The descent of the supramental can hasten things, but it is not going to act as a patent medicine or change everything in the twinkle of an eye.

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

EDITORIAL

NOT TO DESTROY BUT TO TRANSFORM

UP TO now, spiritual life or discipline usually meant a division — division between spiritual and unspiritual, between what is a help or what forms a base for the higher life and what hinders and takes one away from it. This naturally led one to develop the first and kill the other.

But for us there is no such radical division. For us everything in its truth is spiritual. Indeed there are deformations, disfigurations, wrong knowledge of things, but there is nothing anti-spiritual. All that we are to do is to wash, reform, change and transform, correct and fulfil — not to destroy or annihilate.

We do not uproot the past but replace. There is here no nirodha, suppression with a view to abolition. That is not our way. Ignorance does not imply absence of the Divine. One can find the Divine even there, in the very depths of the inconscience the touch of the Divine can be felt. For not only is the Divine there but the Divine is that.

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There can be really no cutting apart of the Divine from the non-Divine. Only we must find Him out, discover Him in His true form, shorn of the disguise. The guise grows transparent and He emerges resplendent in His light. Not to reject or discard but to replace the wrong appearance with the right is our way. We merge the human volition in the Divine Will, turn all the obscure movements of our ignorance into true movements of the Divine Consciousness. We adore and worship and approach the Divine in all things and everywhere, in His true light and form. We strive to see him established and revealed in all existence.

All is divine and all is in the Divine. This truth is to be realised in life. To let Him reveal himself in his own truth is our sa-dhana, our way. That is why for us 'All life is Yoga'.

Even Ravana is destroyed not to be simply destroyed but to become an adorer of Rama.

To sacrifice does not merely mean to slay but to dedicate.

(From notes taken in a class of Nolini Kanta Gupta)

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SRI AUROBINDO, MINSTREL OF FAITH AND LOVE

Lecture II

Only the Eternal's strength in us can dare

To attempt the immense adventure of the climb

And sacrifice of all we cherish here.

(Savitri, II. 12)

WILL Durant has written in his great book The Story of Civiliza-' " tion that Faith and Reason have been at war from the dawn of civilization, with victory changing hands alternately between the two eternal antagonists, till today science founded on reason seems to have driven faith to the wall. But the man of faith has by no means lost heart yet and sings on, contending that appearance is not always the ultimate reality. So while the primitive man's animistic credo has been supplanted by the verdict of the civilized intellectual, the sages and saints, seers and prophets, do still align themselves with minstrels of faith, demonstrating with their radiant lives that we walk with God not guided by the rush lights of reason but by the star-shine of faith, and that is why the denial of the materialist has not finally prevailed against the certitude of the God-rapt illuminate. Goethe was one of the elect who seized this when he sang:

Sagt es niemand, nur den Weisen,

Denn die Menge gleich verhonet:

Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen

Das nach Flammentod sich sehnet.

 

If tell you must, tell the wise alone who know,

For the others will but call it folly, not faith:

"I only worship the great souls who glow

To hail the fire as kin, defying death."

This is not rhetoric: it is truth, attested by the glowing lives of saints and martyrs who sacrifice everything to make the cause live. Sri Aurobindo has proclaimed this eternal truth in Savitri:

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"Men die that man may live and God be born."

But this is the gospel not of the practical reasoning intellect which can see men die but not God being reborn like the Phoenix rising from the cinders of its funeral pyre. For that one must win to the third eye of Vision — the divyacaksu which Krishna gave to Arjuna so he might behold the Universe in His viśvarūpa.

But alas, in this age of the triumphal pageant of Science and Technology the sages and saints who thrill in the glory of the "Great Sun-resplendent Being overarching darkling of life"¹ are at a disadvantage because they belong to a microscopic minority who have seen and as such can be easily outvoted by the vast majority who have not seen.

When Sri Aurobindo first initiated me in his Yoga of self-surrender he enjoined me to be lessoned in humility and cultivate the aspiration for faith first and last and in the middle. I was at a loss because though I had a genuine reverence for the man of God, I revered, withal, the intellectual — the utterly honest materialist, the man of science, who hails today so robustly the torch of Reason as the one and only reliable pathfinder in the labyrinth of life. So I went on questioning with my doubting mind the validity of what he termed the findings of the "psychic being". In other words (I asked) could a stable faith be possibly based on the hearsay evidence of saints, an acceptance be recommended before experience?² He wrote back:

"First of all, faith does not depend upon experience, it is something that is there before experience. When one starts the Yoga, it is not usually on the strength of experience, but on the strength of faith. And it is so not only in yoga and the spiritual life, but in ordinary life also. All men of action, discoverers, inventors, creators of knowledge proceed by faith and, until the proof is made or the thing done, they go on in spite of disappointment, failure, disproof, denial, — because of something in them that tells them that this is the

¹ Vedāhametam purusam mahantam

ādityavarnam tamasah parastāz

(SHVETASHVATARA UPANISHAD)

² I also asked him whether our illuminates in India were right in holding that in the domain of the soul, as against that of the mind, one must first accept before one could begin to know. He answered in the affirmative in his advocacy of faith.

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truth, the thing that must be followed and done. Sri Ramakrishna even went so far as to say, when asked whether blind faith was not wrong, that blind faith was the only kind to have, for faith is either blind or it is not faith but something else: reasoned inference, proved conviction or ascertained knowledge."

His admonition startled me, the more so as it recalled to my mind an epistle of Paul in which he had averred: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I was reminded also of a simile I had heard somewhere, to the effect that faith is like the first rose flush in the sky before the dawn promising the advent of the sun. But Sri Aurobindo's pronouncement was more inspiring:

"Faith is the soul's witness to something not yet manifested, achieved or realised, but which yet the Knower within us, even in the absence of all indications, feels to be true or supremely worth following or achieving... who is there that practised the Yoga and had not his periods, long periods of disappointment and failure and disbelief and darkness? But there is something that sustains him and goes on in spite of himself, because it feels that what it followed after was yet true, and it more than feels, it knows. The fundamental faith in yoga is this, inherent in the soul, that the Divine exists and the Divine is the one thing to be followed after — nothing else in life is worth having in comparison with that."¹

Apropos, I sent up to him a letter from a friend who chided me for turning to Yoga accepting the lead of blind faith which "right reason" has repudiated today, the world over, "hook, line and sinker." Gurudev wrote back at once:

"He upbraids you for losing your reason in blind faith. But what is his own opinion of things except a reasoned faith? You believe according to your faith which is quite natural, he believes according to his own opinion which is natural also, but no better so far as the likelihood of getting at the true truth of things is in question. His opinion is according to his reason? But so are the opinions of his political opponents according to their reason, yet they affirm the very opposite idea to his. How is reasoning to show which is right? The opposite parties can argue till they are blue in the face — they won't be anywhere nearer a decision. In the end, he prevails who

¹ Afore Lights on Yoga, p. 106.

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has greater force or whom the trend of things favours. But who can look at the world as it is and say that the trend of things is always (or ever) according to right reason — whatever this thing called right reason may be? As a matter of fact there is no universal infallible reason which can decide and be the umpire between conflicting opinions, there is only my reason, your reason, X's reason, Y's reason, multiplied up to the discordant innumerable."¹

This letter has been acclaimed by hundreds of truth-seekers as one of Sri Aurobindo's most revealing pronouncements defining boldly the limits of reason which swears first and last by logic. In fact I was deeply shaken, because I had come to hail reason as the ultimate pilot to the harbour of Truth, Peace and abiding Harmony following unwaveringly the clue of Reason based on mental logic. When I received this letter I felt an electric shiver zigzagging up my spine, as Sri Ramakrishna's simile flashed through my memory, that one has to extract a thorn with another thorn after which both the thorns have to be thrown away: ergo, the thorn of rational doubt must be plucked with reason to be led finally to the blissful truth of the spirit after which reason can be safely dispensed with. "Eureka!" sang my heart now coming home at last. "I must, from now on, accept faith and not reason, as the monitor in my quest for spiritual truth." Sri Aurobindo shed more light on this question in another letter:

"You must get rid of an exaggerated insistence on the use of reason and the correctness of your individual reasoning and its right to decide on all matters. The reason has its place especially with regard to certain physical things and wordly questions — though even there it is a very fallible judge — but its claim to be the decisive authority in matters of Yoga or in spiritual things is untenable____ It has always been understood that the reason and its logic or its judgement cannot give you the realisation of spiritual truths but can only assist in an intellectual presentation of ideal; realisation comes by intuition and inner experience. Reason and intellectuality cannot make you see the Divine, it is the soul that sees... one can depend on one's reason in other matters... but it is not safe to depend on it alone in matters which escape its jurisdiction, especially in spiritual realisation and in matters of Yoga which belongs to a different order of knowledge."¹

¹ More Lights on Yoga, p. 107.

