CHAPTER XV   SOME LINES OF FULFILMENT   WHAT favoured form, force, system among the many that are possible now or likely to emerge hereafter, will be entrusted by the secret Will in things with the external unification of mankind, is an interesting and to those who can look beyond the narrow horizon of passing events, a fascinating subject of speculation; but unfortunately it can at present be nothing more. The very multitude of the possibilities in a period of humanity so rife with the most varied and potent forces, so fruitful of new subjective developments and objective mutations creates an impenetrable mist in which only vague forms of giants c

CHAPTER XXXIII   INTERNATIONALISM AND HUMAN UNITY   THE great necessity, then, and the great difficulty is to help this idea of humanity, which is already at work upon our minds and has even begun in a very slight degree to influence from above our actions, and turn it into something more than an idea, however strong, to make it a central motive and a fixed part of our nature. Its satisfaction must become a necessity of our psychological being just as the family idea or the national idea has become each a psychological motive with its own need of satisfaction. But how is this to be done? The family idea had the advantage of growing out of a

CHAPTER XXII   WORLD UNION OR WORLD STATE   THIS then in principle is the history of the growth of the State. It is a history of strict unification by the development of a central authority and of a growing uniformity of administration, legislation, social and economic life and culture and the chief means of culture, education and language. In all the central authority becomes more and more the determining and regulating power. The process culminates by the transformation of this governing sole authority or sovereign power from the rule of the central executive man or the capable class into that of a body whose proposed function is to represent the

CHAPTER III   THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL   IT is a constant method of Nature, when she has two elements of a harmony to reconcile, to proceed at first by a long continued balancing in which she sometimes seems to lean entirely on one side, sometimes entirely to the other, at others to correct both excesses by a more or less successful temporary adjustment and moderating compromise. The two elements appear then as opponents necessary to each other who therefore labour to arrive at some conclusion of their strife. But as each has its egoism and that innate tendency of all things which drives them not only towards self-preservation but towards s

CHAPTER XIII   THE FORMATION OF THE NATION UNIT—THE THREE STAGES   THE three stages of development which have marked the mediaeval and modern evolution of the nation-type may be regarded as the natural process where a new form of unity has to be created out of complex conditions and heterogeneous materials by an external rather than an internal process. The external method tries always to mould the psychological condition of men into changed forms and habits under the pressure of circumstances and institutions rather than by the direct creation of a new psychological condition which would, on the contrary, develop freely and flexibly its own a

CHAPTER IX   THE POSSIBILITY OF A WORLD-EMPIRE   THE progress of the imperial idea from the artificial and constructive stage to the position of a realised psychological truth controlling the human mind with the same force and vitality which now distinguish the national idea above all other group motives, is only a possibility, not a certainty of the future. It is even no more than a vaguely nascent possibility and so long as it has not emerged from this inchoate condition in which it is at the mercy of the much folly of statesmen, the formidable passions of great human masses, the obstinate self-interest of established egoisms, we can have

CHAPTER XVIII   THE IDEAL SOLUTION—A FREE GROUPING OF MANKIND   THESE principles founded on the essential and constant tendencies of Nature in the development of human life ought clearly to be the governing idea in any intelligent attempt at the unification of the human race. And it might so be done if that unification could be realised after the manner of a Lycurgan constitution or by the law of an ideal Manu, the perfect sage and king. Attempted, as it will be, in very different fashion according to the desires, passions and interests of great masses of people guided by no better light than the half-enlightened reason of the world's intellectuals a

    TAITTIR1YA UPANISHAD     Page-170 TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD SHIKSHA VALLI CHAPTER ONE Hari OM. Be peace to us Mitra. Be peace to us Varuna. Be peace to us Aryaman. Be peace to us Indra and Brihaspati. May far-striding Vishnu be-peace to us. Adoration to the Eternal. Adoration to thee, O Vayu. Thou, thou art the visible Eternal and as the visible Eternal I will declare thee. I will declare Righteousness! I will declare Truth! May that protect me! May that protect the speaker!-Yea, may it protect me! May it protect the speaker.. OM. Peace! Peace! Peace! CHAPTER TWO OM. We will expound Shiksha, the elements. Syllable an

    ISHA UPANISHAD         ISHA UPANISHAD 1. All this is for habitation1 by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man's possession. 2. Doing verily2 works in this world one should 1 There are three possible senses of vāsyam, "to be clothed", "to be worn as a garment" and "to be inhabited". The first is the ordinarily accepted meaning. Shankara explains it in this significance, that we must lose the sense of this unreal objective universe in the sole perception of the pure Brahman. So explained the first line b

    SRI AUROB1NDO EIGHT UPANISHADS       SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY 1960   Publishers : SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM Pondicherry           All Rights Reserved             First Edition ...August, 1953 Second Impression...August, 1960             printed in India Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press Pondicherry