The great are strongest when they stand alone.

SRI AUROBINDO

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 wide-ness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda. Sri Aurobindo

THE ABDUCTION OF PRINCESS USHA

PAR TWO

THE high mansion of Krishna is a pleasure-grove

As though in the eastern sky a white range of clouds

Covering the blue firmament shines bright in the sun.

All around are trees, lofty buildings all around

His great sons in those lofty towering homes

Dwell happily beside their aged Father; dwell also

His heroic sons-in-law each in his own mansion,

And then the mighty charioteer, various musical instruments, drums and kettles

Surrounds Madhava.¹ In the centre stands the high

¹ Another name of Krishna.

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Krishna-mansion. There entered the boy-charioteer

And saw Madhava's queens in company with the beautiful daughters-in-law

 

Amusing themselves in play. In the centre the story-teller

Is singing the ancient war-saga.

A young damsel of the Yadavas is playing on the Vina.

The fair hands are playing on it, their roseate fingers

Flashing past lightning-like,

A rosy flash in the clouds of jasmine flowers.

At the door the sword reflecting the light of the shield shining bright.

 

The story-teller stopped at the resounding steps.

The hero bowed down at the feet of the grandmother.

"At the mother's command I go to a far land,

O grandmother. Bless me, put your holy hands

On my head, O mother, after accomplishing the hero's work

I come back in the famous chariot of the city of the Yadavas."

The mothers in surprise looked at each other.

First of all, angry at the break,

The fiery heroic woman Satyadharma began:

Why should my daughter-in-law send you off

And plunge Krishna's house into darkness ? To which far land

Will you go? You are the light of the house, Aniruddha.

Where is Rati sending you and not inform me?

To do what work in a far land? Has she got the consent

Of Krishna to send you? How does father advise?

O Rukmini, you have brought to our home a daughter-in-law

Who is without a sense of virtue." Aniruddha then answered her

"Mother's order is holy. Does the son ever ask

Why are you sending me out and where?

In her father's house is a childhood friend of great physical strength

 

There in the mountain resort, he, the ancient comrade, had come to the city.

 

I will go to his help. I do not know in what far land

And to do what. Only this much I know, O Mother,

It is a great work.

A Kshatriya asks nothing else." Surprised once more

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Satyabhama stood up and said: "Who has ever heard

Of the house of your mother's father? This is the first time I hear of it.

Some secret meaning is she hiding through the looseness of her talk

 

And to suit her purpose she took shelter

In the wiles natural to women." The daughter of Bhishma,

A sweet-tongued woman answered:

"Impossible, Satyabhama, that the daughter-in-law

Should stoop to a senseless action. My daughter-in-law

Is above all men, incomparable in her wisdom and in fulfilling squarely

 

The Dharma of the Kshatriya. A benevolent minister of her dear lord,

 

The light on the way is she, ever devoted to her husband.

Krishna himself seeks her counsel in great works.

We, blind in our love, never like to leave dear Aniruddha.

But when the mother herself gives away her own son,

Holding back love for the child in her mother's heart,

Discarding the treasure of love, a very heap of beauty

In the complete holocaust of the divine sacrificial fire

Of war, who then, dear sister,

Cherishing this poor affection could forbid thoughtlessly?

Go then, boy-warrior, Aniruddha, come back winning

A vast fame from the far foreign land.

I bless you, Aniruddha, you will never slip

From the straight path of the Kshatriya.

And then come life or death, whatever Providence has written

On your forehead. Rukmini the daughter of Bhishma,

Wife of Krishna, will never plead with him for grace.

If death is there on the field of battle, it is the consummation

Desired by a Kshatriya. Tears obstructed by pride,

I'll offer unto fire this lovely body, O child,

I will drench it with tears of joy if I receive it back unwounded.

O Aniruddha, in the foreign land follow the heroic Kshatriya dharma.

 

Never step back in the battlefield.

If one step the enemy pushes you backward

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Advance ten steps forward. Death is a certainty —

If you live today, tomorrow you will die —

But the vast ill-fame is like a thousand deaths.

O Aniruddha, never bear any dishonour.

The beggar brahmin bears disgrace, —

To suppress sense-impulses is not for a Kshatriya a thing to tolerate

 

A disgrace he wipes off in blood. Be ever victorious

In a righteous war. Man attains a high status

In the pursuit of dharma. For a short while acquiring in unjust war

A kingdom or wealth the coward vain man

Takes delight here, eternal hell seize him there.

The heroic Aryan battling all alone

Repulses in war millions of mighty enemies.

Child, you are an Aryan hero among the human race in the house of Madhava.

 

You wipe the tears from the eyes of the weak always,

You slay men who terrorise, O lion in Yadu-race.

The tears of the weak will drench the earth,

But the virtue of the Kshatriya stems off that flow.

Never disappoint, O child, a true brahmin's hope.

He is the noblest race sanctified by selflessness.

He is pure, profound, serene, he knows the Brahman and he follows the law in practice,

 

That brahmin you should worship and protect by your life.

A brahmin is never a fool.

If he is proud of doing good to others — in vain is his brahrnin hood.

Never seize by force the wealth of the vaishyas, the merchants

Live by wealth, not by sword. The vaishya who does not oppress the poor

 

And acquires wealth always to give it away to others,

Is a great soul, — a Kshatriya should protect him by arms.

Do not bring pain to a shudra's heart by your

Proud and insulting words. The shudra who is modest,

Of a noble mind, is to be protected as a brahmin, O archerer

Like a kind father you protect others.

With soft words and kindly talk you try to utter

Words of unkind meaning. Do not cause hurt

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To your brother's heart. We are all kinsmen in this vast world,

Gods and men and the animal are all one in Brahman.

Never flame up in anger, harsh words must not come out

Of your mouth. An animal at every step in fury roars out,

But God has given the man self-control as a human token.

Never flare a falsehood out of temptation or fear,

An Aryan-child is a lion-cub. Out of fear for others

A coward trembles and speaks falsehood, and an un-Aryan

Speaks falsehood out of temptation. An Aryan is truthful in prosperity and distress.

 

Be generous on the battlefield like the lion. Do not strike a fleeing enemy.

Do not slay one who has fallen.

An enemy doing always harm to you, if he in candid heart

Asks for pardon, O child, the sword that is leaping out of scabbard

Stay at once. A cruelty natural to a barbarian

Does not befit a Kshatriya who is the crowning jewel of the Aryan race.

 

If a virgin damsel asks for your love,

Do not refuse her. Fulfil the Kshatriya rule.

Only once does a flower bloom on the head of Agaru,

Only once does a charioteer utter a word in swearing,

Only once does a chaste woman give away her heart

For good. A refusal, a self-offering done in vain

Ruin the devoted woman's whole life.

On the earth there are eight customs of marriage:

Rakshasa or the Gandharva — these two are chosen

By the mighty Kshatriya. In sweet words, in sweet glances

When a handsome boy and a handsome girl tempt each other,

They remember a past-fife love and easily unite

Their body and mind in each other's body and mind,

The heart is the priest of the rite, he utters great mantra, witness is the lord of love himself;

 

This is the gandharva-marriage and it is good for the Kshatriya.

Cursed by the tears of a violated woman

A moment's satisfaction under the momentary spell of the maddened senses

 

Is not known by that name. That brings to the land

The poison seed, the ruin of dharma of the family,

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A stain in the noble house and a decline in the country.

Always reject all these, O Aniruddha. In the pure gandharva marriage

 

The generations increase and grow in beauty and heroism.

Full of love, full of fear, making an effort to control herself,

When the virgin sees the handsome and heroic beauty of the abductor beaming with light,—

 

He lifts her in his chariot in a valiant ardour

Violent like a lion imprisoned by the barriers of family and caste

And comes out in his chariot a hero blood-stained.

Then he accomplishes a Rakshasa marriage — a custom among the Kshatriyas

 

Bringing in great consequences. Heroic sons are born, a noble family extends.

 

Ever down-cast eyes in front of women, O child,

Never look at the beauty of others' wives.

If ever you look at any one, worship her, call her your mother.

You are, O Aniruddha! sought for by women, lovable, modest and generous,

 

You have controlled your senses, you have no greed, you battle with the strength of a lion,

 

Which way can danger attack you?

O darling, you are going to a foreign barbarian land,

They are a race arrogant and deceitful, unfriendly to the Aryans.

Go to the far land in the country of the foes, O warrior Aniruddha.

I give you my blessing, may you return

Triumphant in your chariot proclaiming your fame.

Go, O hero, fearless. Who can stop you,

O strong grandson of Krishna."

Krishna's consort gave her grandson the blessing

Soaked in tears of love. Satyabhama embraced

Aniruddha and told him smilingly:

"My sister has released you easily, O Aniruddha!

For an uncertain dangerous work,

In an unknown foreign land. Come near, O darling Aniruddha;

Close to me. I too shall bless you, O my heart,

With all my tender affection! You are going to a far land,

There only eyes without affection will besiege you all the time,

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You will always hear harsh foreign words

On foreign tongues. Once more I bless you, my child!

You will gather love and blessings of all

And go to that unknown land; even so at even-tide

A boy walking along the river bank, hieing with wind in delight,

Picks up the flowers from the trees on the roadside.

