophical curiosities, and I Studied a little all the problems"¹⁶, she once said in a slightly ironic vein perhaps. For, as she remarks on another occasion, "there is a state, an essentially pragmatic state, — spiritually pragmatic, — in which of all the human futilities, the most futile is metaphysics."¹⁷ The reason of man is most useful as a means of keeping in check the impulses of the lower nature; hence the need of its training. But by itself it is incapable of finding the ultimate Truth. But this is not to disparate the importance of the speculative mind. "It has always looked to me like a gymnastics which is very interesting from the point of view of mental development."¹⁸

She seems to have had a greater attraction for Science. The scientists have made a discovery of capital importance, namely, that "from a purely external and physical point of view, things are not what they seem to be..., that the world is an illusion. That is a great discovery. One more step and they will enter the Truth."¹⁹ At one time she had high hopes that pushed to the extreme limit of its possibilities, Science might even solve the riddle of existence. "There was a time, a very long time, when I used to think that Science, if it went to the limit of its possibilities, in an absolute manner (if that is possible), it would rejoin the true Knowledge."²⁰ She had to give up the idea later. Nevertheless, she had the highest hopes about the future of Science. "Perhaps the first thing that will change itself", as a result of the Supramental Manifestation, she declared even before the Advent, "will be the world of Science. That is possible, because it demands a very great sincerity and a very persevering effort."²¹

When the Mother speaks of Science, evidently she refers to the sciences that deal with the external world of visible forms. Her view of modern Psychology is not so optimistic. She must have studied the modern masters, — Freud was beginning to make a big noise when she was young, and she speaks of these modern psychologists in the same tone of light banter as Sri Aurobindo does. "These people want to explain everything by the most material and the most ordinary phenomena of human life.... That is perfectly ridiculous."²²

The so-called occult sciences seem to have interested her a great deal. She studied the systems of occultism practised in ancient Chaldea, Egypt, Israel, Greece and Rome in very great detail; references

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to their "schools of initiation" abound in her Talks. This is quite apart from her actual experience of the other worlds, to which we shall revert later. She knew Astrology and the Science of Numbers well enough. But she does not attach an absolute value to astrological predictions about one's destiny. "Experience shows that the notation which in Astrology is called the horoscope is not a thing that is absolute and that this destiny is not inescapable; since by the very fact that one takes up the yoga and develops spiritually, one escapes the absolute law of the horoscope.... All this is what one might call a half-knowledge, a sort of very primitive attempt to seize the links of interdependence between the universal and the individual existence."²³

The Question of Religion

Mother is emphatic that there will be no place for religion in the New World which she is missioned to bring into being. "In the Supramental Creation, there will be no religions any more,"²⁴ she has said in no uncertain terms. We need not perhaps enter here into the details of her reasons ; it is a matter of sufficient importance to merit a separate study. But there is one thing about her early upbringing in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition that is worth noting.

It has been said that God is all-powerful, and being all-powerful, He has made the world as it is and having made it so, found it very well done. But, if "someone who was all-powerful and should make the world as it is, looking with a smile on people suffering, and being miserable and find that very good, I call him a monster. That was the sort of thing I thought about when I was five years old. I said to myself, 'That is not possible. What they teach you is not true.' This God who wants to be the one and only one, it is this that made me completely an atheist, if I may say so, in my childhood."²⁵

She kept up throughout her life an attitude of disregard if not contempt for the dogmas and the hollow ritual of established religion. This she brings out in her incomparable manner in the story of the two clergymen on board the Japanese ship on which she travelled on her way to Pondicherry for the first time. The story might be recounted in full.

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"On this Japanese boat there were two clergymen.... Both of them were Englishmen; I believe one was an Anglican, the other a Presbyterian. Now, when Sunday came, it was very necessary to perform a religious ceremony on the boat; otherwise they would have a pagan look, like the Japanese." But they had to have a quarrel as to who would perform the ceremony. Finally, one of them retired with dignity, and the ceremony was performed by the Presbyterian.

"It took place in the state room of the ship. You came down a few steps to go into the state room. On that day, all the men had put on their jackets. It was hot, — I think we were in the Red Sea. All of them had their jackets on, collars and leather boots and tight-fitting cravats and, hats on their heads; and they went, with a book under their arms, almost in a procession, from the bridge right down to the state room. The ladies had a hat, there were some who carried an umbrella, and they too had their book under the arms, a book of prayers.

"And then, they were all swallowed up inside the state room and the Presbyterian gave a lecture, that is, he preached his sermon, which everybody heard very religiously. And then, when that was over, they all came out with the satisfied look of someone who has done his duty. And naturally, within five minutes, they were at the bar, drinking and playing cards, and their religious ceremony was forgotten. They had done their duty, it was over; there was no more any question about it...."²⁶

(To be continued)

SANAT K. BANERJI

REFERENCES

1. Sri Aurobindo, "The Planes of the Supreme Goddess", Bulletin, April 1976.

2. Mother, White Roses, p. 3.

3. Words of the Mother, pp. 183-4 (1949 edition).-

4. Entretiens, 9.12.53.

5. Ibid., 6.6.56.

6. Mother, Lettres à Mon Sourire, 7.1.33.

7. Entretiens, 9.6.54.

8. Ibid., 14.3.51.

9. Bulletin, August 1964, p.98.

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10. Entretiens, 7.8.57.

11. Ibid., 22.2.56.

12. Ibid., 13.5.53.

13. Ibid., 11.11.53.

14. Mother, Paroles d¹ Autrefois.

15. Entretiens, 10.2.54.

16. Mother, A Propos, 7.9.63.

17. Entretiens, 14.3.51.

18. Ibid., 22.I.58.

19. Ibid., 18.12.57.

20. Mother, Commentaires sur les Aphorisms, No. 75.

21. Entretiens, - 14.9.55.

22. Ibid., 13.4.55.

23. Ibid., 26.2.58.

24. Ibid., 10.7.57.

25. Ibid., I5-7-53J Propos, 24.5.67.

26. Entretiens, 23.5.56.

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SAVITRI: A STUDY IN DEPTH

BOOK TWO: CANTO ELEVEN

THE KINGDOMS AND GODHEADS OF THE GREATER MIND

THOUGHT outsoars the narrow confines of an earthly instrument that human mind is; it cannot be contained in narrow limits and naturally it overflows on every side into greater expanses which seem a passage to infinity. Thought being a child and servant of the spirit's force, it moves in the wider domains of the spirit; but after a stage when it reaches the nameless peak, even thought-mind collapses for it is in the spirit alone that exists a knowledge which can not be obtained by thinking since not by thinking is the greatness of the spirit born. Though the spirit for manifestation requires the earthly footing and the base of the finite, it has an infinite range and can move beyond thought and form. Aswapathy now sees a region where thought depending entirely on a vision shapes a world from out of the unknown; it holds out the splendours of the Ideal Mind; it is the source of all that we are and holds the potentialities of all that we can be; it is the creator of hopes as yet unrealised by earth; it stretches beyond our wildest dreams and flies beyond the highest conceits of life; it casts on our world its great crowned influences, bridging the gulf between man and God and lends the light to combat ignorance and death. The rays of the spirit have each a capacity to become a creative God who can build a world in his own right; in this region all the creations are luminous, free from the stigmata of deformity brought about by doubt and error; these regions have the reign of perfection and are a hallowed sanctuary remote from our labour, struggle and yearning ; yet our inmost self has ties of kinship with those realms and an occasional breath sometimes visits the mortal plane inspiring us to shed our imperfection.

A thought comes down from the ideal worlds impelling us to remodel our fives on the image of a greatness prevailing elsewhere; even in the drab world of delight and pain, we enjoy the comradeship of a faith in things that may be negatives by the prevailing order; but supported and sustained by an amour., a communion with eternity, this faith drives us to break loose from the earthly imperfections

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and limitations and to enjoy a nibble at the forbidden fruit of a union with the Immortal; we feel the access of a hero's strength; we are moved by a courage and strength that death can not touch and acts deemed impossible grow natural to us for we are the original citizens there who have set out like adventurerers to colonise and develop the inconscience of matter; but alas! our retreat is blocked and passports denied and we live exiled from our heavenlier home; the human thought is a Ray that has strayed from the immortal luminous mind; it has now come under the sway of material nature and become a servant of ignorance. It is now a captive, a labourer, ordered and driven about by the imperfect instrumentation of life; in this fallen state, it contents itself by recalling its old lost sovereignty and happier state; even though cast on mist and fog and mud and stone of the earth, there steals upon it a memory of its lost heaven, the splendid city of its birth; it feels a call, an urge to regain the glory, the felicity it has been estranged from; but unfortunately the dark shadows of nescience close down on her and this delegate from heaven forgetful of her work is reduced to a shadow of its glorious self and becomes a hack of the mind and body merely catering to their creature comforts; but occasional flashes bring her a self-aware-ness and a knowledge that she is the Ideal's seer and king and heir to delight and immortality. What appears impractical, a dream, is after-all a transcript of a reality obtaining elsewhere; these visit us in our thought and muse, but our dwarf will, our practical sense, bar these celestial visitants; yet they send us flashes of illumination and messages of significance in moments of heightened consciousness. The ignoble present is irradiated by those flashes from the beyond. These emulsions of light come from the spirit behind the veil and urge us to aspire to those luminous thrones; we even hear the sounds of the Immortal's footfalls lending us a confidence, a courage that we can climb to those shining planes and that those regions from which those flashes, those urges come can be made our homes. Aswapathy regains his shadow less sight and observes the thought-created world; here knowledge is the parent of every action; even the inconscient matter is charged with a power of thinking; feeling is like a bird hovering in a well-balanced manner on its wings of imagination; it is highly responsive to the call of Truth, as a child to the parent's call; every shape is a luminous self-determination of the Eternal; will is

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a conscious vehicle of the divine, not subject to the inertia of matter; life is a flow, a splendour stream of musing force and not a blind or mechanical energy; life is full of an immortal stir and its breath is laden with the wisdom of the Infinite; here in the clarities of amethyst air the omnipotent Spirit of Mind broods over the idea to take shape; the sun of Truth sends down a ray which quivers with the word of light, of wisdom, revealing something new, something discovered afresh.

