Pondicherry – II I HAVE said that this cemetery that was Pondicherry had been infested by ghosts and goblins. These had a special category known ordinarily as spies. The word "spy" carries with it, as you know, an association of all that is low and disgusting and unspeakable, things of dark import. But did you know that the word is pure Sanskrit? It was spasa in the old Vedic language. The Vedic Rishi describes Indra as sending out these spasa to trace the movements of his enemies, the forces of evil that clustered round the god. So, the Vedic gods had their spies, just as the modern British government had theirs, though of course there was bound to be a certain difference. Th

The God of the Scientist IT is meaningless to hold that a scientist must necessarily be an atheist. There is no need to cite instances of the past. Leaving aside the examples of Newton, Kepler and Tycho Brahe, even in the world of to-day it is not rare to find more than one scientist who believes in God. In this respect Lodge, Eddington, Einstein and Planck are outstanding figures that require no introduction. It is generally said that a scientist may indeed be a God-believer, but not in the capacity of a scientist. The faculty by which he acquires religious certainty has no scientific bearing, it belongs to quite a different sphere of human life. The being of man com

The Trinity of Bengal RAMMOHAN, Bankimchandra, Vivekananda – these three personalities represent the three steps in the process of evolution in modern Bengal. Like the three strides of Vishnu these three great souls have occupied three stages of the evolving consciousness of Bengal. The soul of modern Bengal awoke in Rammohan, and then its mind blossomed in Bankim, subsequently its life-energy burst forth in Vivekananda. In fact we may generalise that all disciplines and ways of creation proceed in the same order. The truth that is to manifest in the material world in a concrete physical form appears at first in an apperception of the inner heart, hrdi pratisya. The

Muraripukur - I AT last I made up my mind finally to take the plunge, that I must now join the Manicktolla Gardens in Muraripukur. That meant good-bye to College, good-bye to the ordinary life. A little while ago, Prafulla Chakravarti had come and joined. Both of us belonged to Rungpore, both were of nearly the same age, and intimate friends. This too pushed me to my decision. I had already taken a vow about a year ago, in front of a picture of Kali at a secret ceremony at dead of night, a vow written out in blood drawn from the chest, that I should dedicate my life to the whole-hearted service of the Motherland. With me there was a companion, and also a local leader who

A Small Talk So I am going to tell you a story or perhaps stories. These stories, many of them, I have narrated on many occasions to your elders, that is to say, your predecessors who are now quite grown up and are at present among gentlemen. Here is the story: Once upon a time there was a little girl, quite young, very nice, very pretty, living in her family with her parents, particularly in the company of her grandfather. This grandfather was rather old but extremely nice and kind and gentle like herself. He loved very much the child, indeed the grandfather adored his grand-daughter and the child reciprocated the feeling. It happened however, that the old man fell ill, ve

The Philosopher as an Artist and Philosophy as an Art I WONDER why Philosophy has never been considered as a variety of Art. Philosophy is admired for the depth and height of its substance, for its endeavour to discover the ultimate Truth, for its one-pointed adherence to the supremely Real; but precisely because it does so it is set in opposition to Art which is reputed as the domain of the ideal, the imaginative or the fictitious. Indeed it is the antagonism between the two that has always been emphasised and upheld as an axiomatic truth and an indisputable fact. Of course, old Milton (he was young, however, when he wrote these lines) says that philosophy is divine and

“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell� William Blake: “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell� THE ideal was Blake's. It will not sound so revolting if we understand what the poet meant by Hell. Hell, he explains, is simply the body, the Energy of Life – hell, because body and life on earth were so considered by the orthodox Christianity. The Christian ideal demands an absolute denial and rejection of life. Fulfilment is elsewhere, in heaven alone. That is, as we know, the ideal of the ascetic. The life of the spirit (in. heaven) is a thing away from and stands against the life of the flesh (on earth). In the face of this discipline, countering it, Blake posited a union, a marriage of the two, cons

Rabindranath and Sri Aurobindo "TAGORE has been a wayfarer towards the same goal as ours in his own way." Sri Aurobindo wrote these words in the thirties and their full significance can be grasped only when it is understood that the two master-souls were at one in the central purpose of their lives. Also there is a further bond of natural affinity between them centring round the fact that both were poets, in a deeper sense, seer poets-Rabindranath the Poet of the Dawn, Sri Aurobindo the Poet and Prophet of the Eternal Day, a new Dawn and Day for the human race. And both had the vision of a greater Tomorrow for their Motherland and that was why both regarded her f

? From the Known to the Unknown? FROM the known to the unknown: that is a well-known principle of procedure in the matter of knowledge, of action and of life generally. It is a golden rule that one should never take a step forward unless and until the previous step has been held firm and secure. But after all is this counsel the supreme counsel of perfection or even in point of fact does this represent an actuality? We have our misgivings. For may not the contrary motto - " from the unknown to the known" - be equally valid, both as a matter of fact and as a matter of principle? Do we not, sometimes at least, take for granted and start with the unknown number x to

Walter Hilton: “The Scale of Perfection Walter Hilton: “The Scale of Perfection" FROM the twentieth century back to the fourteenth is a far cry: a far cry indeed from the modern scientific illumination to mediaeval superstition, from logical positivists and mathematical rationalists to visionary mystics, from Russell and Huxley to Ruysbroeck and Hilton. The mystic lore, the Holy Writ, the mediaeval sage says, echoing almost the very words of the Eastern Masters, "may not be got by study nor through man's travail only, but principally by the grace of the Holy Ghost." As for the men living and moving in the worldly way, there are "so mickle din and crying in their heart and vain thoughts and fle