Seeing your tender well-shaped strong body, O my dear child!

Old men enamoured of you in fatherly affection

Will call you near. Young men will call you

And catching hold of your hands will make you sit with them,

Welcome you saying, 'Come, O fair foreigner! and be our dear beloved friend'.

 

Girls, easily, in their young moon-lit lotus-heart

Will offer at your coveted feet their life and body.

You will lift them up with a smile as though a god picks up

Happily and quietly the offering of a loving devotee.

You will return, O Aniruddha! your body safe and sound, unwounded

 

And once more you will illumine this house, one sole and single light

In the city of Dwarka." The twin mothers bathed in tears

Gave their blessings to their child.

He received with bowed head the blessing,

And came out into the vast garden path and crossing it

Moved quickly to the huge entry gate. The glittering armour

And the clanging sword at the belt, he did not stop

At the assembly gathering and moved straight to the exit gate

And then went to the father and bowed down to him :

"I am going to a far country, O father! at the command

Of my mother. I seek your permission too."

Pradyumna answered: I am pleased, O dear child !

Your mother did not keep her darling and preserve him in her arms,

She sends you far for a great work.

Someone great will accompany you I suppose.

Honour him, O warrior Aniruddha!

Anyone like him is worthy to be honoured. You should know my child!

 

The limits of honourable ness. We, the charioteers of the Saracens,

Are slaves to none. We do not respect as it is

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A king's throne in our country, we hold vain the birth-respectability.

Vain is the glory of the royal throne. The sly jackal

Puts on lion's hide and stalks about in the forest,

The vast forest worships the mean pretender,

Not the lion. We consider him the best who is peerless in qualities,

Equal in the nobility of the family, stands foremost in counselling and in heroism,

 

We obey him because of his efficiency in work.

The Dharma of the Yadavas is Liberty.

Therefore they hold their head high and bow down only to their superiors

 

Neither to men nor to gods. Follow the law of your family tradition,

Act according to it in a foreign land, O son! ever hold your head high".

Aniruddha then comes out and passes through the seven doors

With light steps. Raivataka hill raises its huge peak in front

Piercing the high heaven, carrying myriads of streams

With loud music. The sound of the fountain

Resounded in the ears of the charioteer. The flowers of the hill

Acquired fragrance. The dwellers of the hill

Heard the mystic song of the birds. The closed hearts

As though opened out into songs,

The boy archer took the mountain path singing.

(Here ends the section in which Aniruddha receives the blessings of Rukmini and Satyabhama and goes out.)

SRI AUROBINDO

(Translated from the original Bengali by Nolini Kama Gupta)

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LIFE, DEATH, NEW LIFE

A GENERAL EXPOSITION

LIFE is an adventure of experience, a growth in consciousness, an expansion and a heightening in knowledge, in joy and in will (Tapas Shakti) and death a device of the material nature of shedding off a body and opening the way to a fresh span of bodily existence in the venture of an infinite progression in experience. This is the essential truth of our subject, which must be long pondered over so that it may be assimilated into our consciousness and become a normal possession of our life. Death is definitely not the end of our life. Did we begin our life with this birth? Is it not a process carried over from a previous state of existence, whatever it may be, whose experience, attitudes and propensities we carry and further develop. Do we also not carry with us a sense of individual and collective destiny, a purpose and direction in our life. And if that is so death cannot be the end of our life, an abrupt termination in the continuity of our venture, which has foundations deeper and precedent to our birth and which has aims and objectives far in excess of the immediate span of life.

The individual and the society or the race are inseparably interwoven in the make-up of their natures as also their history and future growth. Of this process Indian thought and life have tended to emphasize too exclusively the individual and the modern science the racial. We sought to make it individual throughout the realm of nature including animals in our proverbial concept of 84 lakhs of yonis or species of life and regarded it as the field for rebirths. Modern science has made human life too a matter of the mass, the race and the collectivity.

But it is an interesting thing to study the growth of individuality in nature. In the life of the bees and ants the colony is clearly the unit of life, even though each bee and each ant has a separate bodily existence. But self-conscious individuality, possessed of self-direction, self-guidance and individual will for growth and progress, appear only at the human level. If this observation is correct, then is it not right to infer that the individual slowly emerges out of the mass in the scale of the different yonis or species of nature and that only as the

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individual emerges does individual growth and destiny too become more and more a possibility.

It is extremely interesting that modern science is showing indications of coming to a recognition that from human level onwards evolution must essentially be a matter of the individual and of consciousness rather than of the body. Indian thought too is tending to recognise the force of the social and the racial aspect of our life.

This is, more or less, the substance of position regarding the subject as represented by Sri Aurobindo. But more specifically Sri Aurobindo visualises that the earth with its secret Divine Reality is, in fact, the field for the realization of the same in a manifest form. And that amounts to saying that this world, ruled by death as it is today, must one day become a fit place for immortality too. In other words immortality, the life of the spirit, bliss and knowledge are the real meaning, sense meaning, sense and purpose of human living and that the adventure of the world itself is the realization of godhead in a material mould of existence. Thus matter and material life, which are in obvious denial of the spirit assume the form of a special venture and attempt to manifest the spirit in a medium which is its opposite. And should the secret presence of the spirit in it not really indicate and imply it?

The world is then no longer to be shunned or looked upon as hostile, but to be welcomed as an experiment and experience of the Spirit to manifest itself in Matter. This can be effectively done, says Sri Aurobindo, only by a higher plan of spiritual consciousness called by him the Supermind. The Supermind is the true spiritual consciousness which possesses integral mastery over matter. It is the rit-chit of the Veda, the truth-consciousness, a noon-day bright reality, which can overcome all darkness and obscurity of the lower consciousness. Man must through Yoga seek to ascend to it an d then open out every part of his being so that it can come down and fill every part of his nature. Such examples will set the pace for a new race, which will tend to set a new standard of life and bring about a progressive transformation of human life in general. That would be the ushering in of the spiritual age when immortality and bliss and knowledge will tend to become more and more current coins of life.

Such is in full the vision of the New Life for the individual and the race that Sri Aurobindo presents to the aspiring humanity of today.

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Indian Philosophy in its long history from the Vedas to contemporary thinkers presents, so far as this subject is concerned, one might say, two emphases, one in which life and the joy of life are dominant and the other in which death and sorrow and suffering and the evanescent and the unreal nature of this world are dominant. The Vedas present essentially a robust outlook of life and of a greater and larger life. The Upanishads elaborate the spiritual aspect a great deal. But the other emphasis is also there and that trend too now starts. In later philosophy and life this trend becomes more and more dominant. Buddhism emphasized it a great deal and Mayavada turned it into a philosophical creed. Recent and contemporary Indian thought has sought to rectify it and give to life a positive meaning. However, when the world was treated negatively the reality of the spiritual pursuit was held up. In fact, the world was undermined to hold up the spirit more vividly as it were.

Among the earliest thinkers and seers of renascent India Swami Dayananda particularly sought to revive the robust, positive and integral spirituality of the Vedas. He also raised into clear relief the personality of the Rishi, the truth-knower, the spiritual seer, as against the latter day scholastic pundit. Both these ideas are of immense value for India, which is seeking to know itself and re-create itself. The crisis of the present times is essentially a crisis of the present-day personality. Hence arises the call and the cry for integration of personality, though yet not sufficiently articulate and strong.

The Buddhist attitudes largely govern the great part of the rest of the East. But the Chinese mind has essentially approached truth and reality from the social status and, therefore, the due discharge of duties has been its first concern. The state, the people, the father, the son, the friend, the teacher, the learner, what they should do and what they should not do has been the chief subject of its reflection and meditation. And Confucius, almost a contemporary of the Buddha, instructed the Chinese people on these subjects. This appoach is so different from ' he Indian which straight asks for the Atman and the Brahman and yet the flower of wisdom that the Chinese mind achieved in its cultural pursuit was a marvellous serenity and calmness, which is obviously a spiritual state. Laotse, however, the second great Chinese thinker, was a profound mystic and his essential theme was the oneness of things beyond the dualities.

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Islam is the next powerful influence of the East. And its strongest emphasis is surrender to the Will of God. That is what the word 'Islam' in fact means. Surrender to God, at the first instance is undoubtedly an obedience externally rendered, then comes inner submission and the culmination is the identification of the human with the Divine.

The Western philosophy has a temper and a turn of its own. Human mind that seeks and explores is the same, yet its approaches and emphases are many. The Westerner is by temperament a rationalist and an extrovert. There have been mystics too in the West and also poets of inspiration but by and large the Western philosophy has been a quest of reason to know truth and reality. In recent times, however, there has been Bergson who sought to raise intuition to a regular instrument of knowledge.

The Greeks too primarily upheld reason. Socrates was quite aware of the inner spiritual guidance, which he called the voice of his Daimon. And Plato had his mysticism, which found expression in the contemplation and communion with the realm of Ideas, which was the realm of truth and reality. Plotinus, however, was a regular mystic and his teachings so strongly reflect yogic exercises and spiritual states.

