THREE DEGREES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Declaration of Rights is a characteristic modem phenomenon. It is a message of liberty and freedom, no doubt,—of secular liberty and freedom—things not very common in the old world; and yet, at the same time, it is a clarion that calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has sanctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also, pari passu, developed a fissiparous tendency in human organization. Society based on or living by the principle of Rights becomes naturally and inevitably a competitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing more— and, of course, nothing less—than a bun

THE BASIC UNITY There is one unity which cannot be denied to India, because Nature has given it and man cannot withdraw or annul it. It is the geographical, the physical unity. It is so clearly and indelibly marked that it has always been looked upon as a definite unit by all outside its boundaries; one may call in question the cultural unity, if one chooses, one may be sceptic about the spiritual unity, but the unity of the body leaps to the eyes, even as the clear contour of a living organism. As we know, however, an individual human frame may contain many personalities, many Jekyls and Hydes may lodge in the same physical tenement, even so, the physical unity that is India m

-001_Author^s Note.htm AUTHORS NOTE All the essays included in this volume were written during the war years (1940-1945). Some of them dealt with situations directly arising out of the war and so they carry certain points of emphasis which are no longer valid, at least to the same extent, under changed circumstances of today. Still they are of interest and may help in some way to formulate one's ideas regarding the future and are therefore reprinted. These are mostly editorial notes and comments contributed to the Advent Acknowledgement is due to All-India Radio, Delhi, from where the first essay, in an abridged form was broadcast on December 4, 1942. 'New World-Conditions' was pu

Published by Sri Aurobindo Circle Bombay First Edition, 1946 All Rights Reserved Imprimerie de Sri Aurobindo Ashra Pondichéry

THE MESSAGE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB The moralist—the Christian moralist particularly—has dubbed the atomic bomb as the Devil's engine; while the practical politician retorts that the accursed machine has cut short the war, saved more lives on the whole and reduced the extent and duration of suffering and agony. In any case the new weapon is so radical and devastating in its effectiveness that even politicians do not seem to be without a qualm and heart-burning, not in the moral but in the physical and nervous sense. The atom bomb is a bombshell not upon your enemies alone, but it is a boomerang likely to turn back upon yourself, upon the whole of humanity and human ci

INDEPENDENCE AND ITS SANCTION Independence is not a gift which one can receive from another, it is a prize that has to be won. In the words of the poet Bhasa, used in respect of empire, we can say also of liberty; Talloke na tu yācyate na tu punardīnāya dīyate it is not a thing to be got for the mere asking, nor is it a thing to be made over to a weakling. The lead Sri Aurobindo gave in this connection has not, sad to say, sufficiently attracted the attention of our people. Indeed what he suggested was exactly, under the circumstances, the best way to acquire the necessary fitness, organised strength, capacity, the might and consequently the r

PART II THE ROLE OF INDIA INDIA ONE AND INDIVISIBLE India is one and indivisible, culturally and spiritually; politically too she must be one and indivisible and is, as a matter of fact, already on the way towards that consummation, in spite of appearances to the contrary. It has got to be so, if India is to be strong and powerful, if her voice is to be heard in the comity of nations, if she is to fulfil her mission in the world. It is no use laying stress on distinctions and differences : we must, on the contrary, put all emphasis upon the fundamental unity, upon the demand and necessity for a dynamic unity. Naturally there are diverse and even

ON SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION I It is one of the great errors of the human mind to take equality as identical with uniformity. When Rousseau started the revolutionary slogan "Men are born equal", men were carried away in the vehemence of the new spirit and thought that there was absolutely no difference between man and man, all difference must be due to injustice, tyranny and corruption in the social system. Rousseau's was a necessary protest and corrective against the rank inequality that was the order of the day. All men are, however, equal not in the sense that all material particles—sea-sands or molecules or atoms, for example—may be equal, that is to say, same in

PART I THE WORLD WAR THE WORLD WAR ITS INNER BEARINGS This is a war to which even spiritual seekers can hardly remain indifferent with impunity. There are spiritual paths, however, that ask to render unto God what is God's and unto Satan what belongs to Satan; in other words, spirituality is kept apart from what is called worldliness, clean and untouched by the dust and murk of Ignorance—Maya. The injunction accordingly is that they who are worldly must remain worldly, they have no business, no right to meddle with spirituality, and they who are spiritual should, on the other hand, remain strictly spiritual, should have nothing to do with worldliness. Because

THE RIGHT OF ABSOLUTE FREEDOM A nation cannot claim the right, even in the name of freedom, to do as it pleases. An individual has not that right, the nation too has not. A nation is a member of humanity, there are other members and there is the common welfare of all. A nation by choosing a particular line of action, in asserting its absolute freedom, may go against other nations, or against the general good. Such freedom has to be curbed and controlled. Collective life—if one does not propose to live the life of the solitary—the animal or the saint—is nothing if not such a system of controls. " The whole of politics is an interference with personal liberty. Law i