A triple world or order and thought reveals itself to Aswapathy from the heights of trance the meeting point of the hemispheres where time meets eternity and nature is in communion with the spirit; there is an immense ascent vanishing into a void of bastioned light; the highest struggles to reach eternity and the largest stretches into the infinite; the first realms are within the reach of the human mind; the powers there wield an influence on us and lend a part of their puissance; a triple flight leads to the triple world; though the upward heights are too abrupt and precipitous for an ascent, they have an earthward slant making it a line of communication to the earth for those on the heights; the wardens of the ascending stair proffer to the heaven-bound pilgrim their knowledge for they hold in their power the keys to open the multiple gates to Reality; they are the exponents of the mystic law, the angels of divine truth and they bring the divine spark to mortal men; seen from a distance they look like symbols or icons imaging mystic truth, but seen nearer, they appear as Gods and living Presences. The lowest steps are fantastically decorated with symbols expressive of perfect joy of the other world; the forces of nature are given the shape of strange and live beasts; man himself becoming conscious of his role, grows an image of the undefined God and in short all objects are like fine coins from the mint of beauty.

In the forefront are a race of keen-visioned Gods who are well-tutored in the mystic play of world-making; they create matter by the veiled stress of the mind; they sustain and support life and guide the events by their subtle and hidden intelligence; they are the architects of the divine marvel of creation; and they are the designers of the abode for the indweller, the invisible king. They carry out the Immortal's command and build the material world to serve as a kindergarten for the young souls to spell .out the letters of the cosmic

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script; study its body and grasp the hidden meaning of creation; these powers give a mould, a form to all that the spirit conceives and reduce to a finite form the infinite and the formless; each power as it leaps from the unmanifest is seized by the precision eye of the arch-masons, deprived of its freedom and coerced to accept a form, a posture, a line and law and play its role in the wizardry of an ordered universe; the all-containing Self, the Continent is parcelled out into small containers, forms or selves; the one is cut into countless units; the limitless is fragmented to make up a cosmic sum and the infinitesimals are massed up as if to guard the mystery of the one becoming the myriad, being penetrated.

Each event was no longer a free and divine incident; they stamp it with the working out of a law, burden it with circumstance, explain it away as a foreseen result, an inevitability, obeying the law of necessity. Each Power is restrained from grabbing the whole world; restraints are imposed and they are made to move in the appointed place and the well-marked grooves; they exercise the effectiveness of fate upon the lightning race of the mind and bring the flux of life under the theory of immutable cause and consequence; the result is the idea has lost its plasticity, its boundless freedom; it has to move cautiously step by step in set design; unbounded once it has to move now with a narrow tether between life and death; it has to build its conclusions on inference. Thus confined it collapses and yields place to a new type of knowledge; the foreseeing and the celestial thoughts of the Infinite are immured in a cage, the laws of the world serving for its laws; the vast irised vision of the Ineffable is narrowed into the small arc of a horizon. So that it is possible for the mind to understand and govern, the limitless is cast into a perishable form and is thrown into a prison of birth and the eternal is made subject to birth; thus is fixed a law, a time for a piecemeal, slow and gradual evolution on the movement of the earth which aspires to reach the luminous Truth by making its matter itself incandescent with the light of the soul and the created, the lords of nature.

Beyond these arch-masons, are seen an archangel race with looks searching for the unseen; their eyes beam with a liberating knowledge; their senses are not extrovert and they live within; they can look through the crust, the surface of things and can grasp their truth; they see not by the senses which play on the surface of things

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without probing deeper; the gaps left by them, the deficiencies in their grasp are made up by the penetrative vision which they have at their command; these are the architects of possibility and engineers of the impossible who forge a link between the known and the unknown by their theorems and the formulae about the enigma; these are the high priests who wait on the Immortal, probe into his workings, dive into the secrecies of his mind, read his mystic script and seek to expound every movement by a rule or reason; the Unseen ceases to be a mystery to them and they fancy it has become visible to their student eyes; the cosmic scheme seems to have become intelligible to them through their audacious scribbles on the Void and they reduce the Infinite to the compact figures of a square or a cube; they attempt a mystic interpretation by recording to language of signs and symbols and attempt to erect an intellectual structure for explaining the magic and the mystery of life; thus the vast Reality is sought to be captured in the syllogisms of finite thought, ignoring the freedom and the logic of the Infinite; the cosmic dance is reduced to the mechanical rules of a grammar-book and by analysis and guide line prepared by themselves they speculate on the possible lines of developments or the unfoldments in future; they labour hard to account for the pathology of the universe, its pains and sufferings, by a minute analysis of the cosmic self; they explain by logarithmic tables that the actuals arise out of the probable in several possibilities; but they discover that the forces which have been supposed to obey blind chance, are under the direction, the control of a vast imperative, the Omnipotent Will and that inspite of all their hap-hazard ness, they work out a unity; however they ram down a formula even on the anarchy, the free play of the nature forces, by trying to discover a design, a habit for the forces to follow one among the my raid paths open for them and thus prepare a calculus of destiny.

Man in the pride of his universal lore imagines that the Eternal's Puissances obey the beck of his thought; there is no more mystery now, each power is assigned a place, a function and it carries on mechanically the directions of a cosmic force; the divine aspect of the miracle is reduced to the law of necessity where every step taken, every movement can be forecast and evaluated by the accountant mind. Thus the creative power's freedom, her whims and lightning

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moods, her all-wise and unregulated delight are now bound up in the law of cause and effect; the mystic face, the eye-lashes dream print, are deprived of their charm in the sketch, the pattern presented by the mind; the surging wave-throb of her vast sea-heart is made captive in a theorem; it seems as if the designs which she herself does not know stand revealed to others. They are supercilious enough to imagine that everything including that in the future is known to them; they predict the dates for the. birth and the dissolution of the worlds; they measure the immeasurable by drawing a diameter to the Infinite; but with all the labour and the lumber of the detail, they miss the essential and in the sequel all their work is rounded off with a nought; they master all the minutiae but miss the major Truth; the one Truth that matters most eludes their grasp; they miss the wood for the trees;^- they know too much to know the whole; the too much becomes too little and the Transcendent keeps the secret to himself.

The third stair has sublimer and daring soar with steps like glowing rocks of gold; here the sovereign kings of thought take their stand and they turn their all-seeing, all-comprehensive gaze on the manifestations of time on the earth; they are in a way the sharers in the cosmic government for they receive and transmit the directions of the Eternal; mind is not the originator, nor the source, but a channel of consciousness reigning supreme in this region; the cosmos is not a freak; there is behind every apparent-looking chance occurrence, a supreme wisdom, a hidden intelligence; there is also at the back of a rigid determinism, giving an impression of inviolability, a freedom; everything in the world is brought into being by the creative truth-gaze and all the events follow the line drawn by the All-wise; the Real-idea sows a seed into a form which grows in time by a self-determination of the Truth imbedded according to its grade; the Supernal from the high peaks sends down a glance which stirs the Inconscient to an awakening and the concealed Godhead emerges initially as ignorance, the first preliminary to knowledge; the full emergence of the Godhead is an aeonic travail, a slow process of evolution through all the vicissitudes imposed by necessity; in all this dance, the cosmic movement, the Godhead escapes the attention of the finite eye; the whole movement which appears like a meaningless whirl, has behind it, the arch-director, the designer, the supreme,

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who is the playwright, the play and the player.

Even ignorance is an instrument employed by the supreme Truth Consciousness for its gradual and not abrupt epiphany and the human ego also being the child, unknown to us, of the supreme spirit, sub serves the purpose of evolution; the seed of Godhead sown in us slowly enflowers in the course of years and emerges into its own under the compelling warmth of the divine gaze; out of the plasm to life and thence to immortality is the course of travail. The spirit is hidden and therefore negated; it is beyond the grasp of senses and ineffable; when the ego that is separative and the mind that is divisive are transcended, its voice is heard and through its light, the greater light, the eternity encircling life can be seen; this free and unrestrained play of truth is foreign to our mind which thinks always in terms of a rule or attributes events to a game of chance or unthinking automatism when a law cannot be conveniently clamped on its workings; in a bid to conquer Truth, they make God an abstraction, a relation less Absolute, a pure Existent, quality less and formless and they present a concept which is beyond the mental range with an audacity that recks not its limitations.

The inconceivable is sought to be captured in transcripts of thought; with their introverted senses, they hear the seed-sounds, the rhythms of the eternal word which have brought the world into being and they read in the manifest the will of the Supreme to be. The Infinite is sought to be explained away by a finite reasoning, the immeasurable, measured by numbers and the boundless Truth confined to a system; for the purpose of isolating and hedging in the Infinite, they create separative walls of thought in the form of intellectual abstractions; and they drive on to a peak which though attractive with sun-light, is chill. Their task is to impose a unity and for this purpose, excluding life which does not square in with their abstraction, they find in negation, a void, the absolute positive; they compress the cosmic theme into a compact, simple formula, the manifold dynamism into an abstruse concept, an algebra of the Spirit's ways; here the mind stops with a sense of completion of its work; it sits enthroned on a spiritual zero, taking the pure existence for the sole Ineffable.