The Middle Ages in Europe stretching from about 500 A.D. to about 1500 A.D. were dominated by Christianity when the church authority and faith were the dominant features of life. Dogma ruled and a free quest of the spirit for truth and reality was not much-noticeable. Christ's teaching was no doubt the supreme word, but the same had in fact become formulated into dogma and creed and it was the latter that directly ruled life. The New Testament has a marvellous spirit of inspiration and goodwill and love, but the creed represented authority and uniformity and obedience. During this period sorrow, sin and death figured a great deal in the mentality of the people. They almost acquired the quality of virtue and an essential fact of life.

The 16th century witnessed in Europe two important movements, those of Renaissance and Reformation. The former was a revolt against the authoritarian spirit of the Middle Ages and a free quest of reason for the truths of nature as also a revival of Greek learning. Thus, in fact, Modern Science took its birth and steadily

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built for itself a new civilization. The latter was a movement of reform in religion itself. Francis Bacon, the father of Modern Philosophy in Europe, raised the banner of revolt and affirmed senses and reason as against faith, and nature as against supersensible spiritual realities. The later philosophers were either rationalists (believing in reason's capacity to find out the ultimate truth) or empiricists (believing in sense-perception as the source of knowledge). The result was the Agnosticism (that ultimate reality is unknowable) of Kant. The German idealists built up great rationalistic systems of thought, which were optimistic in outlook. They sought to overcome the agnosticism of Kant. But Schopenhauer represented a pessimistic reaction to whom death became a greater reality than life.

Recently, however, we have in Bergson in particular, a refreshing standpoint of a deeper insight and even a positive experiential characterisation of reality. But the latest thing in Western Philosophy, which has become widely influential is Existentialism. And to it 'anxiety' is almost the most important fact of experience. This truly seems to represent the cultural crisis of the contemporary Western life and one might say of the world. Man is beset with anxiety and he does not know what is life and what its meaning is. Death thus hovers all over.

Modern Science, which really determines modern life, has in recent times made marvellous discoveries but it has accentuated the death-feeling rather than alleviated it. This is primarily due to the nuclear weapons. But apart from that medicine through the discovery of some new drugs and surgery through its new sensational operations have served to prolong life and ameliorate it so far as the physical living and enjoyment are concerned. Eugenists may very well soon discover methods of improving human progeny.

Biology, however, through its latest trends in evolution, is likely to influence the future culture of man most. It is now being suggested and affirmed that evolution henceforth is likely to be individual and in consciousness. This comes so near, is almost identical with the yogic affirmation that individuals through sadhana should raise themselves to a higher and a nobler status of consciousness and thereby seek to raise the general living.

The excursions into outer space also carry a deep cultural significance. The Astronaut needs a new discipline and control over his

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Physiological functions in order that he may be able to stand the conditions of interplanetary travel. Even yoga has been contemplated in this connection. The Astronaut is under a necessity to develop in him a supra-terrestrial discipline in body as well as in mind. This is a very fine adventure indeed.

'Life, Death, New Life' is a very wide theme and the present times are charged with great possibilities. It can be useful to consider the whole world, the East and the West, the past achievements, the future possibilities and live in full awareness of the wide situation, of one's complete personality and of the right attitude and action in life.

INDRA SEN

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REAL EDUCATION, AND THE EXISTENTIAL PUDDER

IN the second volume of his trilogy Discovering the Mind (New York, 1980), Walter Kaufmann after a glance at Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer is concerned primarily with Nietzsche and secondarily with Heidegger and Buber, pursuing relentlessly his thesis that only with a few recent Germans did the mind really begin to be discovered .

Kaufmann's insistence that Nietzsche has not yet had the serious study he deserves is no doubt well taken; nor should the fact be surprising, for to the ordinary human apprehension, including the scholarly and the academic, Nietzsche is what he claimed to be — dynamite. He is a ruthless probe of subterfuges and self-deceptions, and expose of hypocrisies; taking him seriously requires a too close and honest examination of oneself and one's assumptions; it in fact requires one to be serious,

But these terms are alien (unfortunately) to the men here under review; the remarkably tenacious provinciality of the Western world being what it is. The heart of this volume is the redoubtable Friedrich Nietzsche, and the perspective is only that of his own time and place, and the narrow band of his influence on succeeding professor doom, and of its resistance to him (as by for example turning him into a proto-Nazi, or an "analytic" philosopher, or anything more malleable than his uncompromising unaccommodating, and downright tactless self).

Nietzsche saw, in what was to him an ongoing and harrowing experience, that ordinary consciousness, such as humanity knows it, is only a surface, and a thin film above — what? There is the devastating question. Nietzsche was all too close to what he felt was a terrible abyss — gulfs of mind, whirlpools of the vital fury — and his life was an unremittingly strenuous attempt to come to terms, to find a balance and heroic stance, and climb upward, above the turmoil and the horror. His analysis of the vital nature is acute: he knows its unwillingness to be satisfied, its pleasure in pain and destruction

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and ceaseless activity between opposite and equally unenlightened poles; he knows its self-division, its perverseness, its resistance to any genuine knowledge. He feels, through his experience of this nature, the existential importance of the sheer will to power: the thirst, the oestrus to expand, to be ever larger and fuller in potency.

And here, indeed, is a crux of Nietzsche-study, and a knot that has put off many timid souls. Power: it is almost, or quite, a dirty word to many an "intellectual" of these times, who has little enough of it in hi s own nature (either ment al or vital ) an d can only equate it with brute physical force and dominance of others. This, emphatically, was not Nietzsche's meaning. One who has read him can well imagine the utter contempt that he would have ha d for Hitler and his gang; but hi s con tempt might have been even more blistering, for such "intellectual s." To him power was first and fundamentally force for improvement, strength for knowledge, power over oneself. He recognized, if obscure ly and confusedly, the ultimate importance of this divine attribute without which there would be no existence at all. His concern was to gather sufficient strength and power for self-overcoming: su rely a purpose not much respected in the academic world (not t o speak of the world at large).

Indeed, though Kaufmann does not emphasize this, Nietzsche's one great fundamental insight was that humanity even at best is not good enough, and that the human ego-consciousness is a false consciousness. Here he stripped many a veil, pretension, and self-coddling deception away, visiting scorn on timidity and all the various dodges, even "protesting too much", in fact, sick man that he was. The falsenesses of how and why most people adopt (or adapt themselves to) their various religions, philosophies and world-views were no secret to him; he understood all too well the necessity for the mask, the playing of roles, the inveterately histrionic character of human life. It tormented him, but he also played his games. He had not the insight or the power to rise above the ego-conscious ness and the life of mirrors, and this may be call ed his tragedy.

But he had the spirit of music, in vital flood, and some vision of the overcoming, Dionysus triumphant as Apollo, high order and profound richness one. What he did not have is the real light of Apollo that must sustain the spirit and the triumph. Too much of his time and place, he had too small an orientation, limited and crippling, for

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all his tremendous flashes of insight: not only could he not overcome the dichotomy between mental and vital — he could not even see it clearly. "Reason" on one side, and "intuitions" on the other, as per Kaufmann's analysis and desideration: that is, the tennis ball in play, or the drunken rider, continually falling from one side of the horse, and then the other. And he was thus in pl ay - (and thus, as he felt, a clown): he lived in both naruresintensely, and constantly on the st retch . He was not anti-intellectual; he considered irrationality a weakness; and all those he admired were men of great intellect; but he recognized all to o poignantly the intellect 's limitations, whi le he could find no thing greater - as he recognized the de efficiencies of the vital nature, but could not find the way - or a clue to the way - out of the impasse. To " accept fate" was his final desperate word

For all his insight (and Kaufmann's contention notwithstanding) he was no great psychologist. He thought he was, and indeed in his particular ambience he did shine in that end eavour : but he was a "reductionism " after all (a thing, incidentally, abhorred by Kaufmann). He confused mind and soul and indeed threw all consciousness into one muddle; an d he could not distinguish any of it from the body. If he could have ana lazed here, and discovered the "three worlds" known in India from time immemorial; if he could have made a clear distinction between mental, vital and physic al, and understood the three as in de ed three worlds, each with it s individual character andtermshe might have spared himself ever so many excruciating problems. If he had known the teaching of the three gunas (touched on above) as he might have, from the material available to him - how much light it could have thrown on his difficulties! But he was too busy " dis covering t he mind, " if one may say this without being too invidious at the expense of Kaufmann. His insight tortured him because he ha d hardly a glimpse of what he felt to be essential - the more than- mental consciousness by which t he man will become the over man. Rather than the exemplar, the embodiment of freedom that he wished to be, he was a cripple, an d a slave after all. Kaufmann indeed suggests that it may have been the unrelieved ambivalence of his nature, that he felt so acutely, that was responsible for hi s wretched health.' In any case, he did analyze he re, and articulate hi s tortured

¹ Whether his eventual insanity was a case of general paresis, and thus syphilitic in origin, is uncertain. If it was, and if the contraction was in the usual way, he surely paid heavily for a

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semi-understanding of the nature's recalcitrance against, and opposition to, light and freedom.