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He went on explaining to me with an infinite patience which had to be seen to be believed, a feat which only his divine love could achieve. And it began like this.

It was I who first started asking him questions about the ideology and modus operandi of his Integral Yoga. But as he answered most of my pointed questions I showed his letters joyously to my brother disciples who, taking their cue from me, began, in their turn, to send him long letters bristling with all sorts of questions. That was understandable, but the amazing thing was that one who had declined Dr. Radhakrishnan's repeated requests to contribute an article should have so readily responded to the likes of us and gone on answering our interminable questions not only about yoga, but about poetry, personalities, metres, the riddle of the world and what not! I often wondered how could a Colossus of his stature go on thus spending his precious time and energy on writing no end of letters to us, importunate Lilliputians! To think that one whom the Indian National Congress implored again and again to resume the country's leadership, a savant whose writings were universally admired and, above all, a great poet whose verses inspired hundreds of litterateurs should have met half-way us his inconsiderate proteges who not only failed him but actually misunderstood his teaching over and over again! He wrote to me a few years later (during which time he had gone on writing numerous letters to us four or five hours nightly) that he had to cry halt with a sigh because his letters had not been of much material help to his questioning critics. I asked him lightly why on earth did he choose to complain of feckless critics — he being what he was: a deputy of the Divine. To that he replied gallantly: "But why on earth do you deny me the right even to a divine grumble?"²

But although he wanted to make light of the tragedy, I could not help but regret that he had to come down constantly to our level to give us the guidance we needed and yet refused to accept, which made him sigh and grumble !³ But then was this not the most convincing proof of his love divine which made him write in Bengali to a

¹ This famous oft-quoted letter is printed in full in Sri Aurobindo's Letters on Yoga — Tome One, p. 158.

² Printed in my Among the Great... p. 341.

³ Once he wrote to me: "If they don't want to follow me why do they ask me to lead?"

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careless female disciple how to hold the broom while sweeping the floor? He wrote any number of such letters. He wrote about it all in a subsequent letter to me:

"It is only divine love which can bear the burden I have to bear, that all have to bear who have sacrificed everything else to the one aim of uplifting earth out of its darkness to the Divine. The Gallio-like 'je-m'en-fiche'-ism (I don't care) would not carry me one step."

He has improvised on this soul-stirring theme of love divine in his Savitri:

"The great who come to save this suffering world...

Must pass beneath the yoke of grief and pain...

On their shoulders they must bear man's load of fate,

How shall he cure the ills he never felt?

He carries the suffering world in his own breast,

Its sins weigh on his thoughts, its grief is his...

His march is a battle and a pilgrimage."¹

This assertion was intrinsically auto-biographical. He wrote to me in 1935:

"But what strange ideas again! — that I was born with a supra-mental temperament and that I know nothing of hard realities! Good God! My whole life has been a struggle with hard realities, from hardships, starvation in England, and constant dangers and fierce difficulties continually cropping up here in Pondicherry external and internal. My life has been a battle from its early years and is still a battle..."

There was a time when a gang of goondas was appointed to kidnap him from Pondicherry to be delivered to the British C.I.D. in Madras. A dear friend of mine — one of his oldest disciples — told me that they had to stand guard at night with revolvers. A hair-raising drama, indeed!

But this was not all. He was at this time (1910-1913) such a complete destitute that he had to write again and again to friends to send him some money urgently. He wrote to one Anandarao (June 1912):

"At present I am at the height of my difficulties, in debt, with no

¹ Savitri v. 2.

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money for the morrow and all who could help are¹... beyond communication."² To another (July 3, 1912): "I send enclosed a letter to to our Marathi friend ... procure for me by will power or any other power in heaven or earth Rs. 50, at least as a loan." To another: "I need Rs. 50 for own expenses and Rs. 10 not for myself, but still absolutely indispensable." (5.5.1914).³

But his sigh notwithstanding, his letters to us, his accepted disciples, did serve a divine purpose in that they came to appease, albeit partially, our long-standing grievance that he had chosen to stay unapproachable and all but invisible. A poet friend of mine — now, alas, no more! — often wailed that Gurudev had grown into a legend in his life-time — an akasher Bhagavan, a Deity of the sky!

Yes, that was the crux of the trouble, the cause of sigh so many of us heaved intermittently to no purpose till once, after four years of self-conflict under his aegis, I finally decided to call it a day and wrote to him a valedictory letter saying that it was not feasible to practise his Yoga without any personal contact with him. So — I raced on in my jeremiad — I was going to leave him for good. I asked him to forgive me but he must dismiss me now, I wrote, if only to be relieved of a useless burden... and so on and so forth. To that he replied instantly. It was a very moving letter. He wrote: (10.5.32)

"It is quite impossible for me to dismiss you or consent to your going away like this from us. If the idea of this kind of separation is possible to you, for us it is inconceivable that our close relation should end like this. I had thought that the love and affection that the Mother and I bear to you had been made evident by us. But if you say you cannot believe in it or cannot accept it with the limitations on its outward manifestation that not our choice but inexorable necessity imposes on us for a time, I do not know how to convince you. I could not believe that you would really find it in your heart to go or take such a step when it came to the point. As it is, I can only appeal to you not to allow yourself to be swept away by this attack, to remain faithful even in suffering to your soul that brought you here and to believe in our love that can never waver."

I wrote back, of course, asking to be forgiven, upon which he

¹ Centenary, Supplement Vol. 26, p. 425.

² Ibid., p. 426.

³ Ibid., p. 451.

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wrote to me again, reassuring me: (16.5.32).

"You do not belong to yourself— you belong to the Divine and myself... I have cherished you like a friend and a son and have poured on you my force to develop your powers — to make an equal development in the yoga. We claim the right to keep you here as our own with us."

It was this innate tenderness of his incredible love that held me captive at his feet for over two decades, enabling me to fend off the "attacks" of the demonic forces which strove sleeplessly to wean me from him because he was appointed by the Divine to divinise our human nature. It is to fulfil this mission that he employed his Messianic power, in prose and verse, to convince us about the utter reality of the Divine-Grace which alone could make the clod claim kinship with God.

That he was missioned by the Supreme to "make the earth a mate and peer of heaven,"¹ I did believe in my heart of hearts, especially in my breathtaking moments of flaming aspiration and ecstatic fervour when I was most vividly conscious of my blessedness in winning the love of such a king among men, but alas, there was the Old Adam in me that came in the way and made me hark back to what I had left to seek refuge at his hallowed feet.

This is no mere sentimental effervescence. Those who have once savored his alchemic love and experienced its miraculous power of making faith flower in the mire of doubt could recant nevermore, still less disown the right of his love's ownership, a love which never spoke de haut en bas, nor failed to come down to our abyss to elevate us to the peak of our natal home. At least I did feel in spite of all my recalcitrance that he was born with the Lord's seal of authority to grant us the passport to heaven's portals with the miracle signature of his love divine.

But his love was made not merely of tenderness: there was an element of intolerant fire in it which visited to purge the gold in our heart of all its dross. In a letter he wrote about his love which began with the human element but changed gradually into its divine counterpart:

"First about human love in Sadhana. The soul's turning through love to the Divine must be through a love that is essentially divine,

¹ Savitri, The Book of Everlasting Day, Book XI.

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but as the instrument of expression at first is a human nature, it takes the form of human love and bhakti. It is only as the consciousness deepens, heightens and changes that the greater eternal love can grow in it and openly transform the human into the divine."

Then referring to my "harking back" to what I still sometimes regretted to forfeit, he added :¹

"You describe the rich human egoistic life you might have lived and you say: 'Not altogether a wretched life, you will admit.' On paper it sounds very glowing and satisfactory, as you describe it. But there is no real or final satisfaction in it, except for those who are too common or trivial to seek anything else, and even they are not really satisfied or happy, — and in the end it tires and palls. Sorrow and illness, clash and strife, disappointment, disillusionment, and all kinds of human suffering come and beat its glow to pieces — and then decay and death. That is the vital egoistic life as man has found throughout the ages, and yet it is that which this part of your vital regrets? How do you fail to see, when you lay so much stress on the desirability of a merely human consciousness, that suffering is its badge? When the vital resists the change from the human into the divine consciousness, what it is defending is its right to sorrow and suffering and all the rest of it, varied and relieved no doubt by some vital or mental pleasure and satisfactions, but very partially relieved by them and only for a time. In your own case, it was already beginning to pall on you and that was why you turned from it."

Sri Aurobindo's letter recalled to my mind an inspiring poem of A. E. (George Russell) whom he loved and called a Yogi-poet:

What shall they have, the wise,

Who stay by the familiar ways...

