Chapter VII   THE CREATION OF THE HETEROGENEOUS NATION         The problem of a federal empire founded on the sole foundation that is firm and secure, the creation of a true psychological unity,—an empire that has to combine heterogeneous elements,—resolves itself into two different factors, the question of the form and the question of the reality which the form is intended to serve. The former is of great practical importance, but the latter alone is vital. A form of unity may render possible, may favour or even help actively to create the corresponding reality, but it can never replace it. And, as we have seen, the true reality is in this order of Nature the psychological, since

Chapter XXVIII   DIVERSITY IN ONENESS         It is essential to keep constantly in view the fundamental powers and realities of life if we are not to be betrayed by the arbitrary rule of the logical reason and its attachment to the rigorous and limiting idea into experiments which, however convenient in practice and however captivating to a unitarian and symmetrical thought, may well destroy the vigour and impoverish the roots of life. For that which is perfect and satisfying to the system of the logical reason may yet ignore the truth of life and the living needs of the race. Unity is an idea which is not at all arbitrary or unreal; for unity is the very basis of existence. Th

Chapter XXIV   THE NEED OF MILITARY UNIFICATION         In the process of centralisation by which all the powers of an organised community come to be centred in one sovereign governing body—the process which has been the most prominent characteristic of national formations, —military necessity has played at the beginning the largest overt part. This necessity was both external and internal, —external for the defence of the nation against disruption or subjection from without, internal for its defence against civil disruption and disorder. If a common administrative authority is essential in order to bind together the constituent parts of a nation in the forming, the first need an

Chapter XXXIV   THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY         A religion of humanity may be either an intellectual and sentimental ideal, a living dogma with intellectual, psychological and practical effects, or else a spiritual aspiration and rule of living, and partly the sign, partly the cause of a change of soul in humanity. The intellectual religion of humanity already to a certain extent exists, partly as a conscious creed in the minds of a few, partly as a potent shadow in the consciousness of the race. It is the shadow of a spirit that is yet unborn, but is preparing for its birth. This material world of ours, besides its fully embodied things of the present, is peopled by such power

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 appropriate and serviceable soc

Chapter XXXII   INTERNATIONALISM         The idea of humanity as a single race of beings with a common life and a common general interest is among the most characteristic and significant products of modern thought. It is an outcome of the European mind which proceeds characteristically from life-experience to the idea and, without going deeper, returns from the idea upon life in an attempt to change its outward forms and institutions, its order and system. In the European mentality it has taken the shape known currently as internationalism. Internationalism is the attempt of the human mind and life to grow out of the national idea and form and even in a way to destroy it in the

SRI AUROBINDO INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF EDUCATION COLLECTION   VOL. IX   THE HUMAN CYCLE THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY WAR AND SELF-DETERMINATION   Sri Aurobindo       SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY 1962 Publishers: © Sri Aurobindo International Centre Of Education, Pondicherry 1962     All rights reserved     Printed at: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press Pondicherry-2 PRINTED IN INDIA

THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY     PART ONE   Chapter I   THE TURN TOWARDS UNITY : ITS NECESSITY AND DANGERS         The surfaces of life are easy to understand; their laws, characteristic movements, practical utilities are ready to our hand and we can seize on them and turn them to account with a sufficient facility and rapidity. But they do not carry us very far. They suffice for an active super-ficial life from day to day, but they do not solve the great problems of existence. On the other hand, the knowledge of life's profundities, its potent secrets, its great, hidden, all-determining laws is exceedingly difficult to us. We have fou

Chapter VI   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, econo-ic, 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 modern States from the mass partly

CHAPTER VIII   THE PROBLEM OF A FEDERATED HETEROGENEOUS EMPIRE         If the building up of a composite nation in the British Isles was from the beginning a foregone conclusion, a geographical and economical necessity only prevented in its entire completion by the most violent and perverse errors of statesmanship, the same cannot be said of the swifter, but still gradual and almost unconscious process by which the colonial empire of Great Britan has been evolving to a point at which it can become a real unity. It was not so long ago that the eventual separation of the colonies carrying with it the evolution of Australia and Canada at least into young independent nations was cons