For one who has caught the true evolutionary impetus, even for one who has read Sri Aurobindo, Nietzsche can be a fascinating and even a rewarding study; and one does not easily tire of Kaufmann on the subject (for all the limitations of both men). In fact he might have given him a much fuller treatment with pertinence in this present study; but then, we have his previous book on Nietzsche, and here he had also other fish to fry. These I must confess to not finding very palatable. In this context, a lightweight like Heidegger, for all that he may be the modern professor's joy, is hardly worth meeting. And in fact Kaufmann brings him in only to attack him, through more than sixty uncompromising pages, for dogmatic obscurantism and scholarly irresponsibility: in short, as an enemy to the mind and its philosophical function. He is an eminent example of that not uncommon figure, the anti-intellectual who makes a "commitment" to something arbitrary. Nietzsche is at his most mordant against such men. He would probably have been kinder to Buber. But Kaufmann cannot find much good reason for including him, except that he has an affection for the man. (And has decided, for some reason, to write his book in trinities.)

And what have we, at the conclusion now of this second volume? A kind of "existential" panorama, a spectacle of men confined to one limited purview, and there trying, with completely inadequate resources, to "discover the mind." Where has it been, we may wonder, all these centuries, and what have scant sexual experience. (As to his pronouncements on women, of course, the less said the more charitable; though he does seem to have understood his sister remarkably well.) these men contributed ? Only a breakdown, it seems, into the "existential," and a confinement of every thing to one plane. This is Kaufmann's delight: he will have no "dualism," and none of the vagaries of the "essential." But this means that he will have no solution to the modern problems, and no real discovery of anything: no way out. Here one can have only, at be st, a continuous exercise of the faculties (some of them); which does pall , if one never finds any higher purpose for the exercise, and cannot feel that one is growing to some larger and meaningful life. "Essentialism" of course is also wanting, if it confines itself only to abstraction, gener

aliscant sexual experience. (As to his pronouncements on women, of course, th e les s said th e more chari table; tho ugh he does seem to have understood his sister remarkably well. )

( On this subject—the idea that Nietzsche's real philosophy is not accessible because of his sister's machinations, is not tenable. Kaufmann, in his book on Nietzsche, has given a clear account of this matter, with documentation.)

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zation, intelletual construction, a Medieval word-play or a peg on which to hang Santayanian reveries. Nevertheless, there is in sight into essences, and thus into other and larger worlds. Here Plato is not superseded even by Goethe (if one does not sound too facetious in saying so). And Plotinus existed, too, and all kinds of industrious investigation : yet Kaufmann proceeds as if the mystics never were. Yet in St. Teresa's autobiography and other writings one may find more real psychological insight, and knowledge of the mind, than in any of Kaufmann's exemplary figures, for all that they may outdo her here and there: or, if one should confine oneself to Germans, the same may be said, perhaps, of Boehme, Tauler and Echhart, and even Leibniz (especially Leibniz, in some ways); and in fact the book is just too arbitrary, though it s being also not in the least dogmatic makes one willing to go along with it, wherever it may lead. It does not lead to the spiritual world, in touching on which some of those above noted had an essential knowledge, the lack of which tortured Nietzsche (if it does not much discommode most philosophy professors, or even Kaufmann). N or does it lead out of the besetting provincialism at long last , looking eastward: where Chu Hsi contemplated philosophically certain essences of things while remaining quite palpably in the world : and where painters in China and Japan communed with Nature until they found and could convey something of its inner, we may say essential spirit - Paraprakriti: where indeed true self-knowledge has been not only a dream and a confused ideal, but a reality. There is no shadow on this book of the one essence of all existences, Brahman: which in any case Kaufmann like any professor would probably confuse with an abstraction and a mental monotone."

He begins this volume with a quotation from one of Nietzsche's earlier writings, to the effect that a true education is a liberation, and a true educator a liberator, in that he does not impose dogmatic structures, but rather shows the way to one's true self. This of course has little enough to do with the activities of the academic world. They are geared to the obfuscation and frustration of such an outlandish project, and the existence of such a true land is not, to them, a welcome

¹ It is true that Schopenhauer is no very happy example here, with his Kantifying of what little he understood of the Upanishads, into which he read liberally from his own sour nature. But still, Deussen, who had really studied the Vedanta, found much in him; whereas Kaufman shows no evidence of being abreast of this subject, or interested in it. It is true again, that Schopenhauer is only one of his peripheral concerns.

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idea; the aspiration of a Nietzsche, with its truly Aryan nobility, to them is only words. Indeed, if they accepted it, it would be only a kind of cheap intellectual assent, that made it only words, mechanized and killed it. Most professors just do what the others do, and are parasites on the figures they appropriate, falsifying them in living on them. The schools are the enemies of greatness: they codify and tamasify and mechanize, and substitute flatulence for the breath of life. As Kaufmann points out, a consensus of uncritical dogmatism, a self-perpetuating and self-congratulating false assumption of knowledge, is their bone for gnawing: and blood, flesh and sinew may go where they may.

Indeed, Kaufmann, professor though he may also be, is a man of parts, and always readable: one sticks with him, knowing that he does have something to say, and is able to say it withal. And as he emphasizes, he has no use for the "objectivity" that is only a lack of personal substance, and incapacity for addressing oneself seriously to serious matters. Self-discovery and the development of mind are important to him, they mean something: he does not just make his living by talking around and about it all. He will see his men in the round, and he studies them exhaustively, and respectfully: he eschews the easy and all too prevalent spirit of Procrustes, with the assumption that everyone else must be just like one's own sweet ignorant self: which, such as it is, is modeled obscurely on some stupidity not understood or recognized. (This volume is valuable for what he says on this subject alone, in the Epilogue). Then, he is not altogether unaware of the Orient: he employs the word "Buddhism" now and then, and he has been in Calcutta three times, with his camera.

JESSE ROARKE

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WOMEN'S ROLE IN EDUCATION*

IN the myriad forms of life on earth man alone evinces the capability of efficient group-living combined with individual excellence of mental attainments. It is his special gift to adjust with others, help others, organise the living, achieve sufficient amount of personality development and whenever fortunate to attain a high degree of proficiency in wielding the mind. Almost all children are born with innate gifts and are capable of developing into geniuses provided they have sufficient environment and guidance right from the early stages.

Education' means 'to draw out', 'to extract' (not forcibly), 'to cause to appear' all the latent capacities of the students.

We are going to consider now the role of woman in education. I would like to point out at the very outset that, as The Mother says, there are no pure types of 'man' or 'woman' at the present stage of civilization. Due to social inter-mingling mixture of roles and many other factors it is difficult to find either a purely masculine man or a purely feminine woman. Often we find an intermixture of both in the same personality. Only, the qualities of the given gender tend to predominate. So, when we speak of the woman's role, it is not strictly 'the woman' but any 'concerned adult'. But speaking of woman we see that they are able to take part in the function of education either as teachers, or mothers, or any female relative of the child, like the elder sister or aunt who has made an impression on the child. We •will, however, emphasise the role of the woman in the family as the other aspects would have been considered in other lectures. If, unfortunately, the mother of the child, is found to be either unwilling or incapable of moulding the child, the other parent should take up all the required roles and try to fulfill the deficiency. Lack of time cannot be offered as an excuse as even a second of concern can make a great amount of difference in the child's life. It goes without saying that to have sufficient role in the shaping of the child's life the wife should have enough freedom, equality and some amount of intellectual background. When we speak further we are conceiving of an ideal parent; often an ideal mother or an ideal adult who wants to help a child he or she knows. Sri Aurobindo says that the child should

* Paper read at a Seminar on the "Aim of Life & role of Education" in Madras on 24 August 1980.

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be allowed to develop freely as an organic being, he should not be kneaded and pressured into a form like an inert plastic material. His own innate tendencies and preferences should be duly respected.

When we say education we at once think of book learning. We cannot conceive of education as having several aspects and that a particular kind of education affects the person life-long. Mere mental training will not complete the education of any child. The physical body itself, its habits, gait, posture and so on should be trained. The child should be trained psychologically too, to develop his inner worth. Mentally, he should be trained but not in a narrow groove, a limited way. His mind should have vastness. He should be able to have a broad picture of things, of the world, of life. In learning subjects he should fully utilise all the processes of logic and must have sufficient ability to work on his own. Lastly, there is the psychic education. It may not be possible for all the parents or teachers to give the children this kind of training. But at least they can refrain from negatively influencing the children. If the child is allowed to grow spontaneously, the contact with the soul is left intact and the child can develop this aspect of life further in his adult life if he is attracted by spirituality.

