CHAPTER VII The Ideal Law of Social Development THE true law of our development and the entire object of our social existence can only become clear to us when we have discovered not only, like modern Science, what man has been in his past physical and vital evolution, but his future mental and spiritual destiny and his place in the cycles of Nature. This is the reason why the subjective periods of human development must always be immeasurably the most fruitful and creative. In the others he either seizes on some face, image, type of the inner reality Nature in him is labouring to manifest or else he follows a mechanical impulse or shapes himself in

CHAPTER IV The Inadequacy of the State Idea WHAT, after all, is this State idea, this idea of the organised community to which the individual has to be immolated? Theoretically, it is the subordination of the individual to the good of all that is demanded; practically, it is his subordination to a collective egoism, political, military, economic, which seeks to satisfy certain collective aims and ambitions shaped and imposed on the great mass of the individuals by a smaller or larger number of ruling persons who are supposed in some way to represent the community. It is immaterial whether these belong to a governing class or emerge as in modem St

CHAPTER XVI The Problem of Uniformity and Liberty THE question with which we started has reached some kind of answer. After sounding as thoroughly as our lights permit the possibility of a political and administrative unification of mankind by political and economic motives and through purely political and administrative means, it has been concluded that it is not only possible, but that the thoughts and tendencies 9f mankind and the result of current events and existing forces and necessities have turned decisively in this direction. This is one of the dominant drifts which the World-Nature has thrown up in the flow of human developme

-21_The Curve of the Rational Age .htm CHAPTER XIX The Curve of the Rational Age  THE present age of mankind may be characterised from this point of view of a graded psychological evolution of the race as a more and more rapidly accelerated attempt to discover and work out the right principle and secure foundations of a rational system of society. It has been an age of progress; but progress is of two kinds, adaptive, with a secure basis in an unalterable social principle and constant change only in the circumstances and machinery of its application to suit fresh ideas and fresh needs, or else radical, with no long-secure basis, but instead a constant root questioning of the practica

Loyalty and Disloyalty in East Bengal THE Englishman and those who are evidently anxious to set the machinery of relentless state prosecutions against the leaders of the present national movement in this province, need not take so much trouble to prove that there is considerable disaffection and disloyalty in East Bengal which ought at once to be put down with a strong hand. Our contemporary must be far more simple-minded than what one should expect him to be, judging both from his general education and experience and his position as an intelligent observer and critic of current affairs, if he ever thought that there could be any real affection a

Partition and Petition THERE seems to be a recrudescence of the and decadent praying mood once again in certain quarters, and attempts, we understand, are being made to induce the leaders of public opinion in the mofussil to join the Calcutta clique for sending a fresh representation to the Secretary of State for India for the revocation or modification of the Partition of Bengal. The recent reply of the British Prime Minister to a question put to him by Mr. O'Donnell seems to be partly responsible for recrudescence, which, we understand, however, is mainly due towire-pulling from Palace Chambers. Some of our own countrymen now in England also seem to be playing i

Letter to his Father-in-law Pondicherry the 19th February, 1919 My dear Father-in-law, I have not written to you with regard to this fatal event in both our lives: words are useless in face of the feelings it has caused, if even they can ever express our deepest emotions. God has seen good to lay upon me the one sorrow that could still touch me to the centre. He knows better than ourselves what is best for each of us, and now that the first sense of the irreparable has passed, I can bow with submission to his divine purpose. The physical tie between us is, as you say, severed; but the tie of affection subsists for me. Where I have once loved, I do

-37_World's Delight.htm World's Delight World's delight, spring's sweetness, music's charm Lie within my arm. Earth that is and heaven to come are here with me Mastered on my knee. Open thy red petals, shrinking rose, And thy heart disclose. Pant thy fragrance up to me, O my delight, All the perfumed night. Thou possessed and I possessing, earth Opened for our mirth. Flowers dropping on us from delighted trees, Revels of the breeze, All for me because I hold their Circe, white Queen of their delight. Wanton, thou shalt know at last a chain Golden to restrain. Not a minute of thee shall escape my kiss, Captive made to bliss, Not a wandering breath but love s

Letter to Anandarao [June, 1912?] Dear Anandarao, My Bengal correspondent writes to me that you have sent me the following message, "The Baroda friend has left service and therefore there is difficulty in finding money. He asks, now you have become a Sannyasin, on what ground he can collect money. Still, if you let him know clearly your future, the time it will take to effect your Siddhi and the amount of money you need, he will try to collect from Rs.600 to 1000." I cannot understand why on earth people should make up their minds that I have become a Sannyasin! I have even made it clear enough in the public Press that I have not taken Sannyasa but am practising Yog

-40_To My Brother (Mannohan Ghose).htm SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME 9 THEFUTURE POETRY LETTERSONPOETRY, LITERATUREANDART This letter addressed by Sri Aurobindo to his poet-brother Manmohan Ghose, was found in a typewritten form among his manuscripts. The spellings of proper names have been maintained as found in the typed copy. Page-145 Purānamityeva na sādhu sarvam, Na cāpi kāvyam navamityavadyam: Santah pariksyānyatarad bhajante: Mūdah parapratyayaneyabuddhi. Kalidasa Not everything that is old is good, Nor is a poem therefore faulty because it is new: Good critics