This is how the Thought Gods imprison the Eternal in a net of concept and phrase for diversion of the thinker; in this manner is

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she installed in his heart as a prisoner, as his cherished property, changeless and forever one for his worship; or else it may be a faithful companion lending him the necessary inspiration to his words and sanction to his thoughts in his life; he may seek in her an attesting witness to his right of world domination, an unfailing support for his deeds and beliefs; he claims this truth as his and insists on her total identity with whatever he does; he is lost in a state of ecstasy, infatuation over the truth which has become his after his long and rapt pursuit; ever}⁷ passing moment discovers for him new charms for she is so full of heavenly glory and variety.

With his acquisition of the truth, the world wears a freshness gleaming with a delight that has been once its own and he thrills to it; the truth is of such all-absorbing interest that he feels lost as in an entrancing heaven; in response to the ardour displayed, the Goddess above seems to lean from her heights and yield her secrets; she allows a mortal hand to clasp her and agrees to make earth her home for whom heaven itself is too small; from his own self he carves out her form suited to his own nature and encloses her occult presence in his own heart; the vast Truth dwarfs her stature, suffers herself to be confined in the narrow limits of his mind and agrees to live in the cabin of an idea lest her celestial gaze should blind the human eyes. Thus each catches a single splendour, an aspect of her glory and is not only satisfied with his gain but considers himself the most blessed and proclaims that the ray he caught is the entire sun of truth; but Truth is beyond speech and thought; after all it is a single ray of that sun that makes the world live; the lamp-lit house of the narrow mind entertains the conceit that the truth is forever caught in the meshes of its thought; but it is not the truth that we bind, but our own mind with the bonds of its specious logic; in our self-absorption in one aspect, we blind ourselves to her illimitability and deny ourselves the privilege of participation in her eternal freedom for it is only an infinitesimal point of the infinite truth that we have grasped; even the sage and the seer are no exception; they too impose human limits on the Divine and it is only by a spirit of surrender, by a leap out of the limitations of the mind and an exposure of our self to the sublime air of the infinite that we can grasp the truth; then in that state of absolute self-surrender, the mind becomes a glass reflecting the form of the unmanifest; then there is the descent of the eternal ray filling

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him with a rapture. Truth surpasses all the icons made of her for each represents a single aspect; truth is vast and cannot be incarnated in a single form; the infinite remains himself and cannot be caught in the lines and curves of the finite.

Y. S. R. CHANDRAN

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"SUPPLEMENTAL RACE"

SRI Aurobindo's concept of the supramental race is completely unique in itself, because it propounds the theory of a total transformation in the human mind which is now the victim of the sufferings of life and death and ignorance; while the superhuman-mind would be the master of the divine powers which are beyond the approach of the natural powers of ignorance etc., working within the present human-generation and are the cause of its miseries on this earth. The supermind and supramental race are the results of the natural-evolution justified scientifically within the whole Nature; and if the evolution is present in the Nature, that must belong to the Spirit evolving itself in different forms of life, mind, etc., and the last point of the volition of the Spirit must be the direct manifestation of the Spirit itself in the whole nature and that stage of nature is called the super nature and that stage of mind is called the supermind and unity of both the super nature and the supermind is called the supramental race. Therefore, Sri Aurobindo's concept of the supramental race is derived from the two sources, i.e., the scientific evolution in Nature and the superhuman realisations of the ancient Indian sages, expressed symbolically in the language of the Vedas, the Upanishads, etc.

This superhuman race may be called the race of the gnostic beings who will be spiritual in all respects of the existence; their consciousness will manifest a practical divinity to be observed in all activities of those beings. Although we have no proof at present, but if evolution in Nature has manifested the mind in life and has introduced on the earth the race of the mental beings, there is still a possibility for the further evolution and ultimately Nature has to manifest its hidden powers and there is a necessity of the evolution of a higher race with higher mind. So, Sri Aurobindo gives us the surety of the race of the supramental spiritual gnostic beings which have to evolve out of the mental beings in the future: "As there has been established on earth a mental consciousness and power which shapes a race of mental beings and takes up into itself all of earthly nature that is ready for the change, so now there will be established on earth a gnostic consciousness and Power which will shape a race of gnostic spiritual beings and take up into itself all of earth-nature

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that is ready for this new transformation."¹

Now there is a problem of the pattern or model of the supramental race, whether or not there would be any diversity among the supermen. It may be said that there would be diversity everywhere as it is found in the human race and as it is the law of the present Nature, even then there would be a unity of the Spirit as it is found in the present nature, because the Absolute spirit has manifested the whole creation out of itself and still the law of unity is working behind all activities of nature. The supramental consciousness also acts according to the law of unity in all diversities and pluralities of the material world, because the Oneness of the Absolute Spirit remains always present in that consciousness; therefore in all differences of the models of the supramental beings there would be diversity in external Nature and simultaneously the unity of the Divine Consciousness would be perceived directly by the Supermind. So, there is no problem of the fixed model or pattern for that race. Sri Aurobindo has also explained this problem and thus he says that "A supramental or gnostic race of beings would not be a race made according to a single type, moulded in a single fixed pattern; for the law of the supermind is unity fulfilled in diversity, and therefore there would be an infinite diversity in the manifestation of the gnostic consciousness although that consciousness would still be one in its basis, in its constitution, in its all-revealing and all-uniting order."²

Just as the mind can become the supermind, the mental beings can become the supramental beings, similarly mental knowledge can become supramental knowledge, mental nature can become supramental nature and the whole Nature can become the Super nature. Mind always perceives with diversity, but supermind always perceives with unity; the mental beings are confined to various limitations, while the supramental beings become free from all types of limitations; the mental knowledge is a little knowledge and not different from ignorance, while the supramental knowledge reflects and reveals the whole universe in itself due to identity with the Oneness of the Spirit; the whole nature acts through the laws of Matter and these laws are mechanical, but the Super nature acts through the divine laws which are not confined to any kind of mechanism and so

¹ The Life Divine, New York Ed., P. 859.

² Ibid., P. 862.

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there is the realisation of the freedom of the Self everywhere, and thus there is the possibility of the complete transformation in the human structure and the whole phenomena of the whole nature. Therefore, Sri Aurobindo holds that there is "an entire freedom of the spirit, an entire self-existent order self-creating, self-effectuating, self-secure in its own natural and inevitable movement, is the character of this dynamis of the gnostic Super nature."¹, and in conclusion he says that it must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the the Knowledge, a self-finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the Divinity in things in that true power of itself in Nature, which is to us still a Super nature. In this way the evolution of the supramental change in various respects can be perceived not only in the human existence, but also in the whole material and irrational Nature.

Nature has been successful in evolving the Mind in itself and the reign of the Mind or that of the mental beings can be seen in the present world, but the supramental world would be overpowered by the Supermind and the supramental beings would bring divinity in this world, and they would realise the joy of life. The supramental race has the capacity to experience the laws and the truth of the laws derived from the Eternal Principle working behind the Nature. At present, men are guided by their emotions and passions and reasons which have their limitations at every step in life, but the supramental generation would be guided by the laws of Light and those of the Eternal Truth and there would be no limitations of the reason, and as far as emotions and passions are concerned they would also be divinised and spiritualised for they would not be the result of the external attractions for transitory beauties of the nature and there would be the divine love in the supermind for the eternal beauties of the Divine Nature. There would be harmony in all aspects of nature due to the presence of the Divine even in the elements directly related to Matter; the conscious and Spiritual Force would replace the blind laws of nature; the activities of the Divine Knowledge would govern all the lower principles of our organism, and thus our world of darkness would become the World of Light:

"The supermind shall be his nature's fount,

¹ The Life Divine, New york Ed., P. 886.

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..........

The eternal's truth shall be his light and guide.

........

A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal's world.

........

Light shall invade the darkness of its base.

........

A divine harmony shall be earth's law.

........

The supermind shall claim the world for Light."¹

The supramental race would be directly inhabited by the Spirit which would rule over the whole internal and external phenomena; the whole mentality of the suprarational beings would be predominated by the spiritual Presence and every event in the Nature would be effected by the Divine; it is expected that the inconscient and inert Nature would also become the Conscious-Force of the Divine; the Divine would be visible everywhere because the Supermind would have His direct vision and would perceive His Presence with the knowledge of self-identity with Him; and God would not be a mystery for His own created beings, because the Divine Mystery would be revealed and manifested for the Superman:

"All earth shall be the Spirits manifest home,

........

The Spirit's eyes shall look through Nature's eyes,

The Spirit's force shall occupy Nature's force.

This world shall be God's visible garden-house,

........

All shall reveal the Spirit's light and might..."²

At present we can realise the presence of some divine energy or some divine power working within the whole universe and all conscious and unconscious or animate and inanimate beings within it, yet the activities of that power or energy are the sources of its knowledge; we cannot have the direct perception of that power except

¹ Savitri, Vol. II, Ed. 1951. P. 329.

² Ibid., p.330.