Who shun the infinite desire

And never make the sacrifice

By which the soul is changed to fire?

Sri Aurobindo never belonged to this school of the worldly-wise who play safe; he aligned himself, first and last, to the Pleiad who cannot help but stake their all for the All-in-all, who put all their eggs

¹ Quoted from my Among the Great, p. 259 — also printed subsequently in his Letters on Yoga, Tome I, p. 80.

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in one basket, hailing the "infinite desire", set on sacrificing the certain for the great Uncertain. No wonder his soul has been transformed early by the fire of the reckless revolutionary to culminate, eventually, in the unquenchable Flame (Agni) of the born yogi who sang with the Upanishad: "Nālpe sukham asti" "that which perishes can bring no abiding bliss."¹ Indeed, there is a very moving song of Dwijendralal's which always reminded me of Sri Aurobindo's mystic appeal to answer the Flute-call of the Infinite:

Oi mahāsindhur opār theke ki sangita bhese āse...

What haunting strains of music, hark, come wafted on the breeze

From the other shore — beyond the bourne less deep? Who calls to me

So tenderly: "O come away! here all is song and peace

In eternal spring, unmarred by death and dark disharmony:

The earth's evergreen and gloom is banished everlastingly.

Why groan beneath life's dismal load, and grasping at shadows, cry,

When the Ocean of Nectar chants below and the Moon of Grace on high?

Disown your chains, 'tis time now you returned to your home again,

Nor blindly hug your pen, fool, by the Siren Maya beguiled.

Know: only the ones who've loved me shall my term less Bliss attain:

How can you still in exile stay in an alien world, my child?"

Shelley sighed: "Rarely, rarely, comest thou,/Spirit of Delight!" Still more rarely comes down a Ministrel of His bliss and light and love, a "Messenger of the Incommunicable,"² like Sri Aurobindo whose flashes are —

¹ Call of Brinddban (translation mine) — Dwijendra Dipali, p. 33.

² Savitri, III. 4.

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"Like angels' visits short and bright,

Mortality's too weak to bear them long."¹

But to revert once more to mortality... Yes, Sri Aurobindo did come down to us, "prisoners of a dwarf humanity"² to sing athrill of the Vision accorded to him in Alipore Jail by Lord Krishna when he was in the dire throes of doubt as to the reality of the Spirit as well as the basis of material Life. It was presumably this apocalyptic epiphany, which burst upon him in his zero hour, that regenerated him radically, endowing him with the third Eye of Light and revealing to him the miracle truth of the spirit working as a hidden leaven to transform the dross of life, a call he wrote about in his inimitable vein:

"The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man's real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe."³

I was so moved by this great exhortation that I wrote to him a poem — or shall I say a paean — pledging my word that I would follow him to Journey's end. But incidentally, I asked him — to draw him out — whether the "ascent" he sang about stemmed from an indubitable experience as concrete and perceptible as our earthly light. He wrote in reply a long soul-stirring letter like a Kindly Light to lead me on:

"I will begin not with doubt but with the demand for the Divine as a concrete certitude, quite as concrete as any physical phenomenon caught by the senses. Now, certainly, the Divine must be such a certitude not of mental thought but of essential experience. When the Peace of God descends on you, when the Divine Presence is there within you, when the Ananda rushes on you like a sea, when you are driven like a leaf before the wind by the breath of the Divine Force, when Love flowers out from you on all creation, when Divine Knowledge floods you with a Light which illumines and transforms in a moment all that was before dark, sorrowful and obscure, when all

¹ Rev. John Morris — The Parting.

² Savitri, IV. 3.

³ The Life Divine: Man in the Universe.

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that is becomes part of the One Reality., when the Reality is all around you, you feel at once by the spiritual contact, by the inner vision, by the illumined and seeing thought, by the vital sensation and even by the very physical sense, everywhere you see, hear, touch only the Divine, — then you can much less doubt it or deny it than you can deny or doubt daylight or air or the sun in heaven — for of these physical things you cannot be sure that they are what your senses represent them to be; but in the concrete experiences of the Divine, doubt is impossible."¹

DILIP KUMAR ROY

(Delivered under the auspices of the Poona University)

 

¹ Quoted from Sri Aurobindo's letter to me, printed in his Letters on Yoga, Tome One, pp. 161-162.

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WHAT THE ASHRAM ESSENTIALLY IS

IN the gross physical way, the Ashram is the central building, where the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is, and all the scattered houses, large and small, where the various activities of the Ashram are carried on and where the sadhaks and the children of the Centre of Education live. Next, under' the same perception of things, we are likely to think of the persons who run the various departments and manage the Ashram as a whole.

This is, however, all a matter of the overt form, of the apparent shape of things. And this, indeed, has its own significance. Yet the essential form and quality of the Ashram is different, the real power to soothe, to inspire, to give joy and confidence, to promote the spiritual pursuit and to turn men's minds, to God and Truth lies elsewhere. However, the apparent form of the Ashram is intended to be and should be a representation as best as possible of the essential reality. Yet the two are different and need to be recognised so in the interest of a clear-minded and steady pursuit of one's spiritual growth, unfoldments and fulfilment.

Sri Aurobindo had spoken of two atmospheres of the Ashram. He said:

"There are two atmospheres of the Ashram, ours and that of the Sadhaks. When people with a little perceptiveness come from outside, they are struck by the deep calm and peace in the atmosphere and it is only when they mix much with the Sadhaks that this perception and influence fade away. The other atmosphere of dullness and unrest is created by the Sadhaks themselves — if they were open to the Mother as they should be, they would live in the calm and peace and not the unrest and dullness."

Atmosphere is a wonderful reality of life, which we have learned to appreciate from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They primarily sought to create an atmosphere and through that sought to inspire the right thought, feeling and will in people. And indeed it works so wonderfully, pervasively, profoundly, decisively. An institution, a place and a person has a distinctive atmosphere, a distinctive vibration, a distinctive air and feeling, which represents the true quality and character of the institution, the place and the person and is independent of the professed quality and character.

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Such atmosphere has a wonderful capacity to prevail over the vagaries, the disparities and the differences of the human egos. When we are caught up in the confusions of the differing egos, we can easily feel lost. But if we can stand apart, feel free and identified with the clarity of the deeper and the higher consciousness, then even the worst confusions cannot unhinge us. And in that case, our power to help the situation and to return to clarity is really very great. Through such persons can the Higher Power in Its own subtle way restore clarity, peace and best possible harmony.

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, their consciousness, their will, their influence, their atmosphere is the Ashram essentially. A participation in this atmosphere is to live in the Ashram and enjoy its peace, its inspiration and its joy. And we serve the Ashram best when we are well aware of this atmosphere and its source and let the power of this atmosphere work and operate through us. Then we are truly, more or less, instruments of the Mother's Force. That is our best state individually as well as collectively. For this, we do need to be wide enough to feel identification with all that Mother felt identified with. Then alone can we receive Her wide and large divine Force and act as Its instruments.

But if we get caught up in the atmosphere of the sadhaks, an atmosphere of partialities, of likes and dislikes, of agitation, of complaint and blame, of all sorts of confusions, then even while living in the Ashram physically, we are not living in the spiritual Ashram of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and do not participate and share in its peace, its inspiration, its joy.

Obviously, it is so important for our spiritual welfare and the progress of our general work that we recognise the two atmospheres of the Ashram and make the correct choice for a happy growth in the adventure of spiritual life.

INDRA SEN

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ARDHANARISWARA

(AN EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM )

''THE third layer is the intellect or buddhi, which is the real instrument of thought and that which orders and disposes of the knowledge acquired by the other parts of the machine. For the purpose of the educationist this is infinitely the most important of the three I have named. The intellect is an organ composed of several groups of functions, divisible into two important classes, the functions and faculties of the right hand, the functions and faculties of the left hand. The faculties of the right-hand are comprehensive, creative and synthetic; the faculties of the left-hand critical and analytic. To the right-hand belong judgement, imagination, memory, observation; to the left-hand comparison and reasoning. The critical faculties distinguish, compare, classify, generalise, deduce, infer, conclude; they are component parts of the logical reason. The right-hand faculties comprehend, command, judge in their own right, grasp, hold and manipulate. The right-hand mind is the master of the knowledge, the left-hand its servant. The left-hand touches only the body of knowledge, the right-hand penetrates its soul. The left-hand limits itself to ascertained truth, the right-hand grasps that which is still elusive or unascertained. Both are essential to the completeness of the human reason. These important functions of the machine have all to be raised to their highest and finest working-power, if the education of the child is not to be imperfect and one-sided."