Sri Aurobindo eloquently demonstrates the need for a National System of Education. It is not due to empty pride, prestige, nostalgia or narrow chauvinism that we seek such a System. There does exist a basic uniqueness and difference in each culture which may not congenially adjust with the blunt super-imposition of another culture to the detriment of indigenous culture. The working of the human mind does differ greatly according to the race, culture, community etc. There is the universal aspect of the individual mind, his national aspect and his own unique aspect. A violent imposition will stifle the cultural aspects of the child if a foreign culture is choice-lessly imposed upon it. The method of teaching can always be profitably altered though the content may be the same throughout the world. Here care should be taken not to ignore the truths of modern advancement while changing the system. We have changed the medium of instruction to be sure, but the system has not yet become genuinely indigenous. Whereas other cultures emphasise on the active successful fulfilment of the mind, the body and the personality alone, India had always been preoccupied with the spiritual side of

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man. This is not to say that all Indians are necessarily born with spiritual inclinations. Indians are spiritual in the sense that all men can become fully spiritual if they want to. But since there had been a strong spiritual tradition in this country the child should be offered the knowledge of this background and should be exposed to some kind of spiritual culture allowing always the child himself to make the choice. Even if it is not possible to improve or channel this tendency care should be taken at least not to stifle it or kill it altogether by a wrong method of instruction. It should be nurtured and left intact, to be pursued by the child in his adulthood if he chooses to be full-time spiritual. Even otherwise, this will stand him in good stead during the crises of his life. We have dwelt at such length on National Education precisely because it is in the power of the child's mother to impart effortlessly, pleasantly and surely the national qualities of the country to the children almost automatically. By her life-style, the stories she tells them, by her worship and her personal worth she can inculcate in them pride in their culture, respect for about food and how the parent should tackle the child gently but other cultures and religions and contentment in their way of life.

As regards the physical education of the child, the mother plays no insignificant part. The very constitution of the child is determined by its mother's state during pregnancy. The Mother specially emphasises that if a mothers' has pure thoughts, looks after herself well and has plenty of goodwill, she is bound to give birth to a healthy good-natured, intelligent child. The mother of the child has a direct responsibility for the health of the child. No mother will neglect the child especially when it is young when its health is poor. She should train him in carriage, posture and other habits. By looking after him she should help him keep up the tone and stamina. Here, the Mother amusingly describes how children sometimes are capricious about food and how the parent should tackle the child gently but firmly. The Mother says that food should never be used as a means of punishment or reward. The natural sensitivity of the child's body should not be spoilt. It should be maintained and nurtured. Undue drugging should be avoided. The children at times protest that they do not like a particular food. Then, unless they are markedly capricious they should not be forced. Often such foods are found to disagree with them constitutionally. It is the mother of the child who teaches it basic cleanliness and hygiene. She dispels the

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fear of illness in children. One great contribution mothers can make to the child's life is to teach him the value of time and speed. Once the child is trained to be fast, he is ahead of the rest in all fields. The speed in physical habits leads to speed in mental habits and is very advantageous to children lifelong. One thing a good mother refrains from is overprotection. If she goes on doing things for children and cuddling them, they never become efficient or adults. This can happen not only to children but even to adults in their mutual relationships. An over-protected child may turn out to be demanding, selfish and lazy.

An understanding over a child's personality, a concerned parent is bound to have a lasting influence. When we train the child psychologically we should take care to nurture the spontaneous goodness in the child without spoiling its unconscious humility. Any small defect in training will result in artificiality in the child's nature. Majority of the average parents entrust the child fully to the school and the influence of his peers. These parents play little or no part in his psychological development. But, even if not contributing positively to the child's ethical development, the parents should refrain from presenting any bad example by their conduct. Children should not be treated arbitrarily. If scolded with no good reason the child loses faith in the adult and ceases to respect him. Often we find parents venting their irritations on children unreasonably. Such tendencies should be checked both to benefit the parent and the child. Here woman plays no mean a role in shielding, protecting, justifying and explaining the children's nature to often irate fathers. She is the one who often dispels the misunderstanding between the parent and the child, never ceasing to teach the child to respect his father in spite of his defects. A good mother only suggests and invites. She never commands or imposes. She is often frank with her children in her opinion about others. If there are any serious lapses in the surrounding adults, she openly acknowledges them even to children at the same time teaching the child not to condemn the individual for his failings. If one were to gloss it over, or side with the adult or silence the 'impudent' child commenting on the defect it will have an adverse effect on the developing child's personality. By judiciously guiding the child's reading habits an intelligent mother paves the way for the ethical development

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of the child effortlessly without outright dialectic lectures. She gives sufficient avenue for the child to act within his limited sphere to express and act according to his moral impulses. A good parent never ridicules or belittles children for wanting to be good. If the child happens to have any defect, it is she who struggles with him to make him efficient. If he has a bad habit, a bad quality or defect, she never gives it up as innate unchangeable nature. She views it as merely a symptom which can be cured with the child's co-operation. She encourages the child's co-operation. She encourages the child to be confident and resilient. The formative virtues are always detected and lauded by the mother of the child alone. She has infinite patience and commitment to train and shape. After offering her idea of religion, if the child is found to be uncomforting, she never condemns, rejects or ostracised. She understands the different nature of the child and lets him be. While giving sufficient freedom she also inculcates self-discipline in children. She always has a calming influence on her offspring. Affectionate, understanding parents invariably have a close spontaneous relation with their children; so much so that children feel to free go to them with their problems, confess easily any mistakes committed and consult them often. They never use fear as an instrument in training nor do they demand obedience blindly or arbitrarily. In short an affectionate, intelligent concerned mother can form the child's personality in such a way that it is cheerful, patient, enduring, mature, tolerant, responsible, concerned about other people's sufferings, game and loving.

Provided the parent is sufficiently educated he or she can play a decisive role in the child's mental education. A career should never be imposed by the parent on the child. Due respect and encouragement should be given to the child from very early stages. While allowing for the child's freedom of pursuit, a concerned adult is willing to give sufficient help and guidance whenever necessary. Care should be taken that they are not sucked into the general stream of mediocre influences where they are rendered into insipid entities like uniform mass produced factory goods. They should become individuals with personal worth and uniqueness who, however, have a common wealth of knowledge and system. If certain children show spontaneous tendencies to belong to a different culture, parents should not be alarmed or feel insecure. If chided and mocked, the children

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lose even the emotional contact they wish to maintain with parents. Just as one should not be compelled to belong to a different foreign culture and should not also be bullied to be strictly national. For some, the cultural choice is automatically that of the environment. Some choose, by education and training, to belong to other cultures. Due respect, Sri Aurobindo says, should be given to such a choice of some children. But it should be a genuine mature choice, not any superficial fascination which may evaporate at a later stage.

Our minds are made up of several parts which have different abilities and functions. The Chitta is the reservoir of all past mental impressions. It needs no training. It is automatic and efficient in itself right from birth. Manas is the functional part which experiences thought-sensations and registers the mental impressions. These impressions consist also of ideas an d need not be always within the sensory purview. Here again, a concerned intellectual parent can train the child efficiently in rea ding, writing, speech-habits and clear thinking. The Buddhi is the actual instrument of learning. Unless properly an d rigorously trained it n ever functions perfectly. To have a perfect instrument of this buddhi, a strong self-discipline, effort, proper guidance and en couragement are needed . Even adults and some persons in the educational field it self do not often have a perfect fool-proof instrument of knowledge. The intellectual faculty often depends also on the content of the mind, richness of the variousexp erience st ored and above all on the power of recall. Though often over- emphasised, this mechanical power does chiefly help the student ( 1) to register the educational content (2) to classify, assess, judge and retain it and (3) to recall it with sufficient speed when required. The Mother has remarked in several instances upon the role of repetition on memory. She has said that it takes seven times for the matter to be repeated or for the brain to come across it accident all y, for it .to get registered in the brain. Lastly there is the power of genius or intuition which has contributed largely to human progress though this faculty is at times regarded with suspicion due to some drawbacks an d imperfections in man' s general make up . An intelligent mother n ever stifles genius. Whi le allowing freedom to encourage anything in the form of originality for its own sake may give rise to Idiosyncracies and quixotic . A certain modicum of conformity should be advised to the child socially as well as ethically

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for its own future welfare. It is the child's parent often, who knowing his inner nature, succeeds in gaining his interest. This interest can be channelised profitably only by the parent. The child should be gradually trained to concentrate well and should be led to successful multiple concentration. The faculty of judging, analogy, contrasting, conceptualising, imagination, originality, correct logic, all can be developed pleasantly and informally by parental influence. In the eagerness to teach children one should not impose a huge amount of learning matter when they are very young. At the same time simplified explanations of various fields giving the whole picture- will serve a lot to avert the modern evil of what Sri Aurobindo calls as 'teaching by snippets'. If they are forced to study a lot before their mental processes are fully formed — cramming, blind-study without comprehension, lack of a pattern of over all intelligence etc. result. To increase the power of intuition and genius in growing adults, Sri Aurobindo recommends a practice of 'bringing about the passivity of the restless flood of thought-sensations rising of its own momentum from the passive memory, independent of our will and control'. This passivity liberates the intellect from previous associations, false impressions, preconceptions or any bias. The Mother emphasises on the fact that when children exhibit curiosity one should never snub or evade the issue. This probing nature of children is the guiding instinct for all future learning. Practically any subject can be explained easily to children provided one takes sufficient pains. If necessary, symbols and fables may be used. This is useful even at later stages to certain types of individuals. Mothers often play a major role in such informal learning whenever they are interested and thoughtful. Mothers often try to develop an aesthetic sense in children. Not only does it help them in proficiency in arts, it also develops a finesse in their character so that they refrain from acting cruelly or violently. This aesthetic training has a marked influence on their ethics. In the zeal to develop children into polymaths, constant activity should not be imposed upon them by over ambitious parents. Children should have sufficient relaxation and rest. They should be allowed to enjoy childhood, a stage that never returns. There are three stages in mental education which a concerned mother observes in the child and helps these stages to be actualiscd. (1) Development of the power of concentration (2) Development