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through some Yogic processes, even though some persons or the majority of persons cannot believe in it because they think that some blind-energy is working within the nature and it is the cause of all miseries in this world; but still it is proved scientifically that some energy is working behind the material nature, whatever its name may be, and it is also proved that there is evolution in the Nature; and if these latter views are correct, then there must be some cause of the evolution because without cause no effect can appear; and if that energy is the cause of evolution then that energy itself is evolving and has evolved the life in Matter and the mind in the life and thus it must evolve further because no stop in evolution is possible scientifically and logically until that energy manifests itself completely in its evolutionary process; and still the ancient Indian sages have realised that Energy is Conscious-Energy and is identified with the Absolute Spirit. And Sri Aurobindo holds that the next evolution must be superior to the mind and so he called that evolutionary step the supermind and he also holds that when the Supermind is evolved, it will have the direct comprehension of the Energy working within the nature, he also calls this Energy the Divine Power, the Mother Energy and the Divine Matter, and the Divine Spirit is identified by him with God and thus he holds that that divine hour must come when the whole Divinity in the form of Divine Mother and Divine Being or God would manifest Itself before the supramental consciousness because it directly perceives the Divinity identified with its own being and in the whole nature; so he says in Savitri—

"But when the hour of the Divine draws near,

The Mighty Mother shall take birth in

Time And God be born into the human clay

In forms made ready by your human lives.

Then shall the Truth supreme be given to men."¹

Sri Aurobindo is completely hopeful for the future evolution, although he is aware of the human-fate, yet he believes in the powers of the soul in man and so he says-

"All shall be done by the long act of Time.

¹ Ibid., p. 327-28.

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Although the race is bound by its own kind.

The soul in man is greater than his fate."¹

Sri Aurobindo, thus, believes in the supra-material reality which has to be revealed in the material one and so he holds that the supra-material is as much a reality as the existence of the mental beings in the material universe². Mr. Sashikumar Maitra also justifies Sri Aurobindo's vision of the Supramental or Spiritual Age and says that the coming Spiritual Age will mean for man first to find and reveal the divine self in him, then in all.³

Thus, we see that Sri Aurobindo's vision of the supramental race based on the supramental evolution in Nature is an extra-ordinary vision which is beyond the mental and rational approach of the common-man because he remains always entangled in the worldly achievements and has lost the power of spiritual reflections, but our country has produced from time to time various sages with highly evolved consciousnesses who have guided the human generations on the real path and have inspired them in various ways to realise the Divine on the earth and to enjoy the divine-bliss and make the best use of human existence. But, Sri Aurobindo's place is unique among the Indian sages, because he has introduced the scientific spiritual method to evolve the whole humanity towards the supra-humanity and has expressed his hopes for the supramental transformation in our race of the mental beings. We cannot say that his expressions are merely poetic-imaginations, because his creations are based, on the one hand, on the scientific and natural laws of evolution and, on the other hand, he justifies his views and his experiences on the bases of the realisations of the ancient Vedic sages represented in the symbolic language of the ancient Indian literature and philosophy and mysticism, and we have also both these ways to justify his ideas regarding the supramental race.

R. D. NlRAKARI

¹ Savitri, Vol. II. Ed., 1951, p. 315.

² The Synthesis of Yoga, Ed. 1965, p.420.

³ 'History as the Future', Pb. by the 'Institute of Human Study*, Hyderabad, p.26.

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THE DOCTRINE OF AEONIC SELF-DISCOVERY

II

'THE previous chapter contains but a synopsis, a thumb-nail sketch of the systems of world-philosophy; it may serve as sufficient back-ground for us to plunge into a closer study of Sri Aurobindo's Doctrine of Aeonic Self-Discovery, the most crucial contribution to human thought; to quote Maitra 'we may say that if the bridge of thoughts and sighs which spans the history of Aryan culture, as it has evolved so far, has its first arch in the Veda, it has its last in Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine'.

Philosophy should steer clear of the Scylla and the Charybdis of the two negations; an extreme position that matter only is the reality, leads to a bankruptcy of the spirit; equally an emphasis on the spirit only leads to a denial of life; therefore Sri Aurobindo says the Spirit is the inhabitant of the bodily mansion, the wearer of this mutable robe and that out of the matter he builds recurrently the unending series of his mansions and that Matter also is Brahman (an-nam brahmeti vyajānāt). Again for the materialist, the only knowledge acceptable is that which comes through the channels of the senses; reason is pronounced to be the infallible guide; but the heart of reality could not be plucked by the mental faculty since 'man is himself in it and of it and he finds himself baffled in his attempts to seize it in its unity and totality'; Martin Heidegger speaking of the limitations of Reason says 'thinking only begins at the point where we have come to know that reason glorified for centuries is the most obstinate adversary of thinking'; the true metaphysician must go beyond the uses of the intellect, 'self-lost in the vasts of God'; exclusive emphasis on one only is to take only one aspect of the world process into consideration.

Because of the descent of the spirit into the world, there is an ascent of the world into the spirit; the descent of spirit into matter makes it evolve into life; the descent of spirit into life makes it evolve into mind, something higher than life; similarly the descent of the spirit into mind makes it move towards something higher, the Supermind; the ascending process does not cease till it reaches the Absolute, Sachchidananda: the descending process is involution and the

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ascending evolution; if there had not been a deposit of the spirit in matter, there could have been no evolution of life and hence it is necessary to look on matter also as spiritual. The order of involution is Sachchidananda, Supermind, Mind, Psyche or soul, Life, Matter and evolution is the reverse movement of ascent from Matter back home to Sachchidananda.

The higher and the lower hemispheres or the mind and the supermind are separated by a veil between them; the rending of the veil leads to the condition of divine life, enables the illuminating descent of the higher into the nature of the lower being leading to the evolution of an untrammelled consciousness and making the physical life fit for a divine inhabitant; it helps man to exceed the law of the physical being, the conquest of death, an earthly immortality; but this does not mean any severance from body, life and mind, but a complete transformation of them; death is not an inherent feature of life but is only a subservient characteristic of the operation of the mind; when life is freed from the operation of the mind due to the descent of the supermind, it will no longer be subject to death. Therefore a flight from matter is indeed a flight from spirit and not matter only; to spiritualise matter and not to fly from matter, must be the task of evolution; but in the eagerness to reach a higher consciousness, the spiritual seeker is disgusted with the mud of matter, revolted by the grossness of life and chafes at the downward pull of the mind and seeks refuge in inaction and solitude; rather we should liberate ourselves from all passion and revolt; examine the knot of matter, loosen it, find a solution and not cut it.

The rending of the veil can only be effected by Divine Shakti which comes forward only when there is an intense aspiration on our part and when the whole of our being opens out for the purpose of receiving the light; here the help of yoga must be sought for preparing the field so that when the light knocks at the door, it may not go away disappointed with our ignorance and stupidity. According to Sri Aurobindo, the upward ascent, the supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable; mind is not the last summit; what is needed is 'the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the light when it comes and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above.' For this consummation consciousness, plasticity, and unreserved surrender are the three requisites.

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The conclusion therefore becomes inevitable that there are two fundamental facts of Being and Becoming; strictly speaking the pure existent or the Absolute is neither Being nor Becoming but is above both, he is neither the One nor the Many, nor the Immobile nor the Mobile; 'world-existence' says Sri Aurobindo 'is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of God numberlessly to the view; it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be, its sole absolute object is the joy of dancing'; but since it is impossible for us to conceive of the pure existent beyond the stability and the movement, we must accept the double fact and seek to know 'what is this measureless movement in Time and Space with regard to that timeless and spaceless pure existence.'

Sri Aurobindo rejects both the positions of the Sankhya and the West with regard to Force; the Sankhya view is that Prakriti or nature is unconscious and the Western view is that it derives consciousness from material force; Sri Aurobindo says that force is conscious, but corrects the erroneous notion that it is limited only to the waking consciousness for behind the surface or the waking consciousness there is the vast subliminal which has a depth and a power exceeding the super faces of consciousness; if there is the subliminal there is the supra consciousness also: this Force thus inherent in the Pure Existent can be either at rest or in motion; when it is at rest it is in self-concentration and when at motion it is in self-diffusion. The conscious-force that is responsible for the world-process, the dynamic principle at the root of creation is called by Sri Aurobindo, The Mother; she is the divine Shakti who is veiled by her yoga maya; the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature; she appears in three forms; as the transcendent force she is above the worlds linking the creation to the Supreme; as the Universal, the cosmic Mahalakshmi she creates all these beings 'and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces; and as the individual she embodies herself in all and mediates between the human personality and the divine nature; nothing can be but what she decides and the Supreme sanctions.'

It is for the sheer joy of the thing, the joy of dancing that the Absolute creates and sustains the world; but as against this thesis the presence of evil and pain and suffering are the flies in the ointment;

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a separate chapter is assigned for a discussion of this aspect but for the present it suffices to mention only a few points; first Sri Aurobindo makes out the startling point that we do not five in an ethical world; man's attempt to read an ethical meaning into the whole of nature is one of those acts of willful and obstinate self-confusion; it is a pathetic attempt to read himself, his habitual human self into all things; the same assertion is made by some of the idealistic thinkers of the present day such as Bradley, Bossanquet and Mackenzie; morality is a peculiar feature of human life and cannot be the characteristic of ultimate reality; according to Bradley the fundamental opposition is between the ideal and the real which falls short of the ideal; hence ultimate reality is beyond good and evil, the urge is for the self-expression of the Sachchidananda; it is first non-ethical in the inconscient, then infra-ethical at the animal level and eventually when the supra-ethical is reached there is no need of ethics. Universal bliss or Ananda is something wider than what we mean by pleasure, even as the universal consciousness is something wider than what we generally mean by the waking consciousness; in that comprehensive and wider bliss, pain and pleasure are not distinguishable, are merged and provide an equal rasa; they are the positive and negative currents; on the lower plane due to the operative principle of dualism, pain and pleasure are felt as such; but in the supreme , delight they are transcended; due to the inadequate response of our imperfect state, our inability to receive the impacts of the universal force, we feel the play of the dualism on our limited self of pain and pleasure; but the true and the perfect symphony may be ours 'if we can once enter into symphony with the one in all variations and attune ourselves to the absolute and the universal diapason.' In the expressive Sanskrit terminology, there is behind the mana maya the ānanda maya, a vast blissful self; the limited mental self is only a shadowy and disturbed reflection of the former.' Partly we may react with pleasure to a particular situation because of habit and it is not infrequent that we may react differently to the same situation; what gives pain may give pleasure at a different time; thus the presence of pain and evil do not contradict the universal principle of Bliss by which the world is created and by which it is sustained.