(SRI AUROBINDO — SABCL Vol. 17; p. 207)

Almost at the very beginning of this century Sri Aurobindo had drawn attention to the distinctive nature of the right and left sided functions of personality, and the need for a distinctive approach to the education of these two sides.

More than a half-century later information has begun trickling in from the neuro-physiological laboratories and clinics of the world, telling us that there is a very material and structural basis for considering the existence of the two distinct modes of function, and the need for separate attention to the two as much more than a poetic fancy or an aesthetic sentiment or an esoteric pronouncement worthy of admiration and worshipful quotation. During the last few years

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the trickle has become a flood.

The contemporary neuro-physiological information on the functions of the two hemispheres of the brain can be broadly summarised:

1. The left-half brain refers to the right-half of the body. The right-half brain refers to the left-half of the body. This reference is merely with regard to the gross movements and sensations of the body.

2. A whole complex of information from within and outside the body is available to both halves of the brain. Moreover, the two halves of the brain are connected by a broad thick band of fibers permitting mutual influence.

3. However, the most significant difference lies in the distinctive manner in which the two halves process the information continually flooding into them through the various inner and outer sensory inputs. It is probable that the brain is capable of more direct reception, too, as apart from the gross sensory apparatus.

4. The left hemisphere is a verbal, logical sequential operator, linear in time. In fact, the whole verbal function is located in the left half. This verbal function is an outstanding example of the linear, sequential process in time: one word succeeding another in time. Naturally, this mode of functioning attracts material that suits its operational capacity and tends to ignore information that does not so fit.

As if to reflect the fact that it is the glib, clever, talking sophist who has ruled and continues to rule the world, the left-half brain had been designated as the Dominant or Major hemisphere, and the right as Non-dominant or Minor. One should not underestimate the disastrous consequences a socially determined terminology has on scientific progress.

5. The right hemisphere functions on a totally different basis. It has the capacity of instantaneous computation of a variety of information available to it without being rigidly bound by time sequence. It operates on the basis of perception of total patterns rather than linear sequence. It can be seen that a whole range of total bodily operations require this sort of constant, instantaneous computation of internal and external information. A simple operation like pointing out one's nose, which looks so simple, requires that information from the nose, finger and hand, position of the head and body, blood-supply

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requirements for the various muscles involved and so on has to be instantaneously processed. This is an example of right-brain function. Only in disease or injury can the global importance of the right hemisphere be seen. Unfortunately, the right-brain cannot produce a verbal dissertation and logical support for its work. It cannot adjourn its operations pending legal sanctions.

It also appears that the right-brain participates in the work of dreaming — dreams having all the characteristics of a non-linear, intuitive, simultaneous, pattern-oriented direct perceptional quality.

6. Robert E. Ornstein, in his work on The Psychology of Consciousness, published by Jonathan Cape, London, in 1975, sums up the position thus:

If the left hemisphere can be termed predominantly analytic and sequential in its operation, then the right hemisphere is more holistic and relational, and more simultaneous in its mode of operation.

7. Evidence for these observations comes from many sources: observation on patients with known disease or injury of the separate halves of the brain; observation of the performance of patients in whom the connection between the two halves of the brain has been surgically severed, thus permitting observation of the independent operation of the two sides; electrical findings from the halves of the brain when one or the other half is being differentially examined.

Anyone can verify how the eyes of a person deviate to right or left depending on whether the person is tackling a mathematical problem or an emotional problem. The electrical activity of the right half is depressed while a verbal, logical or mathematical task is being solved; the electrical activity of the left half is depressed while an emotional or intuitive task is in hand.

8. There are about 5% of the population in whom the verbal function is not definitely situated in the left hemisphere.

9. While there is undoubtedly mutual influence one should have expected that the two halves work in harmony. The facts are otherwise. There appears to be a sort of unhappy marriage as it were with friction more in evidence than cooperation. This conflict may be at the basis of much disease in the individual and of major disasters in society.

Are we not educating the whole of the brain when we are educating a child ? Is there a single educationist who does not proclaim his

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adherence to total, integral education? Where is the need for such vociferous avowals from centuries excepting that in fact these avowals conceal woeful neglect in practice! One look at the world to-day amidst the magnificent mausoleums dedicated to education and the hatred, ugliness and rampant greed they seem to breed belies the profuse, verbal homage paid to integral education. It is not mind and body that require co-ordination: It is the two halves of the machine of the mind, says Sri Aurobindo, which require to be instructed to play their appointed roles in their evolutionary destiny.

It can be seen that, for centuries and more clearly to-day, the world's effective controls — political, economic, and naturally its educational systems — have been and are all left-brain oriented. The education of the right-brain has been sadly, almost deliberately, neglected with tragic consequences: Or else, it has been left to the various esoteric schools — of Yoga, Zen, Mysticism, Sufism and so on — all effectively sequestered from the main stream of life.

The verbally not-so facile individual, however brilliant he might otherwise be, is relegated to patronage, crucifixion or idle but profitable worship. From the very childhood, the person with prominent right-brain traits, with poor verbal expression has a tough time at home and school. The word, 'backward' is immediately applied and a highly patronising attitude displayed; the parents drag him around to specialists, and the child becomes the butt of ridicule amongst his fellows and teachers. Everything possible is done to smother his intuitive and inventive qualities under a spate of pedagogic, verbal garbage. If despite all this, the child survives and shows his usefulness, his talents are commercially exploited to the utmost. Genius and savant and explorer serve as grist for its skill in salesmanship, squeezing the maximum profit with minimum of effort. The word gymnasium refers in the west to both physical and mental education training centres: these are the outstanding monuments to the left-brain whose result is the mass production of clerks and soldiers under the guidance of the account-book. The left-brain dominated society has converted each spiritual and scientific contribution of the right-brain into a marketable commodity, and a veritable curse on humanity.

The destruction of large quantities of milk because of poor profits, while at the same time injecting cows with drugs to increase production of milk is one symbol: The bombing of whole populations

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and organising red-cross relief to the disabled and christian burial-service to the dead is another symbol: Fighting legal and armed battles to decide who has the right to give water to a particular tree while the tree is actually dying or dead is another symbol. A love-less and heart-less, cold, calculating commerce resting on a plethora of dead religious formulas of precept, precedent and respectable propriety are its sceptre and crown.

The smothered and fettered right-brain has become the slave of the left-brain. Sri Aurobindo tells us that it is just the reverse that is our goal.

The requirements for the education of the left-brain are too well known and well entrenched and too obtrusively dominant to require elaboration. However, they can be summarised: Slate and chalk; paper and pencil; class-room; debate; committee; conference; logical profundity resting on poverty and paucity of total information, and excision and exclusion of all data, evidence, objects and persons that contradict its well-oiled syllogisms; all supported by the keys to the treasury of patronage; further repetition of conference and committee to logically explain the disastrous consequences of its logic; a variety of well-furnished and upholstered rooms for its deliberations made sound-proof in order to block out the screams from life and love held in a strangle-hold emanating from these rooms.

Readers of Savitri of Sri Aurobindo will recognise the troll of reason.

It is more than eight decades since Sri Aurobindo observed the need for paying attention to this discrepancy. Educationists who desire to pay heed to his advice can ask themselves as to the steps they are taking in this direction. For instance what is the proportion of time the educational experts dedicate to verbal and non-verbal tasks? It will be good to recall the 1969 New Year message of Mother — 'No words, acts!'. It is also helpful to recall the admonition of the Mother to aspirants in Auroville that a person should devote at least five hours a day to the application of consciousness to matter, in actual work. This is the direction pointed to educationists.

The left-brain has been in saddle for centuries and it is going to be an up-hill task, a veritable battle to dislodge it. It will employ every trick, stratagem and weapon to perpetuate its dominance. As

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soon as one hints at the education of the intuitive, verbally poor right-brain, the left-brain steps in and immediately organises a conference, seminar and debate, books of reference and precedent, and mouths poetic passages on how wonderful, mystic and spiritual the right-brain is, and meantime every facility, material and time necessary for its actual education is denied or dismissed as visionary idealism. This trick of the left-brain is so ubiquitous that it is hardly noticed, least of all by its operators — very much like environmental pollution, to be taken for granted.

It is clear that while for the operation of the left-brain all that is required is words, pencils, rooms and slaves to carry out its precise logical formulations based on precedent, the right hemisphere education requires the involvement of the whole bodily machine and all the information it can provide about the universe within and without, obtained not merely from the left-brain type of organised, sequential verbal or physical drills, but from an active participation in the whole business of living, in arts, skills and crafts of every kind where precise coordination of all or almost all the parts of the body are simultaneously called for and are inbuilt in the very nature of the work itself. It is where the right hemisphere meets its challenges and grows in meeting them.