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of the capacities of expansion, wideness, complexity and richness and (3) Organisation of idea around a central idea. There is a need for certitude in each human being and often family plays a decisive role in the person's world view and his personal philosophy. Children should be encouraged to nurture absorption, faculty of observation and the emphasis should be on understanding rather than on rote-learning. An attentive parent never hesitates to satisfy the curiosity of a growing child. Informal explanations, and directing the children to relevant simple books or competent persons makes learning much quicker. One may hesitate to disclose one's ignorance to children; but one never loses respect when one admits his incapacity to the child. On the other hand, the child appreciates the frankness and has more faith in the parent. A good parent encourages healthy reading habits and tries to keep the child in trend. Children should be taught that whatever occurs to them will not be good or true. This will inculcate strong will and prevent them from giving in to wrong suggestions from imperfect parts of the mind. This will guide them in ethics in action. Sri Aurobindo eloquently describes how any concerned adult can lead the child effortlessly to develop his innate capabilities by understanding, commitment and tactful guidance. "Every child is a lover of interesting narrative, a hero worshipper and a patriot. Appeal to these qualities in him and through them let him master without knowing it the living and human parts of his nation's history.

Last, but the most important part ,of the training, is the ethical and spiritual training of the child. We often assume that the best individuals come from the most sophisticated intellectual and well to do families. There is a strong association of mental training and ethics prevalent in our cultures. But on the contrary there is no invariable concomitance between ethics and book learning. Parents

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in whatever conditions they may live in, insist on and often succeed in obtaining a certain ethical standard from their children. Often illiterate parents take a lot of pains to transmit some amount of decency, faith in God and a sense of right and wrong in their children and these sometimes are better individuals than pampered children of cynical callous parents. The nature of parents and the family has a strong influence over the child's ethical temperament. If parents or closely related adults of children do not come up to a required level of ethics, it is futile to expect the children to believe in a code of ethics. They may obey or be well behaved but in their heart of hearts they lack the conviction of the desirability of good behaviour. They often obey out of fear of punishment or parental displeasure.

Spiritual training can be given to children provided it is not enforced upon them. Sri Aurobindo clearly explains that when children have religion imposed upon them, they become averse to it. To impose any kind of moral or religious code on growing children is to kill their spontaneous desire for ethics and religion. It happens especially if they are exposed unwillingly for a long time to religious discourses or are compelled to learn text books. Though the ideas lodge in their brains and influence their conduct they become rather mechanical, sullen, resentful, artificial or at times fanatic. The only effective way of training children spiritually is to become living examples of the teachings we want them to be convinced of. Any hypocrisy in the guiding person drives away the would be learner from' the teaching itself.

We often think only of parental influence on children but never that of children on adults. Often their spontaneous goodness and sense of justice has a sobering effect on adults. An affectionate, good, intelligent child can be a source of infinite joy to the parents. Its mother especially undergoes a good deal of psychic expansion in the process of loving it, caring for it and bringing it up. Very intelligent children may even change the undesirable life style of their parents, by conviction and example. Often in matters of social concern, it is the children who initiate and keep up help or service. Realising this important value of children — the future humanity — women in what ever capacity they meet them should help to bring out the best in them.

Thank you.

S. MIRA

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INDIAN PSYCHOLOGY AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

INDIAN psychology is essentially Yoga psychology. Its roots lie deep in the Vedas and the Upanishads. The Bhagwat Gita is a master key for the study of human nature, the nature of Self and above all the human personality. As a matter of fact all systems and schools of Indian philosophy have a psychological dimension because they want people to practice what they believe.

In modern India, we have been overwhelmed by Western knowledge, particularly by science and technology. The study of science develops a scientific outlook and banishes superstitions. On the other hand, science has no final word about anything. All its findings are tentative and they can be changed and even discarded in the light of new findings. And yet votaries of science speak and argue as if they are uttering final words. This is tragic indeed.

In India, psychology came along with philosophy in general and Yoga in particular. Yoga-psychology is scientific in the sense that its main principles have been enunciated by the practitioner of Yoga. The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali is the main text of Indian psychology.

According to Patanjali, human life had eight spheres which could be cultivated in such a manner as would enable a person to have harmony and peace in life within and outside. The basic principles of Yoga as expounded by Patanjali¹ and relevant for educational psychology are given below:

(1) The entire field of creation lying outside the individual is constantly being influenced by his thoughts and actions.

The state of Yoga, or perfect harmony, is found established in this field when man's life is naturally upheld by the five qualities of observance (yama):

(i) Truthfulness (satya),

(ii) Non-violence (ahimsa),

(iii) Non-covetousness (asteya),

(iv) Celibacy (brahmacharya),

(v) Non-acceptance of others' possessions (aparigraha)

(2) The physical structure of the individual body and nervous system, is the base or adhara.

The state of Yoga is found established in the field of the body

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and nervous system when man's life is naturally upheld by the five rules of life (niyama):

(i) Purification (shaucha),

(ii) Contentment (santosha),

(iii) Austerity (tapas),

(iv) Study (swadhyaya),

(v) Devotion to God (Ishvara-pranidhana)....

(3) The different limbs of the body, are the sphere of posture (asana).

The state of Yoga is found established in the sphere of the limbs of the body when there is a perfect functioning of all the limbs in good coordination with each other. In this state, the body is capable of remaining in a steady posture for any length of time.

In the state of Yoga, the state of transcendental consciousness, all the limbs of the body are in perfect accord with each other, fully alert, but not yet set in action.

(4) The sphere of the individual breath, is the sphere of breathing exercises (pranayamd).

In the state of Yoga, the activity of breath comes automatically to rest....

The remaining four spheres of Patanjali's Yoga are Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi

Pratyahara means gathering towards, checking the outgoing powers of the mind and freeing it from the slavery of the senses.

Dharana refers to, "holding of the one object of concentration to the exclusion of all other ideas and mental activities."

Dhyana is a kind of "meditation; contemplation; inner concentration of the consciousness; going inside in samadhi; prolonged absorption of the mind in the object of concentration."

Samadhi is the final stage or goal of Yoga in which the Yogi finds himself as the immortal. Further, "Samadhi is that condition of illumination where union as union disappears, only the meaning of the object on which the attention is fixed being present."²

A perusal of Patanjali's exposition of Yoga makes it clear that an individual has to follow and observe certain rules of conduct and lead an integrated life. It has rightly been emphasised that these eight limbs of Patanjali's Yoga are not different steps but they are states which require continuous practice. In other words, Yama,

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Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi are integrated in such a manner as enables the individual to attain oneness with the universe and transcendental consciousness (Samadhi). All these concepts and principles should find their due place in Indian educational psychology.

YOGA PSYCHOLOGY IN EDUCATION

We know that social and criminal behaviour may have biological as well as social bases. There was a time, especially due to the work of Lombroso (1835-1909), who is often considered as the father of criminology, when crime was supposed to have biological bases. Hence numerous studies have been made in the present century with a view to establishing relationship between personality and constitutional factors. The old dictum, as a man thinks so he becomes, is true in this context rather indirectly.

The biological theories of criminality have tried to show that the bodily make-up of an individual affects his mental activities so much so that he may lose his moral and social sensibilities. In Yoga a balance is established between body and mind. In the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the perfection of the body occupies an extremely important place. In the context of physical culture, Sri Aurobindo stated:

"The perfection of the body, as great a perfection as one can bring about by the means at our disposal, must be the ultimate aim of the physical culture. Perfection is the true aim of all culture, the spiritual and the psychic, the mental, the vital and it must be the aim of our physical culture also."³

It may be borne in mind that the perfection of body is essential for the practice of Yoga. In the Hatha Yoga great emphasis has been laid on making the body supple and free from all tamasic (inertia of consciousness and force) tendencies . Thus in order to help children in their integral development it is necessary to teach Yoga right from the early years. The practice of Yoga can help a child right from the beginning to avoid pitfall s and lead a harmonious life. Truthfulness, non-violence, non-covetousness, celibacy and non-acceptance of others' possessions are such qualities as have immense moral and social significance.

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Patanjali put Yama developed. Yama is followed by Niyama which emphasizes the five rules of purification, contentment, austerity, study and devotion to the Divine. A child who is taught these five rules right from the beginning and practices Yama and Niyarna properly, he is bound to lead a happy social life. Thus the utility of Yoga psychology in education is beyond any doubt.