There should be some intermediate selective principle for the creation of the limited finite world out of the infinite consciousness;

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it cannot be the mind since it distorts reality — and also leads to the theory of Mayavada or illusionism; it must be supreme truth-consciousness which retains the truth of existence; Sri Aurobindo gives this truth-consciousness the name of Supermind which links to Sachchidananda and the world.

'Wherever mind is, there Supermind must be' for supermind is involved in mind even as mind the higher principle is involved in the lower, namely life; this mediating Supermind is both the child of Sachchidananda and the parent of the Mind'; thus trapped in his ascent from Matter to Life through Mind man finds himself in the predicament uttered by Pope:

'In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast:

In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer;

Born but to die, and reasoning but to err...'

In Sri Aurobindo (p. 763) Iyengar says, 'The analytical mind of man both clarifies and confuses, both helps and hinders further progress. Mental consciousness is apt to take the part for the whole, to be dazzled by false lights, to defeat itself by the very perfection of its analytical subtlety.'

Sri Aurobindo said 'It is a power which interprets truth of universal existence for the practical uses of a certain order of things; it is not the power which knows or guides that existence.'

The Supermind is also called by Sri Aurobindo Real-idea emphasizing the fact that it is a power of the conscious Force expressive of the Reality: it is nothing less than God as Lord or Creator; it is different from the Demiurge of Plato or the Ishwara of the Vedanta; the Ishwara of the Vedanta is not the pure Absolute for he is seen through Maya which presents only its distorted reflection; in Plato the demiurge is not created for a created thing would be imperfect and God would be creating on an imperfect pattern and then God could not be perfect; in that case God should be either subordinate to it or co-eternal with it; to avoid this confusion Parmenides denies motion altogether, making the whole creation an illusion; Anaxagoras however takes the world to be real and accounts for it by introducing the principle of Nous or Reason, but his nous ultimately remains a deux ex machina since he is unable to establish the relation

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between the infinite and the finite; all this confusion arises by looking on the creative principle as something different from the ultimate reality; due to this mistake the Vedanta looks upon the world as unreal and Plato against the interest of unity keeps the world and the creator asunder; but Hegel keeps up the continuity between the creator and the world by making thought and logic all supreme; this naturally leads to the revolt of Schopenhauer and his apotheosis of Will as against reason; Sri Aurobindo's thesis is free from all these defects since he makes the Supermind the creative principle and the rest the lower trinity, the fife, mind and body as inferior expressions struggling towards the goal.

The Supermind is all that the mind strives to be but cannot be; it is the culmination and the consummation of the mind; mind does not comprehend truth in its unity or as an integral whole; it cuts up and treats the parts as independent or the whole truth; it has an urge to go beyond the division but its efforts are unfruitful; its constitutional incapacity to grasp the whole is well brought out by Sri Aurobindo. 'Mind cannot possess the Infinite, it can only suffer or be possessed by it; it can only lie blissfully helpless under the luminous shadow of the Real cast down on it from planes of existence beyond its reach'; this proclivity of the mind is a necessary condition of the fall or involution or creation; this fall or descent is only for the sake of ascent or coming back of the spirit unto itself; this deficiency of the mind is further complicated by self-identification of the mind with the body and its preoccupation with the physical machinery.

If Supermind is the fink between the world and Sachchidananda, what is the intermediary between the mind and the Supermind? Sri Aurobindo looks upon intuition as the bridge of communication between them; it brings brilliant messages from above, the Unknown, but the flash of intuition is quickly replaced or intercepted or interrupted before it has a chance of manifesting itself and it is soon covered up with a substituted mental suggestion; this mix up with the mental stuff deprives it of value, maims it from giving the integral experience; but it is followed up by reason and this should not be looked upon as a retrograde movement since it makes the lower faculty to assimilate as much as it can of what the higher has fetched in and thereby brings in a transformation, induces a preparation for the reception of the higher truths; but the ultimate truth could have

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revealed itself were the intuition free from the interference of the mental stuff; at this stage we should also have an idea of Bergson's idea of intuition.

In his Introduction to Metaphysics, he speaks of intuition as sympathy which places us within an object to grasp what is unique and inexpressible in it; at another stage he calls it an intellectual escalation which gives us a direct approach to the reality or makes us enter the heart of reality; but he does not answer the questions whether we should make any effort to get the intuition or whether the intuitions of all the persons have the same value or whether the intuitions got by the same person at different times have the same value; but that he has the notion of the grades of intuition is obvious from what he says in the Two Sources of Morality and Religion 'But just as there subsisted around animal instinct a fringe of intelligence, so human intelligence preserved a halo of intuition....'

Yet it is from this that the light must come, if ever the inner working were to be made clear in its significance and in its object. A deeper intensification might carry it to the roots of our being and thus to the very principle of life in general. Now is not this the privilege of the mystic soul. The difference between Sri Aurobindo's view of intuition and that of Bergson is not much; both speak of the integral experience revealing the true nature of reality; while Bergson brings the different strata of consciousness under the broad category of intuition, Sri Aurobindo makes a thoroughgoing analysis of them and classifies the different layers.

These intuitions flow from the superconscient cosmic mind that is a link between mind and supermind and Sri Aurobindo names it Over mind; it is the first parent of ignorance; it is here that each aspect of the supreme reality is turned into an independent reality; the integrality of the supramental consciousness is broken up; here the cleavage of the Purusha and the Prakriti makes its appearance for the first time; these are treated as separate entities by the Sankhya; Purusha is represented as the silent witness with Prakriti dominating; all this is due to the Over mind erecting each of the powers of the Supreme Reality as independent entities; but these exist harmoniously in the integrality of the supramental consciousness; the relieving feature of the Over mind is that it is global in its cognition and can hold together a number of seeming contraries; what to the

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mind are contraries are to the over mind complimentaries.

Behind the surface consciousness, there is the subliminal mind, life and body which are more plastic and powerful; they are unhampered by limitations; thus we have a double life, one involved in matter and obeying its laws and the other not bound by the limitations of birth and death; it is this subtler material existence which 'provides the substance not only of our physical but also of our vital and mental sheaths'; so too we have the double soul, the desire soul with its cravings and emotions and the inner soul, the psychic being or Chaitya Purusha 'a pure power of light and refined essence of being'. The psyche is not the life or mind or matter but the 'opening and flowering of the essence of all these to their own peculiar delight of self—and to a refined purity of being'; the psychic entity is the core of our being; Sri Aurobindo lays great stress on the awakening of this psychic being or the soul; the tragedy of the world is that the individual does not find the soul and the first step towards spiritual life is the discovery of the real soul. The nature of this central being is divided by Sri Aurobindo into two layers; the upper is the transcendent principle or the Paramatma and the lower is the psychic being, the deputy of the transcendent and it is this that is the concealed witness, 'the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic'; or it is the Purusha, according to the Upanishad, no bigger than the thumb, seated within the heart; but though the psychic transformation is the necessary condition, it is not all that is needed for the largest spiritual change; the gates to the Supramental will open when the light from the Supermind descends.

Creation is due to the plunge of the Spirit into ignorance; it is however a purposive plunge to come back to itself through the whole gamut of creation; it could also create out of the fullness of its self-consciousness; in fact according to the sages of yore there is such perfect creation also through complete self-manifestation, in the higher hemispheres; there we have the typal beings; but the plunge is intended to make evolution from ignorance to knowledge, from suffering to bliss possible; the created world carries with it the promise of the millennium, the apocalypse of the earth into heaven, the city of God; the dreams or the Utopias of our poets and idealists are one day fated to become the realities; knowledge and ignorance

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according to Sri Aurobindo are not fundamentally opposed to each other; Iyengar farther says: 'Maya and Avidya are not the terrible absolutes that they are in Sankhya metaphysics. Ignorance arises on the way, like atmospheric mist or fog and it will disappear on the way. It is neither beginning less Maya nor the stain of some original sin, it is no more than the characteristic colouring at one stage in the descent of consciousness, and when the counter movement of ascent passes that stage, the colour will begin to fade and soon pass away, leaving knowledge stainless and pure.' If ignorance is treated as a power of Brahman, a unitary conception of Brahman is not possible; therefore ignorance itself should be taken to be knowledge; by considering ignorance as evolving into knowledge, duality can be eliminated; there are two extremes; at the highest, there is the divine self-knowledge or All-knowledge and at the other extreme we have the creative nescience and in between there is the ignorance; this ignorance is a voluntary check to partially withhold the manifestation of the divine consciousness and regulate itself; it is capable of evolving itself into knowledge without any self-annulment; we may quote Sri Aurobindo 'what is happening is that ignorance is seeking to transform itself by a progressive illumination of its darkness into the knowledge that is already contained within it.'

