Divine Intervention WHAT we have named Intervention is also known popularly as Providence. It is the element of the incalculable and the unforeseen in Nature. Nature, in one respect, seems to be a closed circle: it is a rigid mechanism and its movements are very definite and absolutely fixed admitting of no change or variation whatsoever. That was the idea which governed our earlier scientists when they spoke or the Law of Nature. Law of Nature was to them, in the great Sophoclean phrase, something indelible and inviolable, immemorially the same which no man or god dare alter or disobey. Laplace, one of the pioneers of the scientific outlook, said, in fact, that he could very well imag

Yoga as Pragmatic Power PEOPLE ask about the practical value of Yoga, but do not always wait for an answer. For, according to some, Yoga means "introversion", escapism – illusion, delusion, hallucination. And yet the truth of the matter is that Yoga is nothing but a downright practical affair, that its proof is in the very eating of it. To judge a Yogin you are to ask, as did Arjuna, a very prince of pragmatic men, how he sits, how he walks about – kim āsīta vrajeta kim. Indeed the very definition of Yoga is that it is skill in works. To do works and not to run away from them has always been the true and natural ideal even (and particularly, as we shall see), for the spiritual man: the

A Modernist Mentality ANDRE Gide, a very well-known name in French letter for the last half a century, is quoted, very appreciatively, in the editorial of the World Review (July 1950), as saying: "The world can only be saved, if it can be, by the rebels. Without them there would be an end to our civilisation, our culture, all that we love and that gave to our presence on earth a secret justification. They are, these rebels, the salt of the earth and the men sent from God. For I am convinced that God does not exist, and that we have to create him." The truth expressed in these well-chiselled lines ("purple patches", I was going to say perhaps somewhat uncharitably) is, as always

The Other Aspect of European Culture Two cultures, one of Europe and the other of Asia, are now contending with each other to have sway over humanity; and it has been for some time past a moot problem with the best representatives of either, whether a synthesis, at least a reconciliation of the two is possible or not. Europe's distinctive trait, it has also been pointed out, is her hold upon life and the actualities of material existence; whereas the thing that characterises Asia as a separate organism is her grasp of the Spirit, the realities of a subtle world. Thus considered, the two need not, it is urged, be necessarily contradictory, they may as well be complementary to each oth

Vengeance is Mine ONE who seeks to live in God's consciousness cannot take the law into his own hands; he must leave it all to God. When he takes up the self-appointed task of remedying the situation, "resisting evil" as Christ termed it, he invites resistance from the other side which takes up its own counter-measures. The principle of revanche or vendetta, practised by nations and families, has not been a success, as history has amply proved. It is a seesaw movement, a vicious circle without issue. Not only so, the movement gathers momentum and increases in violence and confusion the farther it proceeds on its career. That is why Christ uttered his warning: and Buddha too declared th

The Observer and the Observed SCIENCE means objectivity, that is to say, elimination of the personal element-truth as pure fact without being distorted or coloured by the feelings and impressions and notions of the observer. It is the very opposite of the philosopher's standpoint who says that a thing exists because (and so long as) it is perceived. The scientist swears that a thing exists whether you perceive it or not, perception is possible because it exists, not the other way. And yet Descartes is considered not only as the father of modern philosophy, but also as the founder o( modern mathematical science. But more of that anon. The scientific observer observes as a witness imp

Rationalism WHAT is Reason, the faculty that is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of knowledge that Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the particular faculty or instrument by which we know, that determines the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them. It has three component elements that have been defined as observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition of Reason shows that it cannot be a perfect instrument of knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of t

Sweet Adversity "So long we lived in anxiety, now at last we are going to live in hope." So said the delicious French playwright Tristan Bernard when the Germans came in, occupied Paris, arrested and imprisoned him (in the World War No. I). A noble truth nobly said by a noble soul thrown into the very midst of danger and calamity. Indeed, a danger is a danger so long as it is away and has not reached us. It is the menace, the imminence that causes more fright and upsetting than the thing itself. For it is imagination that enlarges and intensifies the object and makes of us craven cowards. The uncertainty hangs like a pall and casts a disabling influence upon the mind and nerves: one do

The Way to Unity COMMON love, common labour and, above all, as the great French thinker, Ernest Renan,* pointed out, common suf­fering – that is the cement which welds together the disparate elements of a nation-a nation is not formed otherwise. A nation means peoples differing in race and religion, caste and creed and even language, fused together into a composite but indivisible unit. Not pact nor balancing of interests nor sharing of power and profit can permanently combine and unify conflicting groups and collectivities. Hindus and Muslims, the two major sections that are at loggerheads today in India, must be given a field, indeed more than one field, where they can, work togeth

Matter Aspires MATTER holds and expresses material energy, the subtlest and highest form of which is electric energy. Should Matter be confined to that alone or can it express or create, by and out of itself, non-material energy also? What about mental energy and thought movements-can they too be made a function of Matter? For example, the computing machine. It has been developed to a marvellous extent. Not only big but complicated calculations are done by it, not only the four major arithmetical operations, but higher algebraic and trigonometrical problems too are tackled successfully. The electronic computer seems to possess a veritable mathematical brain. It is asked now i