The whole life of a person's apprenticeship with his guru illustrates the point. Years of elaborate physical or total bodily tasks — sweeping floors, hewing wood, drawing water, repairing and building huts and articles, tending to land and cattle, all conducted under the loving eye of the Guru and his Spouse — were briefly interspersed with a few words of spiritual guidance. However, especially after the invention of the printing press and the emergence of departments and professors of spiritual education, the business of spiritual guidance has become the delightful and lucrative business of elaborate verbal dissertation, glossing over the whole process by which the guru was preparing the disciple's brain to a state of readiness to become the direct and perfect instrument of love and intuitive knowledge of the needs of universal love. The arm-chair vendors of spirituality present all these various activities as occupational pastimes for the idle and not-so clever disciples of olden days and not meant for really advanced persons like themselves. The economists said that all these tasks were ways of keeping the disciples gainfully employed

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in running the Guru's house-hold, and to see that the disciples were really earning and deserving the food given to them. One might recall the life of Satyavan and Savitri in their daily action as described by Sri Aurobindo to get a glimpse of the role of work of a variety of kinds as the background preparation for spirituality.

It is often said that children do not like work. What is to be deplored is the tragic, love-less and mirth-less, commercial exploitation to which they are open, rather than any basic incapacity or lack of interest on their part. One has only to note the gleam of joy in a child's eyes when he is engaged in a useful task as a fully responsible member of a loving family. It is a grotesque educational system that relegates the verbally deficient but dexterous child to a second-rate, educationally backward category.

It is necessary at this point to underline the role of love in education of the brain. The left-brain measures, calculates. Each situation, object, tree, child, man and woman is measured and treated according to the measure of usefulness in terms of the market and balance-book, the profit that can be got by use or sale of the article in question, and the saving in space and maintenance that accrues by loss or death of the article in question. There is the story of a man who prayed to God and obtained the gift of being able to understand the language of animals. He found it very profitable. One day, he heard the cow telling the dog that the horse was going to break its leg in a few days' time. Promptly the man went and sold the horse. He went on profiting by such fore-knowledge of the fate of his animals. One day he heard the dog telling the goat that soon the master of the house was going to fall and break his neck. The man howled and frantically prayed to God. When God appeared, the man told him of his predicament. "Lord," he cried, "till now your gift has been most useful, and I profited greatly by selling my animals before they fell ill. Now what am I to do!" God replied, "Very simple! Go and promptly sell yourself!"

The favourite words of the left-brain, efficiency, discipline, perfection are all so many deadly weapons when they are not in the service of love. Two world wars have amply shown it. If a third is to be avoided one recalls that Sri Aurobindo concluded his Savitri asserting that love and oneness were the key of our transformation.

All this is not to denigrate the left-brain function, but to draw

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forceful attention to the consequences of its having assumed the role of Master in the household.

The concept of right and left, intuitive and intellectual, female and male duality of cosmic and human personality has a hoary tradition. The Chinese Yin-Yang, the Greek Hermaphrodite, the Indian Siva-Sakti concepts are examples. However, nowhere has this concept reached such profundity as in the symbolism of Ardhanariswara, the male and female element in the same unity, who in the full harmony of their love give birth to Kumara, the eternal youth, the herald of the Divine Forces.

At this juncture it is appropriate to draw attention to the unique contribution made by Sri Aurobindo to the symbol. The careful reader would have noted that what Sri Aurobindo refers to as right and left hand functions really correspond to the right and left hemisphere functions of the physiologists' terms. By itself this might be taken as an accident. But Sri Aurobindo is said to have directed that his portrait be placed to the left of the Mother's portrait. This reverses the traditional placing of the male and female principles. I venture to surmise that Sri Aurobindo deliberately placed the Mother at the real seat of her power which is the right hemisphere, and not at the customary left side which is merely her external manifestation. I do not pretend any competence to guess at Sri Aurobindo's intentions, and this is not really germane to the present discussion.

Here we may briefly allude to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in its role as an instrument of integral education as expressed and expounded by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In the very process of its inception it can be seen that the Mother gave overwhelming importance to the training of the right hemisphere of the brain, an intimate, total bodily involvement of the disciples in a variety of creative activities, day and night, in an atmosphere of her ceaseless, tireless and timeless love — building work, farms, and so on, which have blossomed into the various full-fledged departments of to-day. In the Ashram we have all the ingredients necessary for the progressive and harmonious development of the two hemispheres of the brain, the right being given or expected to be given the dominant role.

First of all, in the Ashram, we have the over-all atmosphere of

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love and mutual care and concern, the constant reminder of the Mother's unique compassion, understanding and highly concrete love and concern shown to each particular element of the Ashram, each tree, animal, let alone each sadhak as an individually valuable, loved and needed member — not merely some faceless private in a mercenary army; loved for their own sake rather than according to current-market rate of their carcasses as measured by the highly efficient and logical left-brain. The Ashram has the unique good fortune of having elders and guides who have matured in the abundant richness and warmth of Mother's unconditional love — Mother who defined true love as that which loves without expecting the object of love to change.

Secondly, as already pointed out, the Mother helped to create a variety of structure and function uniquely suited for the differential needs of the two hemispheres of the brain.

The departments of general and physical education embody some of the best principles of left hemispheric education. Even in these departments the close student will find an atmosphere of love and understanding, and a rich variety of attitude and technique developed over the years that enable the highly individual needs of the right brain great scope.

However, the multifarious functions fulfilled by the Ashram as a whole provide an extraordinary spectrum of possibilities for the education of the right brain. It is essentially in training the right hemisphere to inherit its role as the master of the house, that the various departments — kitchens, dining halls, farms, work-shops, buildings, repair-sections, etc. — assume importance. It is most misleading to think of these various departments as some sort of divers ional or occupational, commercial or otherwise supportive structures kept for the maintenance of the Ashram. The injunctions of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and later day studies, show that the non-verbal, right hemisphere receives its full development only in the course of work of a variety of kinds, performed in an atmosphere of love. The left-brain dominated society uses the right-brain, non-verbal functions as servitors, employees or helpless servants to be supervised in being useful and well-behaved, and cleverly denigrates the importance of all such work and workers as inferior to the great art of sitting in armchairs working out the economic basis of the spirit. The words —

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atmosphere of love — have to be under lined: Work done in love liberates and trains the right brain. Work done out of fear of any kind stifles the right brain, the seat of the Divine Mother. When unbearable limits are reached, Kali, the destroyer is the result.

A close observer of the Ashram will also be struck by the fact that at the Ashram there is a great flexibility and plasticity of roles available to its members including the students. Many individuals play more than one role — the same person working in a kitchen may be an economics professor; a person may be leader in one group and follower in another.

Sometimes, persons who give grants to the Ashram wonder why some money given for research is spent on buildings or dining halls. They forget that the Ashram as a whole is a unique laboratory which for the first time in history is working out the revolutionary task of educating the human brain in its proper, evolutionary perspective enabling the right hemisphere to inherit its role as the master. A left hemisphere oriented society wishes to judge the issues with an account-book. For instance, outside the Ashram, research is to be carried out in a building; in the Ashram, the business of constructing the building itself is an educational operation. The left-brain directed society, squandering billions of dollars in support of their wholly, totally irrational rationalities begrudges the morsels of money it hands out patronisingly for ventures of this kind, and expects the items to be checked by accountants who cost more than the morsels granted.

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is not just one more sample of an educational endeavour to reform humanity. The Ashram as a whole is the dynamic interplay of forces, the visible operation of a consciously directed force aimed at the urgent task of releasing the functions of the right hemisphere for the salvation of mankind, and its preparation to receive the New Man.

The purpose of this article has not been to substantiate the truth of Sri Aurobindo's observations. His observations rest on direct experience, and their truth has to be apprehended by apprenticeship in the light of that experience. The purpose has been to strengthen the steps of those who wish to implement his teachings in the field of education.

The Ardhanari-Kumara symbolism is working out its unfold-ment in the impetus given by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. A bit

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of this cosmic event is being enacted in each one of us. Those who wish to participate in this, the first real revolution in the history of mankind are indeed fortunate.

'OM NAMO BHAGAVATE!'

SURYA

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KEY TO SADHANA: THE PSYCHIC

IT is true that the Divine Reality, the Spirit, God, is everywhere and it is possible to become aware of the Divine anywhere and unite with it. But it is more true that it is easier to awake to the Divine in oneself and discover one's identity with it. That is because it is a matter of immediate experience, awareness in oneself which is direct and felt. I know that I am angry: it is a self-awareness which is instant, unlike my knowledge of things outside which is indirect and depends upon the instrumentation of the senses. That is why the central theme of spiritual traditions is 'Know Thyself'.