The whole of creation should be viewed as a single movement; it is erroneous to consider that Jivatman and Brahman are fundamentally different in the sense that one is subject to ignorance and the other free; ignorance is knowingly adopted, 'to which it is not forcibly subjected but which it uses for its cosmic purpose'; the Absolute is not only Chit but also power; it is by Tapas the conscious force acting upon itself that the world is created; there is a difference in the dynamism actuating the finite and the infinite; in us the thought arises within and later expresses itself without in the shape of an act; it proceeds from the internal to the external world; but in the infinite there is no difference between the inner and the outer, between the Self and the Not-Self; if we probe deeper, even in ourselves, only a part of our action is voluntary and the rest is involuntary or subconscious or super-conscious; but in the case of the Absolute, all actions flow from his indivisible will; further there is an active and passive consciousness in us and even in the active consciousness, if we contemplate we find the presence of a Power

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acting upon us. There is an active and passive consciousness in the supreme; the active consciousness constituting an infinitesimal part of his consciousness melts in the shape of creation, the rest standing in reserve for further acts of creation; this can be illustrated from our own consciousness; in any act that we are engaged in, it is only a part of our consciousness that is actually pressed into service, but the whole personality stands behind it for projection if necessary at any moment; there is thus a gap between the expressed and the unexpressed part of our being; the former is only a tiny bit of the unexpressed personality; at the moment of any given act a part, and that too a minute part, of the energy from out of the vast reservoir is spent; and in the Absolute the active consciousness, the creation out of Tapas forms still more a minute part of His Being.

There is thus a single movement, a single reality; there is not an active nor a passive Brahman; there is only one energy, at one end it is cast into self-deployment and at the other it is kept in reserve, it is from the same Tapas one fragmentary part is released for creation and the other is unmanifest. Further it should not be supposed that the active and the passive are alternating activities of the Brahman for if it were so there would be no passive Brahman since all would be action and if he were passive there would be no creation and everything would lapse into lifeless immobility; hence both the active and the passive have a simultaneous existence in Brahman for he is above both.

Ignorance can not be an inherent characteristic of the Brahman nor of the multiplicity of souls; if it were the characteristic of the individual souls there could not be the aspiration to evolve out of ignorance into knowledge; it is only the thin layer of the surface consciousness that divides man from the larger consciousness and when the higher consciousness opens, man discovers the fundamental unity with the entire rhythm of creation; the origin of ignorance must be sought for elsewhere; it arises out of the self-absorption of Tapas which excludes man from the total awareness of his unity with each embodied consciousness and of the universal being. 'Ignorance is Nature's purposeful oblivion of the Self and the All... in order to do solely what she has to do in some outer play of existence.' Man by nature is not ignorant; it is his intense absorption in the work on hand and his pre-occupation of the moment that makes him forgetful

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of the past and future and aware of the present only; he is shut out from all the knowledge except that which is made accessible to him by his memory; ignorance is therefore not opposed to knowledge but it is a power of knowledge appearing so by virtue of its exclusive concentration on the particular work; it is a voluntary self-limitation with the infinite consciousness standing behind; Bergson speaks of two movements, one directed towards life and the other towards matter and he is unable to account for the reversal of a free flow of life towards matter; but Sri Aurobindo conceives of the ultimate Reality as Consciousness-Force, a single movement and its self-limitation for the purpose of creation.

Y. S. R. CHANDRAN

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THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY

AN OUTLINE

(Continued from the íssue of April 1972)

CHAPTER 15

SOME LINES OF FULFILMENT

WHAT form will be given to the unification of the world and how it will take shape can only be a matter of speculation. The present age is so full of new possibilities that all we can predict for the future must be based on past experience and the present status of forces.

Nationalism and internationalism are the two great principles actually in presence.¹ The ideal solution would be a free association of free nationalities; for this would enable all the large natural groupings of men to live to be themselves and at the same time provide adequately for the sense of need for order and a common participation in the unified life of the human race. But as we have seen, the ideal solution is not likely to be adopted immediately, in view of the present state of international mentality and morality.

Not reason and justice and mutual kindness, but the trend of forces and their practical and legal adjustments will determine the immediate future. And as in the case of the individual and the state, the adjustment of the claims of nationalism and internationalism is likely to be troubled by the claims of intermediate forces and factors, of which imperialism stands foremost; its claims cannot be ignored for at least some time to come.

The idea of internationalism will, in the present state of the human mind, have to work itself out through an accommodation with the realised forces of nationalism and imperialism. It cannot be otherwise until man becomes more of a rational being than he is.

It is not likely that imperial nations will allow their dependencies to enjoy an equal status with themselves, unless they are forced

¹ Editor's Note: It may be recalled that this was written during the First World War, when the great empires were still in existence.

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by circumstances. National liberty no longer enjoys the old general acceptation as an ideal; witness the attitudes of the victorious allies after the First World War in regard to this question. Many even of the most advanced intellectuals. warmly approve of the idea of a subordinate autonomy for nations that are now subject peoples.

It is even possible that there may grow up a stronger tendency to desire a rearrangement of states in a system of large imperial combines and not on the basis of existing empires and free nationalities. (Had Germany, Italy and Japan and the Fascist idea generally triumphed, says Sri Aurobindo in a note added after the Second World War, such an order of things might have eventuated.)

But even if free nations continue to exist side by side with great imperial Powers, the position of the small nations would be like that of the small nobles in the feudal regime. They would be compelled to accept the lead of one group or another of the leviathans surrounding them.

In any international organisation, the great Powers will see to it that they enjoy the real power and that the smaller nations are not allowed to oppose their wishes. For, even if the form of government adopted for the world were democratic in appearance, there cannot be a true democracy so long as actual differences persist.

The position then would be very much like that in the Middle Ages in Europe: a number of smaller nations existing side by side with a few great imperial Powers dominating them. These imperial Powers would try to work out their selfish interests through whatever arrangements came to hand. Wars might be avoided, but other methods of coercion would be developed and would lead to the same results.

A simple alternative solution of the problem may be found in the grouping of the nations into imperial aggregates of the federal or the confederate type. America might form one such unit, the Teutonic peoples, and similar aggregates might emerge in the Asiatic world. These may ultimately merge into a single world-state.

Or else, a king-nation might take up the task of unification, not by conquering the rest, which is not possible, but by a process analogous to that which England has used in federating the commonwealth of nations. If this does not succeed, then the task might be undertaken by two or three powerful empires combining their resources

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and bullying the rest of the world into submission to their will.

It is even possible that the world will come to be divided ultimately into two camps, primarily economic rather than political in their outlook. Labour and capital have not yet found a way to resolve their differences, in spite of the hopes entertained by many. The future may well be dominated by the clash of these two forces on a world-wide scale. Perhaps the nations of the world will in the near future be grouped under the two ideologies, communism and a more or less modified form of capitalism. 

S. K. BANERJI

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REVIEWS

The Yoga of Works, by M. P. Pandit, Pondicherry: Dipti Publications, 1976. 185 pages, Rs. 25.

I have never said that my yoga was something brand new in all its elements. I have called it the integral yoga and that means that it takes up the essence and many processes of the old yogas — its newness' is in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method.

SRI AUROBINDO

SRI Aurobindo is today regarded as a man of extraordinary scope and versatility, one who has made significant contributions in numerous fields to the development of the human race towards the attainment of its highest potential. He is rightly appreciated most widely, however, as a spiritual personality and influence — a sage and seer of the highest stature, a mystic and yogin of the deepest vision. The Synthesis of Yoga, as a main treatise on the system of yoga developed by him, is one of the principle keys provided by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo for gaining an entrance into their Integral Yoga.

The Yoga of Works, the latest offering from Sri M. P. Pandit, regarded as a leading exponent of the yoga of Sri Aurobindo, is the first of a three volume series covering the whole of the Synthesis of Yoga. It may well be the most comprehensive and important commentary to date on this central work of Sri Aurobindo. As explained in the preface, the three books - generally titled, Talks at Centre are transcribed and edited forms of a series of inspired talks given in Auroville beginning in 1972.

As indicated, the format is one of a number of consecutive informal lectures based on chapters of the The Synthesis of Yoga, with other relevant topics brought in at the author's discretion. The main presentations- are followed by question and answer periods of varying length. The combination of Sri Pandit's discourses on the timeless truths and vastness of approach in Sri Aurobindo's writing:

This perception and awakening to the existence of a Self, an

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irreducible Reality that does not pass but holds in its palms all that passes, is the base. We must at least mentally conceive, imagine, and link ourselves to this Reality. Once we establish the actuality of this eternal being and presence of the universe in our consciousness, there is a movement of liberation. We no more belong to transient phenomena. Some part of us has taken its poise in what is eternal, in what is basic.

coupled with the often more personal and pragmatic issues — not necessarily directly related to the theme of the preceding talk — raised by questioners, proves to be a highly successful balance which not only affords the reader insights into a wide range of topics meaningful to seekers, but also makes for delightful reading in and of itself.

Are there other true indications besides the joy of creation to show that one is on the right path in the yoga of works ?

Yes; there is no fatigue. Of course if you work too much there is a certain physical fatigue, but otherwise there is none. And there is no sense of time. One is carried as in a stream. There is an ebullition of joy and there is no fatigue. Mother says that when there is fatigue, look into yourself and see why it is there and see where you have failed to have the right attitude.

