Civilisation and Barbarism onCE we have determined that this rule of perfect individuality and perfect reciprocity is the ideal law for the individual, the community and the race and that a perfect union and even oneness in a free diversity is its goal, we have to try to see more clearly what we mean when we say that self-realisation is the sense, secret or overt, of individual and of social development  As yet we have not to deal with the race, with mankind as a unity; the nation is still our largest compact and living unit.  And it is best to begin with the individual, both because of his nature we have a completer and nearer knowledge and experience than of

Limitations of the Reason as Governor of Life The individual and social progress of man has been thus a double movement of self-illumination and self-harmonising with the intelligence and the intelligent will as the intermediaries between his soul and its works.  He has had to bring out numberless possibilities of self-understanding, self-mastery, self-formation out of his first crude life of instincts and impulses; he has been constantly impelled to convert that lower animal or half-animal existence with its imperfect self-conscience into the stuff of intelligent being, instincts into ideas, impulses into ordered movements of an intelligen

Civilisation and Culture NATURE starts from Matter, develops out of it its hidden Life, releases out of involution in life all the crude material of Mind and, when she is ready, turns Mind upon itself and upon Life and Matter in a great mental effort to understand all three in their phenomena, their obvious action, their secret laws, their normal and abnormal possibilities and powers so that they may be turned to the richest account, used in the best and most harmonious way, elevated to their highest as well as extended to their widest potential aims by the action of that faculty which man alone of terrestrial creatures clearly possesse

Philosophy of the Supermind or Truth Consciousness The philosophies which recognise Mind alone as the creator of the worlds or accept an original principle with Mind as the only mediator between it and the forms of the universe, may be divided into the purely noumenal and the idealistic. The purely noumenal recognise in the cosmos only the work of Mind, Thought, Idea: but Idea may be purely arbitrary and have no essential relation to any real Truth of existence; or such Truth, if it exists, may be regarded as a mere Absolute aloof from all relations and irreconcilable with a world of relations. The idealistic interpretation supposes

29 Yoga, Religion and Morality WHILE stressing the imperative need of Yogic education and of a radical change in the aims, methods and structure of education in the light of Yoga, it is necessary to point out that by Yoga—which is only one of the systems of Yoga—and that Yoga does not mean either religion or morality. Yoga is not a body of beliefs, dogmas or revelations which are to be believed in without verification. Yoga is an advancing Science, with its spirit of research, with its methods of experimentation and methods of verification and advance of knowledge. The knowledge that Yoga delivers at a certain stage is surpassable by a f

27 Vedic Ideals of Education and their Contemporary Relevance I. OUR CONTEMPORARY SEARCH THE contemporary moment of human history is riddled with a number of dilemmas, and we find it extremely difficult to resolve them. We erect the ideal of truth, and our quest ends in probabilities filled with mixtures of truth and error; we erect the ideal of liberty; and our experiments oblige us to strangulate it in the interests of equality; we erect the ideal of equality and we find ourselves obliged to abandon it in the interests of liberty; we erect the ideals of peace and unity but we seem to be

30 Yoga, Science, Religion and Philosophy WE may begin with a preliminary elucidation of the three terms: science, religion and philosophy. Science may be defined as a quest of knowledge, which lays a special emphasis on detailed processes in order to arrive at utmost precision, and the distinguishing methods of this quest are those of impartial observation, experimentation by working on falsifiable hypothesis, verification in the light of crucial instances and establishment of conclusions which are repeatable and which are also modifiable in the light of advancing quest. Religion may also be looked upon as quest of knowledge, bu

___________Appendix III___________ A Note on the Vedic Literature The antiquity of the Veda has been a subject of discussion and dispute. According to the ancient Indian tradition it is impossible to determine the period of the composition of the Veda. It is, however, universally acknowledged by historians that the Veda is the earliest available collection of the most ancient body of knowledge. According to one of the Indian historians, Shri Avinash Chandra Das, Vedas could have been composed any time between 250th and 750th century B.C. According to Lokamanya Tilak, the estimated period would be any time between 45th and 50th century B.C. This coincides with t

Marie Sklodowska Curie The life of Marie Curie contains prodigies in such number that one would like to tell her story like a legend. — Eve Curie Polish childhood and adolescence Marya Sklodowska was born on 7th November 1867 in Warsaw. She was the youngest in a family of five children, composed of four girls: Sophie or Zosia (1862), Bronislava or Bronya (1865), Helena or Hela (1866), Marya (1867), and one boy, Joseph, josio (1863). Little Marya, the favorite child, had many pet names, such as Manya, Manusia, Anupecio, as was often the case in Poland where affectionate names and diminutives are much used. Marya was a very lively child wh

Introduction There are some lives more than others that are marked by destiny and whose extraordinary path is the stuff of which legends are made. Marie Curie, known as one of the greatest scientific geniuses of the century, was also a woman who knew, when needed, how to actively engage herself in the service of science. She entirely devoted herself to scientific research, having made this choice very early in her life and no obstacle could ever divert her from her mission. Yet the obstacles were numerous: Marie was poor, she was born in an occupied country, Poland, under the yoke of Russia, and she was a woman in a world in which studies were reserved for men.