And who is this thyself ? You are not the body; you are not the life-energy, prana; you are not the mind, manas; you are not the stuff of emotions and feelings, citta. You are something else: you are the soul, a divine spark that is immortal. To know this divine entity in yourself is to know your real self.

The Upanishad speaks of five selves, purusas, of each individual: the annamaya purusa, physical self, prdnamaya, vital, mano-maya, mental, vijndnamaya, knowledge self, dnandamaya, bliss self. In most individuals, only the first three are well formed, articulate; the others form and develop as the spiritual evolution proceeds. Behind all of them, supporting them as it were, is the soul, the psychic being, caitya purusa, which is an individualised projection of the Divine Reality in the individual scheme of evolution. This psychic being, the soul in evolution, antarātman, participates in evolution and grows in stature and consciousness, birth after birth. As it develops and as it emerges from behind the veil of the instrumental nature, the divine element in the person increases its power and range and exerts pressure on the nature to change and grow into a new, divine dimension.

Each part of our being has its characteristic principle and power. Thus the physical body, based upon tamas, ensures stability, solidity and endurance. There is a system of body-culture that promotes these qualities and powers based upon them. Prana, life-energy, based upon rajas, gives movement, force, dynamism. Cultivation of Prana enhances these powers. The mind, essentially based upon sattva, is a many-tiered power seeking knowledge. Development of the mental faculties increases the range of knowledge. The soul, the psychic

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Purusha, is the fount of purity, harmony, bliss, love. In the measure in which one opens oneself to its influence, activises it in life, one's life is governed by these qualities of a refined consciousness. Life becomes a progression from harmony to greater harmony, love to greater love, joy to greater joy as the doors of the psychic are opened and kept open.

And this is of capital value in spiritual life. For in Sadhana, the seeker is required to eliminate his animal elements, purify himself of the dross of lower nature, rid himself of the agitations and excitements of the Rajasic impulses. It would be an endless task if he were to proceed only with a mental will and impose on himself a discipline of negation. The upsurges of the subconscient and the inconscient are unpredictable and the way does, indeed, become a razor's edge. It is safer and surer to proceed on a firmer basis and that is the positive way of opening to the psychic, the antardtman, which is a perennial spring of purity, sweetness, compassion, and all God ward movements.

The value of the psychic being lies not merely in its purificatory role. It is also the seat of devotion, of true love. It is unerring in its perception and guidance inasmuch as it is divine at its core and is in touch with the truth of things. It is, again, a spearhead of the Divine Consciousness and radiates divinity at every moment. All our movements of deep devotion, surrender, joy are reflections — direct or indirect — of the workings of this psychic centre. The psychic perceives the Beauty of the Divine everywhere and communicates its high aesthesis to those who are, knowingly or unknowingly, open to its influence. It is also a kind of hot-line to the Transcendent Divine, enabling a direct ascent of consciousness to the Supreme if one chooses.

In a word, the psychic is the fulcrum upon which the sunlit path to the Divine turns. How to awake to it and how to reach the seat of the psychic is the next question.

The psychic centre is behind the traditional heart centre the anahata. It is deeper. The heart centre is in the region of emotions and feelings. The psychic is well beyond them. It is at the core of the being, in the cave of the heart, hedged. It is what the Vedic Rishi lauds as the mystic flame, aspiring from the human station to its 'own home' above. This psychic is the seat of all upward aspiration, spring of spontaneous love, devotion, and a simple, natural joy. It always

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feels a child. He in whom the psychic is effectively operating, feels himself a child — child of Nature, child of you and me, child of God.

Before one can hope to reach this psychic centre and make the psychic a governing factor in one's life, one needs to create a climate favourable to the awakening and emergence of the psychic. And that is done by recasting one's life movements in the mould of the psychic. It is a psychological transmutation that is called for. The mind and the heart must be subjected to a relentless discipline of purification. All that is opposed to the character of the psychic must be eschewed. All that is narrow, selfish, mean, ugly, harsh, cruel, hurtful, movements of vitiation e.g., anger, hatred, jealousy, ill-will etc., are to be eliminated from the mentality, from the volitional and emotional parts of being. A psychological purification is to be effected. Side by side with this negative operation, a positive effort must be put in to cultivate and establish the nobler soul-qualities e.g., selflessness, dedication, good-will, benevolence, compassion, love, integrity, straightforwardness, humility. In brief, the ego-desire complex must be steadily diminished and displaced by the psychic dominion of love and unity.

Bhdrupah satya-sahkalpah, light is the form of the Truth. Of this flame that is the soul, truth is the characteristic. Truth is the way to it: truth in thought, truth in feeling, truth in speech, truth in action. Un-truth clouds the soul, blocks the passage and in all ways obstructs its action. He who seeks the truth that is the soul, the divine entity within, has to opt for the way of truth in every sense.

Meditation upon this presence of the Divine, this concentration of pure divine consciousness within, helps to forge the inward path. One may conceive it in the form of a flame and meditate upon it. Or one may keep the Idea of this indwelling Divine and pursue its quest. One may keep a firm will and with intensity evoke it. One may offer one's devotion to the Indweller and wait upon him. The response usually comes after a sustained effort. There may be a feeling of increased purity, fuller surrender, an uncaused sweetness and joy, even a sense of eternity. There is first an influence which makes itself felt palpably. Even a moment of such emergence makes a tremendous difference in the Sadhana of the seeker. This influence must be cherished, nourished and given enlarging room in the being.

This influence, when it becomes fairly constant, turns into action

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of the soul, the psychic, and the Sadhana takes on a distinct character of certainty, unmixed direction and effortless advance. There is, during the period of this action, an intense identification with the Divine, repulsion from all that is opposed to the Divine and a spontaneous choice of the truth and the right in every field of activity. Usually such periods do not last long at the beginning. The Day is soon overtaken by the Night. Lower nature, recalcitrant parts, not yet sufficiently exposed to the transforming action of the Light, overtake and a dry period follows. But this is only part of the process. In due course, with endurance and faith, these negative periods get less frequent and less intense and the brighter periods build themselves more and more till they become permanent. That happens when the psychic being has fully emerged into the open and assumed governance of the rest of the being.

Thereafter follows the next phase of the Sadhana and that is to conscientiously cast one's nature into the mould of the psychic. Just as the life of the average man in ignorance is governed by the ego, the life of one whose psychic is awake and active is turned into an image of the divine soul. This transmutation of one's nature in terms of the psychic is called psychicisation. All the activities of the mind, the heart, the life energies, the very physical body carry the stamp of the psychic being and ensure that nothing in them contradicts the central realisation, but in fact expresses its truth in a growing manner. Once this change in nature is effected, there is no going back. One can only move forward. Love and sweetness exude from such a person and all yearn after him, enam samvanchanti.

M. P. PANDIT

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WHAT ARE THE VEDAS?

IF, in our search for an understanding of the term Veda we start out in a somewhat unorthodox (or perhaps not so unorthodox) manner by consulting Webster's Third New International Dictionary, then the good book will inform us, perhaps to our pleasant philological surprise, that the word Veda¹ is cognate with the English word wit,^2, the absence of which we are prone to deplore in a scholar, indeed, in almost any person. It is also cognate, perhaps more pertinently, with the word wisdom.³ These connections become possible through the Indo-European heritage of Sanskrit,⁴ the word veda being derived from the root vid, to know.⁵

Webster's dictionary then proceeds to define the word veda as follows:

any of a class of the most sacred writings of the Hindus.⁶

On the face of it the statement seems direct and clear. Let us, however, probe below the surface of each segment of this statement and see what significant aspects of the Vedas lie concealed therein.

(1) of the Hindus: It is worth noting that the word Hindu is not a Hindu word. "The Persians who invaded India through the northwestern passes of the Himalayas gave the name Sindhu to the region watered by the river Indus; the word 'Hindu' is only a corrupt form of 'Sindhu'. "⁷ One of the indigenous names by which Hinduism is known is vaidika dharma and means the religion of the Vedas. The Vedas are the foundational scriptures of Hinduism.⁸

(2) writings: Although one may now refer to the Vedas as something written down, it is worth noting that they were essentially transmitted orally and were reduced to writing very late, and with reluctance. As A. A. Macdonell observed around the turn of the century, "The Vedas are still learnt by heart as they were long before the invasion of Alexander and could even now be restored from the

¹ Philip Babcock Gove, editor in chief, Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: G. & G. Merriam Co., 1971) p. 2537.

² Ibid., p. 2625. ⁸ Ibid., p. 2624.

⁴ See Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954) p. 406.

⁵ Ibid., p. 407.

⁸ Philip Babcock Gove, editor in chief, op. cit., p. 2537.

⁷ T. M. P. Mahadevan, Outlines of Hinduism (Bombay: Chetana Ltd., i960) p. 12.