At the same time one becomes aware that precious few words are used unnecessarily between these covers, and that even when the mood is lighter, the content is far reaching and has a wealth of personal experience behind it. The author is known as one who pierces to the heart of whatever be his subject matter, and this volume upholds that standard.

Adding further to the fullness of the book are frequent references to and explanations of various aspects of the ageless spiritual traditions of India, to which all genuine contemporary thought and movements emanating from India today owe their origins — Sri Aurobindo among them. Various stories and anecdotes from the writer's personal experience during his years in the presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as well as other spiritually nourishing elements are abundantly present throughout the book.

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Although the primary subject dealt with here is the yoga of works, the areas where this discipline — particularly in Sri Aurobindo's vision — overlaps into the paths of knowledge and love are many, and this quality is reflected in the book. It is an attribute of the author's to attempt to harmonize and unify rather than to divide and exclude, rendering the book broad enough in approach to encompass all aspirants for the Highest.

STAN ANDERSEN

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 The ADVENT 

Vol. I No.1                                                February 1944

A Quarterly

devoted to the exposition of

Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future

Editor:

R. VAIDYANATHASWAMY, D.sc.

Publisher:

SRI AUROBINDO LIBRARY, MADRAS

 

[In response to the requests of readers for a reprint of the old numbers of the Advent, we propose to serialise the old issue s by reproducing them part by part from February 1977 onwards.-Ed.]

 THE ADVENT

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.

OURSELVES — AN APOLOGY

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

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

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

Sri Aurobindo's vision enrings the entire domain of human preoccupations; it embraces and relumes all truths that secretly build and inspire man's integral being — his mental and vital and even physical, his individual as well as collective formations. So one line

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of our interest will lie in the direction of scanning and understanding human movements — spiritual, intellectual, social, literary or scientific — in the light Sri Aurobindo has shed upon them. Naturally, it is the principles and forces behind external formulations that will principally, if not wholly, engage our attention; for it is the principles and forces that guide and control our actual life that have to be fundamentally changed — transmuted — if there is to be a fundamental change in the mode of our earthly living.

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

THE GOLDEN AGE — THE AGE OF TRUTH

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

In Europe, a similar hope and catastrophe were announced by Christian devouts to await the world in the year 1,000 A.D. — here in India today, it is to be noted, we are in the Vikram Era 2,000. Then too a kingdom of heaven upon earth was promised and the end of a world with its cup of sin full to the brim. As today, so in that year too nothing happened, the inexorable march of Nature continued as usual unperturbed.

Well, nothing more than the merest common sense is needed to

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tell the simple truth that man must change first inwardly before a real change can come in the outside world; the more radical a change [you] expect or demand in terrestrial circumstances, the more radical a change there should be in man's character and nature. If there is to be a catastrophe and revolution outside in life, there must occur beforehand a similar thing in his being and consciousness. An active volcano means a pre-existent seething fire in the bowels of the earth. Verily, verily the kingdom of heaven is within.

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

WHAT IS TRUTH ?

Consistency, they say, is the bugbear of great minds. But, according to some philosophers, it is the soul and substance of Truth, which is defined as nothing more and nothing less than self-consistency. Whatever is self-consistent, whatever is free from self-contradiction is truth. That is the criterion par excellence of truth. Falsehood is that which bears in itself self-contradiction. Even the other day an eminent Indian leader stated that "Truth is the un-several oneness of our word, thought and deed."¹ We have doubts about this definition and criterion. This may be, at the most, truthfulness, but not truth. A falsehood can be self-consistent throughout. We do not know if there is a shred of self-contradiction in Hitler's mental make-up: it appears to be a single seamless stream-fined consistency and yet its name is falsehood.

We consider truth to be nothing else than the soul in things, it is the Spirit, the divine element, the Divine Himself secreted in things. There is no other truth, no other criterion of truth. If one lives in his soul, finds the Divine — the real Divine — and is identified

¹ 'The Social Welfare', August 20, 1943.

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with it, then only can one be said to have possessed the truth. The anti-divine or the undivine may be quite self-consistent, but because it is not the Divine, because it has severed itself from the Divine, it has fallen from the truth and has become falsehood.

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

RELIGION vs. ETHICS

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

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is strengthened and organised as man progresses in his religious consciousness. At the present stage of man's evolution, in the world of today, you can lop off the religious element without immediately destroying its offshoot, viz., morality, for it will survive and go on for some time through the momentum given to it, but its life would soon fizzle out, and unless religion comes back and remoralises man, he will surely revert to the animal stage. Naturally the pure ethicists will not admit such a conclusion. They would stick to their view of an independent origin and functioning of the ethical sense in man.

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

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

SEX AND SPIRITUALITY

Our readers will come across the problem of sex and spirituality raised in one of our reviews in this issue. A few words seem necessary to make our position definite and clear in this matter. It is to be noted, however, that this is largely a modern problem, the problem, that is to say of how to mix or reconcile or harmonise the two elements in human nature. For, the ancient or traditional disciplines in spirituality never left a doubt on the point, they all eschewed and banned sex, declaring that it is the negation of spirituality — brahtna-charya, continence or chastity, the very basis of spirituality, is nothing but the annulment and elimination of sex. The Vedantic disciplines, including the Buddhistic, were categorical on the subject and went so far as to deny, at least at the outset and in principle, the right of spiritual endeavour and achievement to women. And when women were, in fact, admitted into the spiritual domain, they were segregated from men; it was considered absolutely necessary for the spiritual welfare of both that they should not meet or see each other. The bias was so strong that spiritual women were looked upon as

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exceptional and uncommon beings; even so it was doubted whether they could reach the very highest status in spirituality. It was Tantricism and Vaishnavism that gave an honoured place to women and allowed- meeting and association between men and women in the spiritual field.

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

One can now easily understand the particular stress that was laid by certain sects upon extra-marital companionship (parakīya) in spiritual practice. The sexual force is peculiarly strong and violent in such a case and evidently the view was that the greater the force the greater the merit in conquering it. A greater force on a lower level of consciousness when conquered and transmuted yields a corresponding greater force on the higher level. It is true that the method is full of peril and ends very often in disaster; but it is a method that has been cultivated by some heroic souls. It is also true however that the same or even more absolute result - that is to say, the sublimation and transmutation of sex energy can be

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achieved by other means less dramatic but safer and surer.

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

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

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

To speak again to the world the eternal word under a new form adapted to its present mentality.

It will be the synthesis of all human knowledge.

Collectively, to establish an ideal society in a propitious spot for the flowering of the new race, the race of the Sons of God.

—Words of the Mother

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SRI AUROBINDO

On the War

[Sri Aurobindo has made known to the public his standpoint with regard to the present war. He is for unconditional and unreserved help — an all-out help to the Allies whose cause, according to him, is humanity's and also India's cause. The present extracts from a private letter written some time ago in answer to certain doubts and misgivings will further elucidate his position.]

What we say is not that the Allies have done wrong things, but that they stand on the side of the evolutionary forces. I have not said that at random, but on what to me are clear grounds of fact. What you speak of is the dark side. All nations and governments have been that in their dealings with each other, — at least all who had the strength and got the chance. I hope you are not expecting me to believe that there are or have been virtuous governments and unselfish and sinless peoples? But there is the other side also. You are condemning the Allies on grounds that people in the past would have stared at, on the basis of modern ideals of international conduct; looked at like that all have black records. But who created these ideals or did most to create them (liberty, democracy, equality, international justice and the rest)? Well, America, France, England — the present Allied nations. They have all been imperialistic and still bear the burden of their past, but they have also deliberately spread these ideals and spread too the institutions which try to embody them. Whatever the relative worth of these things — they have been a stage, even if a still imperfect stage of the forward evolution. (What about the others? Hitler, for example, says it is a crime to educate the coloured peoples, they must be kept as serfs and labourers.) England has helped certain nations to be free without seeking any personal gain; she has also conceded independence to Egypt and Eire after a struggle, to Iraq without a struggle. She has been moving away steadily, if slowly, from imperialism towards co-operation; the British common-wealth of England and the Dominions is something unique and unprecedented, a beginning of new things in that direction:

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she is moving in idea towards a world-union of some kind in which aggression is to be made impossible; her new generation has no longer the old firm belief in mission and empire; she has offered India Dominion independence — or even sheer isolated independence, if she wants that, — after the war, with an agreed free constitution to be chosen by Indians themselves.... All that is what I call evolution in the right direction — however slow and imperfect and hesitating it may still be. As for America she has forsworn her past imperialistic policies in regard to Central and South America, she has conceded independence to Cuba and the Philippines.... Is there a similar trend on the side of the Axis? One has to look 'at things on all sides, to see them steadily and whole. Once again, it is the forces working behind that I have to look at, I don't want to go blind among surface details. The future has to be safeguarded; only then can present troubles and contradictions have a chance to he solved and eliminated....

For us the question does not arise. We made it plain in a letter which has been made public that we did not consider the war as a fight between nations and governments (still less between good people and bad people) but between two forces, the Divine and the Asuric. What we have to see is on which side men and nations put themselves; if they put themselves on the right side, they at once make themselves instruments of the Divine purpose in spite of all defects, errors, wrong movements and actions which are common to human nature and all human collectivities. The victory of one side (the Allies) would keep the path open for the evolutionary forces: the victory of the other side would drag back humanity, degrade it horribly and might lead even, at the worst, to its eventual failure as a race, as others in the past evolution failed and perished. That is the whole question and all other considerations are either irrelevant or of a minor importance. The Allies at least have stood for human values, though they may often act against their own best ideals (human beings always do that); Hitler stands for diabolical values or for human values exaggerated in the wrong way until they become diabolical (e.g. the virtues of the Herrenvolk, the master race) . That does not make

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English or Americans nations of spotless angels nor the Germans a wicked and sinful race, but as an indicator it has a primary importance....