The future psychology of education has to pay greater attention to the study of the nature and development of consciousness. In Indian philosophical psychology, we have enough material for the study of the nature of consciousness. Sri Aurobindo is of the view that psychology deals with the study of consciousness and not with overt behaviour of men and animals. How pervasive is consciousness, is described by Sri Aurobindo in these words:

"All that exists or can exist in this or any other universe can be rendered into terms of consciousness; there is nothing that cannot be known. This knowing need not be always a mental knowledge. For the greater part of existence is either above or below mind, and mind can know only indirectly what is above or what is below it. But the one true and complete way of knowing is by direct knowledge."⁴

In Indian psychology of education, attention has been paid to the study of consciousness and specially of Yoga as a means of acquiring true, complete and direct knowledge. In modern psychology, the limit is the mind. In the integral psychology of Sri Aurobindo, the upper end is the supermind. Credit must go to Freud, for drawing our attention to what is below the mind, that is, the unconscious. Freud mentions, the unconscious, sub-conscious and the conscious aspects of mind. But Sri Aurobindo tells us not only what is below the mind i.e. inconscient, but also about what is above the mind, i.e., superconscient.

In the Western world a group of psychologists have started studying the nature of consciousness. Erich Newman wrote an excellent book entitled : The Origin and History of Consciousness (Routlege & Kegan Paul, U.K., Princeton, U .P., paper back in U .S .A . 1970). Carl Jung, contributed a foreword to this book in which he stated that this work was a unique hi story of the evolution of consciousness. Another remarkable book : The Origin of Consciousness in the Break

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down of the Bicameral Mind has been written by Prof. Julian Jaynes (Houghton Mifflin Co. U.S.A. 1976 pp. 467).

Thus Yoga-psychologists in India and students of para-psychology all over the world are gradually realising that ordinary human mind has limited use. There are higher reaches of human mind which must be studied by teachers and students of psychology and education. According to Sri Aurobindo, above the ordinary mind are the following planes:

(a) Higher mind - a mind of a large clarity of the spirit

(b) Illumined mind - function s by vision, a spiritual light.

(c) Intuitive mind - acts in its own self-light and does. not depend upon mental sens at ions ,and ordinary perceptions

(d) Overmind - has a global perception, establishes harmony and creates "an integral vision .

(e) Supermind - truth consciousness, highest and purest form of consciousness.

Thus we see that the study of psychology has to take into account the basic concept of consciousness, its evolution and the hierarchy of human mind as stated by Sri Aurobindo.

Another basic principle of Indian Educational Psychology is what we call samskāras. Samskaras are associations, impressions, habitual reaction patterns, fixed notions formed by one's past. In other words, "the present life of an individual is influenced by hi s past life and karma. Indian thinkers have laid a great emphasis on the immortality of soul. The body dies and not the soul. Birth after birth, an individual gains impressions and forms samskararas. There is a need for a thorough study of the role of samskaras in the social and psychological development of the child.

Thus the basic principles of Indian Psychology of education are based on Yoga psychology. Yogic practices of asanas, pranayama, dhyana etc. are its integral part. Our endeavour should be to bring these basic psychological concepts in the field of teaching and learning also so that psychic and spiritual development of the child may take place.

SITARAM JAYASAWAL

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References

¹ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhagavad-Git a (Ch. 1-6), International S.R.M. Publications, ' 967, pp, 362 -64.

² Dowsett & Jayaswal, Yoga and Education, Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry, India, 1976, pp. 75-6.

³ Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on Physical Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1967, p. 5.

⁴ Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 17, Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972, p. 21.

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REVIEW

Freud : the Man and the Cause by Ronald W. Clark; Jonathan Cape and Widens fold and Nicolson; 1980, 652 pages, £9.95.

THE author, Ronald Clark, is the biographer of Bertrand Russell, Einstein, Sir Henry Tizard, Sir Edward Appleton, J. B. S. Haldane, and he has written a family history of the Huxleys. It is an impressive record and this study of Freud, the first full-scale biography of him in nearly twenty-five years, is a very thorough piece of scholarship indeed.

Of the 652 pages, 122 are taken up by chapter sources, bibliography, and index. He uses much previously unknown material from a recently unearthed cache of family correspondence in Europe, a group of many letters to Freud describing the early days of psychoanalysis in North America, the British Public Records Office, archives in Eastern Europe, the Library of Congress, and the U.S. Archives. There are also letters from virtually unknown specialist sources. All these sources have enabled Ronald Clark to bring fresh light to bear on Freud's life.

Freud was born into a large family in very humble circumstances on 6 May, 1856, in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in a small second floor room that was the family's only home until 1859. Eventually, he was to change man's concept of himself.

Where Jung was to find himself by seeking for the meeting ground of science and religion, Freud seems to have been more of the young man looking for fame and fortune. He had a long and hard fight for recognition — he was breaking new ground and many taboos when sexuality became part of the case-histories. He was to write in a letter; 'They regard me rather as a monomaniac, while I have the distinct feeling that I have touched on one of the great secrets of nature.' (p. II4)

The author leads us through the beginnings of psychoanalysis and the roles played by hysteria and hypnotism, free-association, and psychic causes of physical ailments resulting from repression, the pushing into the unconscious of unpleasant memories that the patient wished to forget.

Chapter 8 is called "Splendid Isolation .-Disaster." Freud was

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to write of this period in a letter; 'It was a beautiful, heroic, period; the splendid isolation was not devoid of advantages and charm.' The disaster concerned hi s " seduction theory" whereby small children had been assaulted by adults to lead to e. g . Neuroses. On p. 157 we find; 'There were actual neuroses brought about by Current sexual problems and divided into neurasthenia, caused by excessive masturbation, and anxiety neurosis, caused by frustrated sexual stimulation; and psychoneuroses which were caused by sexual abuse by an adult in childhood.' The latter de veloped into hysteria or obsess ional neurosis. But later Freud doubted hi s own ideas about this - for one thing it seemed
to involve wholesale perversion by adults (p. 161).

Instead he inclined to reverse the situation and saw childish sexuality in a new light. At this time (1897) ^{ne was} undergoing self-analysis using his own dreams. He was suffering from over-work and the author observes (p. 165); it is not too much of an exaggeration to claim... that throughout 1897 he survived a creative illness.' Chapter 9 is called "Splendid Isolation: Recovery". This featured the creation of the Oedipus theory; 'It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father.' (p. 168). The Oedipus theory was to appear in Freud's The Interpr etation of Dreams, published in November 1899, although dated 1900 .

Eventually Freud came to see this complex as the centre post of the entire structure of psychoanalysis. Although the "seduction theory" was Freud's fir st error, he was very keen to establish a sexual theory as a fundamental dogma, or bulwark.

A hallmark of the slow growth of psychoanalysis was both harmony and discord. A small band of devoted followers gathered round Freud on Wednesday evenings in Vienna; but gradually quarrels and bickering were to plague him virtually throughout his life in a series of defections. He had the [greatest difficulty in achieving the titles of Professor at the University, which came to him only after many rejections.

However all was by no means negative. With the publication of Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), Freud received real p raise. For example, The British Medical Journal said; 'Certainly none can read these essay s without an inward acknowledgement of the author's acumen, courage and endless patience in the pursuit of truth; nor,

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having read them, fail to realise more clearly the need for fuller knowledge and more careful guidance of the gradual unfolding of the sexual life.''

By the end of 1905 Freud had groups of supporters in England, the United States, and in Switzerland where Carl Jung was working in Zurich.

Along with Jung, Freud went to America in 1909 to lecture at Clark University and received an honorary degree — Freud's first major acknowledgement. Freud wrote (p. 267); 'In Europe I felt as though I were despised; but ever {in Worcester) I found myself received by the foremost men as equal.. .psychoanalysis was no longer a product of delusion____'

The author deals with the "defections" of Adler, who wanted to substitute the will to power for the sexual drive, and Jung, who wanted to regard the libido as a drive of general psychic energy, which would be sublimated in the process of individual individuation of the inner Self. The squabbling and intrigue were terrible especially when one thinks these were among the most civilised people on the planet.

After the war Freud, greatly helped by such as Ernest Jones in England, had much repair work and rebuilding to get his international groups established again. Also, he was developing his ideas about the Pleasure Principle, the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego (the mental horses that must be driven in harmony) and the Death Instinct (p. 436/437). Freud was up against the old difficulty of the inability to test his ideas with same empirical verifiability of science, but the author does say (p. 438); there is at least some evidence for three motivational factors in much behaviour.,'

As Freud approached his sixty-seventh year it was found that he had cancer requiring extensive and complicated surgery, aggravated by further personal bereavements. But by the late autumn of 1923 the cancer was being held at bay and he had many years left to him until 1939; psychoanalysis was spreading into most European countries; Japan, Russia, Australia and South Africa. A good deal of the fight had been won, even if many quarrels, difficulties, desertions and questions of method and principle still remained.

With the passing of time and the rise of the Nazis, Freud became increasingly pessimistic having no high opinion of mass-man. Four of his five sisters were to die in concentration camps. With good work by Ernest Jones in England and the personal attention of President

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Roosevelt, Freud and his wife Martha and some members of his family managed to get to England. He was now in his eighties. He was soon at work on An Outline of Psycho-Analysis restating the basic theories in the light of the id, ego, and super ego. The majority of his close relatives were now safe. H e died at 3 a.m. on September 23 rd,1939·

The author writes (p. 528); 'The importance of the unconscious in motivating human conduct, which Freud was the first to utilise in trying to cure mental illness, is now part of accepted knowledge; so, too, is the existence of infantile sexuality... Had he done nothing more than make these two discoveries.. .his fame would have been assured.' He felt the best thing was for biologists and psychoanalysts to try to meet and, today, this is what is happening in treatment everywhere.