⁸ Ibid., pp. 12-13.

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lips of religious teachers if every manuscript of printed copy of them were destroyed."¹ "Max Muller once pointed out that the oldest manuscript of the Rig Veda does not date from 1500 B.C., the date generally assigned to its composition, but from A.D. 1500, three thousand years later."²

(3) most sacred: The association of sacredness with the Vedas is very significant. Thus A. L. Basham describes the Rig Veda as "the oldest religious text in the world still looked on as sacred"³ and Surendranath Dasgupta, the famous historian of Indian philosophy, describes the Vedas as the "sacred books of India".⁴

There are three key terms by which the Vedas are referred to within the Hindu tradition which account for their sanctity within the Hindu tradition. The Vedas are called sruti, they are called nitya and they are called apauruseya. "The Vedas are called sruti primarily because they are believed to derive from a 'hearing' sruti that is revelation; they are held to have emanated from Brahman, to have been breathed by God in the form of 'words', while their human authors, the Rishis or inspired sages, did no more than receive them by direct 'vision' ."⁵

This revelation is nitya or eternal and apauruseya — not the work of man but rather divine, on the orthodox Hindu self-understanding.

As students of history we may understand these designations somewhat differently. Thus the Vedas may be called sruti "because the traditional method of studying and getting them by heart is by hearing them recited by the preceptor".⁶ They may be called nitya not in the sense that they are eternal but on account of their ''remote antiquity." Though how remote is difficult to say. Some scholars have argued that the Vedas go back to as remote a period as the 5th millenium B.C. but according to what Louis Renou calls "moderate views"

¹ A. A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature (New York: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1968) p. 16. Also see Louis Renou, Vedic India (Calcutta: Susil Gupta (India) Private Ltd., 1957) p. 2.

² Benjamin Walker, The Hindu World Vol. II (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968) p. 370.

³ A. L. Basham, The Wonder that was India (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1967) p. 234.

⁴ Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy Vol. I (Cambridge University Press, 1957) p. 100

⁵ Louis Renou, op. cit., p. i.

⁶ Haridas Bhattacharyya, ed., The Cultural Heritage of India Vol. I (Calcutta: The Rama-krishna Mission Institute of Culture, 1958) p. 182.

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the beginnings of Vedic literature may be placed around 1500 B.C.¹ The Vedas are called apauruseya "that is to say, they have not been written or composed like the Ramayana or the Mahabharata by man. Had they been so written, then the authors of the Vedas, like Valmiki and Veda-Vyasa, the authors respectively of these two books, would have been remembered by us. The Vedic teachers and disciples have maintained a continuous chain of study of the Vedas from time immemorial, but nobody ever heard the name of the author of the Vedas".² Therefore, according to the exponents of the system of philosophy which deals with vedic exegesis, "the Vedas must be regarded as self-revealed".³ This is the traditional view. From a historical point of view it could be argued that the Vedas may be so called because they are attributed not to individuals so much as to priestly families.

(4) of a class: One may begin by observing that "Opinions have varied concerning the definition of the Veda"⁴ within the Hindu tradition, both regarding their number and internal composition. Nevertheless, there is what may be called a standard version which recognizes four Vedas and looks upon each Veda as containing four layers. This enables the following diagrammatic representation to be made:

¹ Percival Spear, ed., The Oxford History of India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961) p. 45; also see Surendranath Dasgupta, op. cit. p. 10.

² "The whole of Vedic literature can be placed between two dates, both unhappily inexact. It was composed as a whole before the Buddhist doctrine was preached; and on the other hand its beginnings were contemporary with or a little later than the entry of the Aryans into India. The various strata of the texts must be arranged in this interval. The attempt to do this made long ago by Max Muller, the basis of which has often been questioned, remains justified in principle. Now if it is assumed that the entry of the Aryans took place about the i5th-i6th century B.C. the hymns must be placed about this date." (Louis Renou, op., cit., p.

³ Haridas Bhattacharyya, ed., op. cit.₃ Vol. Ill, p. 152.

⁴ Percival Spear, ed., op. cit.p. 45.

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Note: The names of the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads are illustrative and not exhaustive.¹

The Rigveda: the word rk means "any prayer or hymn in which a deity is praised. As these are mostly in verse, the term becomes also applicable to such passages of the Veda as are reducible to measure according to rules of prosody. The first Veda ... comprehending most of these texts, is called the Rigveda, or as expressed in the Commentary on the Index, 'because it abounds in such texts (re)' ".² It contains 1028 hymns arranged in ten books called mandalas,³ the first and the tenth mandalas in which the number of hymns contained is exactly the same, being later in point of time than the other mandalas,^4, especially as distinguished from the seven family books connected with individual families.⁵ About half of the hymns of the Rig Veda are addressed to god Indra⁶ (the word having the same root as in Indira in Indira Gandhi) and Agni (which has the same root as in the English word ignition).⁷

The great Rig Vedic myth is of the slaying of the demon Vritra by Indra, which has been variously interpreted. The legend may be briefly narrated. It is summed up in Rig Veda I.32.1:⁸

I will proclaim the heroic deeds of Indra, which

the wielder of the bolt first performed; he slew

¹ For fuller listings see Thomas J. Hopkins, The Hindu Religious Tradition (Belmont, California: Dickenson Publishing Co. Inc.: 1971) p. 141; Louis Renou, op. cit., pp. 50-51.

² Colebrooke, quoted by Percival Spear, ed., op. cit., p. 45 fn. 2.

³ Louis Renou, op. cit., p. 46; but also see R. C. Majumdar, op. cit., p. 225.

⁴ See James A. Santucci, An Outline of Vedic Literature (University of Montana: Scholars' Press, 1976) p. 2; Louis Renou, op. cit., p.4;... the additions have "thus been made at the head and at the tail".

⁵ Ibid., p. i.

⁶ See Vaman Shivram Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1965) pp. 246, 247; "Indra is the favourite national god of the Vedic Indians. His importance is indicated by the fact that about 250 hymns celebrate his greatness, more than those devoted to any other god and very nearly one-fourth of the total number of hymns in the RV. If the hymns in parts of which he is praised or in which he is associated with other gods, are taken into account, the aggregate is brought up to at least 300." (A. A. Macdonell, The Vedic Mythology [Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1971]. p. 54).

⁷ Philip Babcock Gove, editor-in-chief, op. cit., p. 1125.

⁸ For the text see Charles Rockwell Lanman, A Sanskrit Reader (Harvard University Press, 1971) p. 70.

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the dragon lying on the mountain, released the

waters, pierced the belly of the mountains.¹

This "essential myth" forming the basis of Indra's nature and "repeated frequent and with variations",² may be recounted in a summary fashion as follows:

Accompanied by the Maruts and exhilarated by Soma, he (Indra) attacks Vritra, often called the Ahi (serpent). He smashes Vritra who encompasses the Waters, and so deserves the exclusive epithet apsu-jit (conquering in the Waters). In this struggle, which is constantly renewed, he also pierces the mountains and releases the pent-up waters, like imprisoned cows. The demons, whom Indra throws down, dwell on the parvata or girt (mountain or cloud?) and an adri (rock) is said to encompass the Waters. The clouds containing the Waters are figured as fortresses (pura) of the aerial demons, described either as autumnal or as made of iron or stone, and as 90, 99 or 100 in number. He is, therefore, characteristically called the fort-destroyer (purbhid) but his exclusive and chief epithet is "Vritra-slayer" (Vrtrahan).

The release of the Waters is simultaneous with the winning of light, sun, and dawn. Independently of the Vritra fight also, he is said to have found the light, the dawn or the sun, and made a path for the latter. The cows mentioned with the sun and dawn must be understood to be the morning beams. The gaining of Soma is also associated with the winning of the cows and the sun and with the Vritra fight.³

Samaveda: the word soman means "melody", and the Sama Veda is essentially a collection of melodies.⁴ It is half the size of the

¹ A. A. Macdonell, The Vedic Mythology, p. 59.

² R. C. Majumdar, ed., op. cit., p. 370.

³ Ibid., pp. 370-371. Also see A. A. Macdonell, The Vedic Mythology, pp. 58-60. For the various interpretations of the myth see Frederic Spiegel berg, Living Religions of the World (New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1956) pp. 92-98.

⁴ R. C. Majumdar, ed., op. cit., p. 229. Louis Renou remarks that the "word saman occurs already in the Rigveda. The true sense appears to be propitiation" (op. cit., p.

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Rig Veda¹ and contains only 99 verses (not counting the repetitions)² which do not occur in the Rig Veda.