The Kurukshetra example is not to be taken as an exact parallel but rather as a traditional instance of the war between two world-forces in which the side favoured by the Divine triumphed, because the leaders made themselves his instruments. It is not to be envisaged as a battle between virtue and wickedness, the good and the evil men. After all, were even the Pandavas virtuous without defect, quite unselfish and without passions?...

Were not the Pandavas fighting to establish their own claims and interests — just and right, no doubt, but still personal claim and self-interest? Theirs was a righteous battle, dharmya yuddha, but it was for right and justice, in their own case. And imperialism, empire-building by armed force, is under all circumstances a wickedness, then the Pandavas are tinted with that brush, for they used their victory to establish their empire continued after them by Parikshit and janamejaya. Could not modern humanism and pacifism make it a reproach against the Pandavas that these virtuous men (including Krishna) brought about a huge slaughter that they might become supreme rulers over all the numerous free and independent peoples of India? That would be the result of weighing old happenings in the scales of modern ideals. As a matter of fact such an empire was a step in the right direction then, just as a world-union of free peoples would be a step in the right direction now, - in both cases the right consequences of a terrific slaughter....

We should remember that conquest and rule over subject peoples were not regarded as wrong either in ancient or mediaeval or quite recent times but as something great and glorious; men did not see any special wickedness in conquerors or conquering nations. Just government of subject peoples was envisaged but nothing more — exploitation was not excluded. The modern ideas on the subject, the right of all to liberty, both individuals and nations, the immorality of conquest and empire, or such compromises as the British idea of training subject races for democratic freedom, are new values, an

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evolutionary movement; this is a new Dharma which has only begun slowly and initially to influence practice, — an infant Dharma which would have been throttled for good if Hitler succeeded in his "Avataric" mission and established his new "religion" over all the earth. Subject-nations naturally accept the new Dharma and severely criticise the old imperialism; it is to be hoped that they will practice what they now preach when they themselves become strong and rich and powerful. But the best will be if a new world-order evolves, even if at first stumblingly or incompletely, which will make the old things impossible — a difficult task, but not absolutely impossible.

The Divine takes men as they are and uses men as His instruments even if they are not flawless in virtue, angelic, holy and pure. If they are of good will, if, to use the Biblical phrase, they are on the Lord's side, that is enough for the work to be done. Even if I knew that the Allies would misuse their victory or bungle the peace or partially at least spoil the opportunities open to the human world by that victory, I would still put my force behind them. At any rate things could not be one-hundredth part as bad as they would be under Hitler. The ways of the Lord would still be open — to keep them open is what matters. Let us stick to the real, the central fact, the need to remove the peril of black servitude and revived barbarism threatening India and the world, and leave for a later time all side-issues and minor issues or hypothetical problems that would cloud the one all-important tragic issue before us.

Without faith nothing decisive can be achieved either in this world or for possession of the world above, and it is only by laying hold of some sure basis and positive support that man can attain any measure of terrestrial or celestial success and satisfaction and happiness; the merely sceptical mind loses itself in the void. But still in the lower knowledge doubt and scepticism have their temporary uses; in the higher they are stumbling-blocks: for there the whole secret is not the balancing of truth and error, but a constantly progressing realisation of revealed truth____ Whatever incompleteness there is in the knowledge attained, it must be got rid of, not by questioning in its roots what has been already realised, but by proceeding

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to further and more complete realisation through a deeper, higher and wider living in the Spirit. And what is not yet realised must be prepared for by faith, not by sceptical questioning, because this truth is one which the intellect cannot give and which is indeed often quite opposed to the ideas in which the reasoning and logical mind gets entangled: it is not a truth which has to be proved, but a truth which has to be lived inwardly, a greater reality into which we have to grow.

—Essays on the Gita : First Series.

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A DIALOGUE — FAITH AND REASON

He: Discussion is essential and must not be excluded.

I: Viewed in the true light, it has not a great place, if any at all, in the sadhana. At best, it may help in removing the confusion in the mind: even for that I will truly depend upon my faith in the higher light.

He: Intellectual activity, discussion, study etc. by degrees make the blind faith luminous which finally ceases to be something mysterious and becomes explicable.

I: Faith, like Knowledge, Bliss etc., is not of this world, though it may be found here also. It is a secret power in us, accessible to us, that puts our being in communication with the higher consciousness. What is sought by discussion and study and hardly ever attained is received in fact with the help of faith.

Faith recedes when mind and intellect are too active.

He: If I am drawn towards a particular ideal and sadhana, it is because its philosophy and rationale give a complete satisfaction to my mind and intellect.

I: It may be so in your case. But, in general, what happens is this that one is attracted to a path, to a person, one hitches his wagon to a star, one does not know exactly why, simply because it gives him satisfaction — not merely to his mind and intellect but to his heart and soul, he cannot do otherwise. First attraction, then rationalisation.

Well, what made Vivekananda tie his fate to the "whims of a crazy Brahmin", as he used to say at times? Is it Ramakrishna's philosophy or metaphysics?

He: Vivekananda was satisfied, because his questionings were laid at rest, all his problems solved by this single phrase, "I have seen God and I see Him much more concretely than I see your physical body."

I: Exactly so; but that is not philosophy or intellectual reasoning. There were a lot of doubters and scoffers, so-called intellectualists, who would not or could not be convinced or converted by Ramakrishna. Their small petty doubtings and questionings

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remained rooted as ever; but a giant intellect made its submission or was stunned to submission, as it were, not through discussion and reasoning, but through admiration and adoration.

He: Then you think that the mind and the intellect are a heap of rubbish fit only to be thrown out into the dustbin? They are of no use at all?

I: They have a use, only when you have gone beyond them, when you have illumined them with a light that is not theirs.

—A

BONNE ANNÉE.... 1944

Bonne année, Mother sweet! another year

Has sprung up from the depth of the Unknown,

Thy puissant blessings fall on its life-sphere,

Its herald an approach of luminous Dawn.

 

Bonne année, Mother great! let this year be

A bright prelude to thy total victory.

 

Bonne année, bonne année, let us all sing,

For the vast waste of dead years lies behind,

Mother of peace, Mother of love, oh bring

Thy heaven's splendour into our desert-mind.

 

Mother, let us responding to thy call

Rise to thy height like a pure incense-flame;

In our heart's sleepless shrine let us instal

The burning Presence of thy magic Name.

 

From Time and its giant ravage make us free

That we may live in thy eternal light

Where all things throb with thy felicity

And a moon-edged glory is the soul of Night.

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Thou art the rapturous vision we behold,

God's white redemption bearing this frail earth,

As if a radiant mass of heaven's gold

Towards the ecstasy of immortal Birth.

 

Bonne année, Mother great! let this year be

A bright prelude to thy total victory.

 —Nirodbaran.

THE NEW ADVENT

A wide expanse of liquid grey.... a shimmer

On the horizon of some amber clouds....

Between the dusk-enveloped twigs a glimmer

Of an eager planet wrestling with the shrouds

 

Woven by Nature on the looms of eve...

The supine seascape hums a monotone

Of apathy that would not even receive

The joy of phosphorescence as its own.

 

A sudden moon-rise, haloed with lambent gold....

A sudden soughing of the boughs...slow heaves

Of darkling waters to the manifold

Loveliness rained by dwindling light on leaves

 

And flowers and creepers pining for delight —

Then the answer rings out to the ancient cry

Of loneliness and Beauty quells the blight

Of shadows, sounding lunar conchs on high.

 

A sudden victory, yet how swift, complete

And wondrous! — it would seem an angel train

Sieged in a mood of magic, passing sweet:

A new Advent through night when daytides wane!

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A moment mere, an adventitious gleam,

A fleeting glance aslant of the infant moon,

A whiff from the heights and lo, doom yields to dream!

A star's rebirth when olden rushlight swoon!

 

Would it not be even so with soul's sunrise

(On the crest of Life's clouds, pallid, commonplace)

Spurring our listlessness to the enterprise

Miraculous of a new-born consciousness

 

Of diamond glinting out from the heart of cinder,

Of sleep ensouling slumbers girt by gloom,

Of the bliss incredible in all-surrender

To the All who builds Love's pantheons on hate's tomb!

Dilip Kumar Roy.

THY WILL BE DONE

Let but Thy will be done,

Mine lost in Thine,

Embodied Ever-Sun

Of Truth divine.

 

Let but Thy living Ray

Nectared, moon-cool,

Bring here God's golden day

O'er earth to rule.

 

Let the night transformed become

An altar vast,

Thy immortal sun-fire's home,

O Glory amassed!

 

Let gods of heavens high

And Titans great

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Accept submissively

Thy will, their fate,

 

And help Thy wonder-plan

Becomingly

To make a god of man

And life death-free,

 

A field where harmonies

Divine would play,

And Love's profundities

Bloom bright as May.

 

Let falsehood's force forsake

Its night-mare game,

And all to Thy Truth-Law take

And brightly claim

 

Thy Love's down-pouring

Grace, And bathed therein See

Thy dawn's radiant face,

Thy rose divine;

 

And delivered thus from strife

And struggle dark,

Upon a Truth-born life

Enrapt embark

 

And reach the diamond haven

That lies at Thy feet,

Home of the ecstasies seven,

Union complete.

Punjalal

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