Freud's was a brave and gallant life, and Ronald Clark does good justice to it.

DESMOND TARRANT

Kashmir Shaivism: Sivasutras — The Yoga of Supreme Identity, by :Jaideva Singh, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1979, pp. 278 and a Preface and an Introduction, Rs. 45/- (Paper), Rs. 60/- (Cloth). Pratyabhijnahridayam, by :Jaideva Singh, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1977, Second Edition, pp. 187 and a Preface and an Introduction, Rs. 40/- (Cloth), Rs. 30/- (Paper) .

Several systems of philosophy and methods of spiritual sadhana based upon the Shaiva Agamas flourished in Kashmir from the 9th century onwards. They are now grouped under the general title 'Kashmir Shaivism'. The systems themselves are known as Pratyabhijna, Krama and Kula and Trika is a general description of them. Abhinavagupta, the great writer on poetics, dramaturgy and music, was an equally great metaphysician and yogi. His famous work Tantrāloka is a veritable Encyclopaedia of Agamic philosophy and practice. The two books being reviewed here are extremely important for the understanding respectively of a basic agama and a monograph which is a most convenient summary of the Pratyabhiñia system.

The first book, Siva-Sūtra, is an agama which means it is claimed

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to be a revealed scripture. It is a difficult work and though it has a fine blend of philosophical principles and spiritual practices, it would not be wrong to say that the emphasis is on the latter. This English translation will be welcome not only by all students of Kashmir Shaivism but also by anyone who is interested in spiritual realistic idealism. Sri Jaideva Singh has in a long introduction explained lucidly and accurately the fundamental concepts enunciated in this agama as well as the basic methods of agamic sadhana. He has translated the somewhat quaint Sanskrit of the text in clear English in such a manner that the hidden implications of the doctrines are brought out most helpfully. He has appended exhaustive expositions of the aphorisms and the commentary thereon composed by Kshemaraja, one of Abhinavagupta disciple. The agama is full of technical terms which are not intelligible to a reader not initiated into their true significances except with the expert help of one who has not only entered into the spirit of its philosophy and practical methods but has also grasped its truth and value respectively. There is more than ample evidence that Sri Jaideva Singh has done this in a pre-eminent degree. He has had the enviable advantage of studying the works under the authoritative guidance of Swami Lachman Joo, probably the last of the barons among great Shaiva teachers in Kashmir. It is only fitting that the book is dedicated to him. Having studied the work with the same master, I can vouch for the authenticity of the translation made and the interpretation given by Sri Singh.

The agama is said to have been revealed to Vasugupta and the commentary, as pointed out above, is the work of Kshemaraja. This system is strictly monistic. The ultimate Reality is Shiva. He is not one of the Puranic Trinity who is in this system called Rudra. Shiva is pure cit or Chaitanya, the Self who is at the same time Shakti, both Prakasha and Vimarsa, that is, to express the ideas in rather inadequate English words, Consciousness and the complete and eternal Self-Consciousness inherent in it. This'!' is in the language of the system Pūrnāhantā, the integral I-ness. Shakti has five aspects Chit, Ananda, Ichchasi, Jnana and Kriya, power of Self aware ness, Delight, Will, Knowledge and Action. By the exercise of the ability for self-concealment, Shiva becomes limited as the empirical self who is described as anu, the atom or atomic soul and

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paśu, one who is fettered by pāśa, fetters. Thus Jiva is only bound Shiva who is Jiva liberated.

The system says that the world is the result of the avaroha, descent of Shiva who becomes hidden in Matter and then follows droha , ascent of Consciousness back to its essential integral I-ness, which is liberation. It has thirty-six tattoos or categories and the universe is divided into two halves, the lower and the higher. The former comprises of Maya, which is defined as the knowledge of bheda, difference, Purusha and down to mdhdbhiitas - all categories in the lower prakriti. Purusha in Maya is covered by five limitations of knowledge, interest, action, space-time and regulation. The higher half includes five categories from Shudhavidya to Shiva which it should be noted is not the supreme Reality but the first category of universal manifestation. These five categories represent progressivee stages in the process of overcoming the sense of difference of the universe from the Self. They are stages of integration of Shiva with Shakti, the former in this context being the transcendent aspect of the Reality and the latter the immanent. When Shiva self-limits himself, there occurs a break between Consciousness, bodha and its Freedom, sudtantrya, which is the same as Vimarsha or integral 1ness. In the five higher categories the ascending Jiva comes to know it self as conscious spiritual soul and yet lacks full freedom. The perfect integration of Shiva and Shakti, of Prakasha and Vimarsha, represents the state of Parama-Shiva to attain which is the Jiva's spiri tual destiny.

The text describes in great detail three means of attaining liberation — anava, shakta and shambhava in order of increasing excellence. Space does not permit me to give the details of these three methods. But the main point is that in the first the seeker has to use all manner of external methods — japa, dhyana, etc. — which can be transcended as one progresses towards the second and the third. Eventually the third and the best method turns out to be the complete elimination of vicdras,

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ters of the Sanskrit alphabet which are called mātrkā-s and which are concentrations of Power. They bind the atomic soul but also deliver it. The universe is said to be contained in the word AHAM, I. A representing Anuttara - higher than which there is nothing', HA represents Shakti and the bindu, M is the symbol of the union of the two.

It is to be noted that there are two kinds of both knowledge and ignorance mentioned in the system. There is the innate ignorance in the soul, paurusa-ajñāna, which is the result of the self-limitation of Shiva, also called ānava-mala, the impurity of atomicity. When this is removed, there dawns true knowledge of the Self, paurusa jñāna. There is also ignorance in reason bauddha ajñāna and there is knowledge in reason bauddha jñāna which is attained by the study of scriptures, philosophy etc. The ignorance inherent in the spiritual soul cannot be removed except by the descent of Grace, anugraha of Shakti, the Conscious-Force of Shiva. This counteracts nigraha, self-concealment which is deliberate on the part of Shiva. Anugraha and Nigraha are two of Shiva's eternal functions, the other three being sruti, creation, sthiti, preservation and pralaya, dissolution of the universe. In the process of sadhana the sadhaka achieves various supernormal powers, which are in the last analysis said to be not the aim of spiritual life. But the system maintains that when full knowledge dawns on the liberated soul, then even the body is seen to be a formation of Consciousness and the senses become transformed in such a manner that they experience Shiva everywhere and in everything . However the soul liberated while alive in the body truly becomes Parama Shiva after the death of the physical body.

The second work is a manual of the Pratyabhiña system written by Kshemaraja. It is a most convenient introduction to this great system of thought and gives a marvellous summary of its cardinal principles and practices. This system adds a fourth means of self-realisation. It is Pratyabhijña or re-cognition. The idea is that since Shiva has become everything, conscious experiments are always knowing him. But though all knowledge is of Shiva, men do not recognise him as su ch . The best means of attaining liberation is therefore to recognise everything as Shiva

This work also has been admirably translated by Sri Singh who has in a long introduction summarised the fundamental principles,

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both theoretical and practical, of the system. And as in the first work under review there are in this volume also exhaustive notes and a glossary of technical terms. The notes shed considerable light on many aspects of the doctrines and methods of sadhana which are mystic and occult.

The Shivasutra-Vimarshini speaks of the unmanā-sakti which our author translates 'supramental knowledge'. It is in fact the self knowledge of Shiva and the power by which he manifests himself as the universe. In view of the fact that the philosophy expounded in this famous agama is very similar to that of Sri Aurobindo, I may be permitted to make a comment on the difference between unmanasakti and the supermind as explained by Sri Aurobindo. Though there are striking similarities, there are also ba sic differences. One of the chief ones is that it is by the supramental Knowledge-Will that Sachchidananda assumes individuality without any limit ation of being, consciousness, power and delight in Sri Aurobindo's system. In the system delineated in the two books under review, individuality is the result of self-limitation of Shiva in whose essential and fully manifest nature there is no limitation and therefore no individuality. In the system of Sri Aurobindo the Divine has three statuses - Transcendent, Universal and Individual. The individual Divine Soul is perfectly aware that it is the universal and transcendent Divine which assumes individuality for, among other things, self knowledge, self-action and self-enjoyment. The individual soul which has forgotten its true, spiritual individuality and is bound in Ignorance can also by elevation and expansion of consciousness realise what Sri Aurobindo calls universal-individuality, it becomes a centre of Consciousness which embraces universality and yet remains an individual. This is an idea which is not admitted, in fact it is inadmissible, in the systems expounded in the two books which I am reviewing.

A second capital difference between Sri Aurobindo and the other two systems is their respective attitudes towards the ultimate destiny of the body. In the first among the three mentioned, the physical body is to be divinised and made a perfect instrument of the unveiled manifestation of the Divine in and through matter here in the physical world, a possibility not envisaged by the two systems of Kashmir Shaivism.

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Be that as it may, the two books cannot be too highly recommended both to the general reader and the eager and earnest student of Kashmir Shaivism, indeed of Indian philosophy. The author has produced two excellent pieces of work which eminently deserve to be widely read and appreciated.

ARABINDA BASU

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