Yajurveda: the word yajus means a sacrificial formula and the Yajurveda contains these elements of prose such as "I worship fire placed in front"³ when the gods are invoked through the hymns. It is about 2/3rd of the Rig Veda in size.⁴ "One important feature of the Yajur Veda is that it supplies the formulae for the entire sacrificial ceremonial, thus differing from the Sama Veda (.and to a lesser extent, the Rig Veda) which deals only with the Soma sacrifice."⁵

Atharvaveda: Atharvan means the fire-priest and the Atharvaveda is essentially a compendium of magical spells. It is half in size compared to the Rig Veda, from which it draws a fifth of its material. It is very different in character from the other Vedas; in fact "The Atharva Veda is utterly different from the three Vedas discussed above, for though an effort was made at a comparatively late date to absorb it within the sacred Srantaliterature... yet it was never accorded full recognition in the ritual of the Soma-cult, and to the last remained essentially what it was from the start — a prayer-book of the simple folk, haunted by ghosts and exploited by Brahmins".⁶

Our separate discussion of the four Vedas should not lead one to overlook the fact that they were ritually integrated, just as their trifurcation and subsequent incorporation of the Atharva Veda represented the process of sacerdotal specialization. Each Veda is associated with a particular officiate: the Rig Veda with the Hotri or the invoker, the Sama Veda with the Udagatri or chanter, the Yajur Veda with the Adhvaryu or performer and the Brahmana or High Priest with the Atharva Veda. Whereas the first three had to be well-versed in their own Vedas respectively, the Brahmana, as the general supervisor of the sacrifice, had to be conversant with all of them and

¹ Haridas Bhattacharyya, ed., op. cit., Vol. I, p. 201.

² R. C. Majumdar, ed., op. cit., p. 230.

³ Haridas Bhattacharyya, ed., op. cit., Vol. I, p. 200.

⁴ James A. Santucci, op. cit., p. 12.

⁶ Haridas Bhattacharyya, ed. op. cit., Vol. I, p. 201.

⁶ R. C. Majumdar, ed., op. cit., p. 232. It should be remembered, however, that "On the whole the Atharvaveda is the bearer of old tradition not only in line of the popular charms; but also to some extent, albeit slight, its hieratic materials are likely to be the product of an independent tradition which has eluded the collectors of the other Vedas, the Rigveda not excepted" (Bloomfield, quoted ibid.').

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corrected such errors as might have been committed.¹

This completes our brief discussion of the four Vedas; we may next briefly refer to their four internal divisions or portions called the mantra or samhitā, brāhmana, āranyaka and upanisad. The following remarks made by the well-known Vedic scholar R.N. Dandekar not only enable one to integrate the previous discussion but also to see the role of these internal divisions of the Vedas as well. Dr. R.N. Dandekar writes:

The religion thus developed by the Aryans from the time of their invasion of India until roughly 500 B.C. was embodied in a collection of hymns, ritual texts and philosophical treatises, called the Veda. From Aryan times down to the present, Hindus have regarded the Veda as a body of eternal and revealed scripture. Its final authority is accepted to some extent by all Hindus as embodying the essential truths of Hinduism. The earliest portion of the Veda consists of four metrical hymnals, known as Samhitas being the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda. The earliest of these texts is that of the Rig Veda, and it is this collection of hymns (re) which constitutes the earliest source of knowledge concerning the Aryan religion. The most recent of these canonical collections is the Atharva Veda, which is somewhat more representative of the popular religion of Vedic times than are the other Vedas, which are more sacerdotal in character. The metrical hymns and chants of these texts gave rise to elaborate ritualistic prose interpretations called brāhmanas and drānyakas ("forest books"). Toward the end of the Vedic period, the earlier emphasis on ritual was translated symbolically. Thus, Vedic ideas of sacrifice and mythology were reinterpreted in terms of the macrocosm and microcosm. Cosmological inquiries of some of the later hymns of the Rig Veda were extended and an investigation of the human soul was undertaken. The speculations and interpretations along these lines were formulated by various philosophical schools in treatises collectively called Upanishads. Thus, the whole of Vedic literature consists of four Vedas or Samhitas, several expository

¹ See R. C. Majumdar, op. cit., p.

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ritual texts attached to each of these Vedas called Brah-manas, and speculative treatises, or Upanishads, concerned chiefly with a mystical interpretation of the Vedic ritual and its relation to man and the universe.¹

ARVIND SHARMA

¹ Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition Vol. I (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958) pp. 2-3.

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REVIEW

Gitopasana by Swami Iswarananda Girt, p 203, Rs.8/- Samvit Vikas Kendra, 31 Krishna Rao Road, Bangalore 4. (Rs.12 inclusive of postage and packing charges)

INTRODUCING the Gita, Swamiji describes the various classes of literature in this field: 'Hridaya literature expounds the form of the deity, while Sahasranama describes the various powers and manifestations Kavacha: the Upasaka invokes the deity in his own body as a prerequisite in worship. Stotras are songs in praise of the Divine. Gita is for intellectual understanding of the Godhood which the updsya-devatd symbolises and hence most precious for an aspirant bent upon mystical communion or illumination.' Referring to the tradition of the prasthdtia tray a, basic scriptural triad, he writes: Upanishads stand for sadhya paksha, goal of life; Brahma Sutras speak of siddhanta paksha, philosophy of life; the Gita presents sadhana paksha, the path of life. (P- 28)

It is refreshing to find that this approach of the author is comprehensive. He does not foist any particular philosophy on the Gita as many others do. He cites Sri Aurobindo's warning against any such falsifying approach. He studies the text under convenient heads viz. Gita as the mother, the Objective, the Teacher, the practitioner, the practice, the finale. There is a special section on the key concepts in the Gita, chapter wise followed by the entire text of the Gita in bold nagari letters.

Swamiji draws upon authentic scriptures to support his argument and underlines the relevance of the work to the modern man. He narrates how Lord Krishna was asked, many years after the event, to repeat the teaching he had given in the Gita but he confessed he could not do it. The inspiration and afflatus that gave the Gita do not come to order.

A readable and rewarding treatise on the Gita.

M. P. PANDIT

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My Truth by Indira Gandhi. Presented by Emmanuel Pouchpadass. Vision Books, 36 C Connaught Place, New Delhi-i. Pp. 200, Rs. 100.

Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira had called once on De Gaulle. He seems to have been rather cold though correct. Later, as Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi met the President again; he was very considerate. Later he remarked to L. K. Jha: "Politics are very difficult for a woman to manage but I think this one will make it!"

The General has more than proved to be a prophet. This is one of the several interesting sidelights on Indira Gandhi provided in this fascinating series of interviews originally published in French by a French Indian diplomat. Apart from throwing light on her many-sided participation from her childhood in the freedom movement of the country and thereafter, this account brings us close to the sensitive, 'very private' person of this unique leader who has baffled many an observer but has been loved by every one who has come into close contact with her. What is the secret of her appeal?

A few clues are found in her disarming answers:

"Even though I believe in privacy, and I think I have kept myself a private person in spite of my meeting thousands of people a day, I am always involved in what is happening around me, at any level. Now I happen to be more involved in politics. But there is no doubt that, had I retired in the mountains as I had planned to do, I would have been involved in some of the local problems of the people there. I can't imagine living in isolation." An instance to the point is how she found herself looking after Jewish girls in Lisbon when she was yet a student!

What is the secret of her phenomenal energy? "I don't separate work from relaxation. To me it is the same, just different aspects of the same life. Most politicians get very tense because they are playing a part, they are putting up a front. I am not, I am just me as I am. If I enjoy doing a thing I do it. That is why I am never anxious."

Also, "I think that being able to do several things at once without any tension is one of my main assets. If I am talking to someone, one part of my mind is with him, but if I have something else important, it doesn't mean that I have shelved it."

Her revelations of events behind the scenes during critical, transitional

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periods in the history of the Congress and of the nation give a totally different perspective on history than what is common and they should be given more publicity as a part of educating the demos.

Some of her observations on contemporary makers of history are worth noting:

When Bulganin and Khrushchev were in India, the changing roles of the two, with K. coming on top became apparent. When they arrived, they were equal but, by the time they left, K. was already awalking ahead.... In the beginning you couldn't take them through a small door because they had to walk side by side. (p. 76).

Mao didn't come to India. I was told later that he was waiting for an invitation. If only we had called him, many things would have been different. Had we known it then, he would have been most welcomed and honoured by this country, (p. 75).

Her assessment of the UNO reminds one of Sri Aurobindo's remarks on the subject. "India has always supported the U.N. It is not an ideal organisation, but no world organisation can be. What I have always said is that if you didn't have the U.N. you would have to have some other world body. There is no escape from some forum where everybody can meet... the forum is essential and the U.N. agencies are doing good work."

A remarkable document which will prove to be a significant page in the history of India with its own international overtones.

M. P. PANDIT

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