Rishi Bankim Chandra              THERE are many who, lamenting the by- gone glories of this great and ancient nation, speak as if the Rishis of old, the inspired creators of thought and civilisation, were a miracle of our heroic age, not to be repeated among degenerate men and in our distressful present. This is an error and thrice an error. Ours is the eternal land, the eternal people, the eternal religion, whose strength, greatness, holiness may be overclouded but never, even for a moment, utterly cease. The hero, the Rishi, the .saint, are the natural fruits of our Indian 'soil; and there has been no age in which they have not been born. Among the Rishis of

The Web of Yoga TO BE one in all ways of thy being with that which is the Highest, this is Yoga. To be one in all ways of thy being with that which is the All, that is Yoga. To be one in thy spirit and with thy understanding and thy heart and in all thy members with the God in humanity, this is Yoga. To be one with all Nature and all beings, this is Yoga. All this is to be one with God in his transcendence and his cosmos and all that he has created in his being. Because from him all is and all is in him and he is all and in all and because he is thy highest Self and thou art one with him in thy spirit and a portion of him in thy soul and at play with him in thy nature, and beca

IV THOUGHTS AND APHORISMS JNANA - KARMA - BHAKTI Jnana THERE are two allied powers in man: Knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge is so much of the truth, seen in a distorted medium, as the mind arrives at by groping; Wisdom what the eye of divine vision sees in the spirit. Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal knowledge; it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses. When I speak, the reason says, "This will I say"; but God takes the word out of my mouth and the lips say something else at which reason trembles. I am not a Jnani, for I have no

Bhakti I AM not a Bhakta, for I have not renounced the world for God. How can I renounce what He took from me by force and gave back to me against my will? These things are too hard for me. I am not a Bhakta, I am not a Jnani, I am not a worker for the Lord. What am I then? A tool in the hands of my Master, a flute blown upon by the divine Herd-Boy, a leaf driven by the breath of the Lord. Devotion is not utterly fulfilled till it becomes action and knowledge. If thou pursuest God and canst overtake Him, let Him not go till thou hast His reality. If thou hast hold of His reality, insist on having also His totality. The

The National Value of Art THERE is a tendency in modern times to depreciate the value of the beautiful and overstress the value of the useful, a tendency curbed in Europe by the imperious insistence of an agelong tradition of culture and generous training of the aesthetic perceptions; but in India, where we have been cut off by a mercenary and soulless education from all our ancient roots of culture and tradition, it is corrected only by the stress of imagination, emotion and spiritual delicacy, submerged but not yet destroyed in the temperament of the people. The value attached by the ancients to music, art and poetry has become almost unintelligible to an age

The Secret of Life - Ananda THE world lives in and by Ananda. From Ananda, says the Veda, we were born, by Ananda we live, to Ananda we return, and it adds that no man could even have the strength to draw in his breath and throw it out again if there were not this heaven of Bliss embracing our existence as ether embraces our bodies, nourishing us with its eternal substance and strength and supporting the life and the activity. A world which is essentially a world of bliss - this was the ancient Vedantic vision, the drsti of the Vedic drastā, which differentiates Hinduism in its early virility from the cosmic sorrow of Buddhism and the cosmic disillusionment of

China, Japan and India IT IS significant of the tendencies of the twentieth century that all its great and typical events should have occurred no longer as in the last few centuries in Europe, but in Asia. The Russo-Japanese war, the Chinese Revolution, the constitutional changes in Turkey and Persia and last but most momentous the revival however indeterminate as yet of the soul of India, are the really significant events of the young century. In Europe except in only one Asiatic corner, there has been no event of corresponding magnitude and importance. The abortive orgy of revolutionary fury in Russia, the growth of enorm

-60_The Arya's Fourth Year.htm The "Arya's" Fourth Year                                  WE CLOSE this month the fourth year of the "Arya", and bring to a conclusion at the same time the "Psychology of Social Development", the "Ideal of Human Unity" and the first series of the "Essays on the Gita." A few more chapters will complete the "Life Divine." We are therefore well in view of the completion of the first part of the work which we had proposed to ourselves in starting this philosophical monthly, and we take the opportunity to say a few words upon the principle which has governed our writing and which the difficulty of a serial exposition on several lines at a time, scattering and breakin

About Astrology* THE subject of this book is one which stands nowadays put away under a sort of intellectual ban, placed on it some centuries ago by the scientific and rationalistic European mind and not yet lifted. Mr. N. P. Subramania Iyer has under- taken an astrological series which will deal with the various parts of astrology, and the present volume contains the text and translation of the Kalaprakasika, a treatise on the selection of the right times by astrological rule for undertaking any and every action of human life. The book is well printed and got up, the translation admirably done in a style free enough to avoid all awkwardness, - the author has a thoroug

Seven Suns of the Supermind 1. The Sun of Supramental Truth, — Knowledge-Power originating the supramental creation. Descent into the Sahasradala. 2. The Sun of Supramental Light and Will-Power, transmitting the Knowledge-Power as dynamic vision and command to create, found and organise the supramental creation. Descent into the Ajna Chakra, the centre between the eyes. 3. The Sun of Supramental Word, embodying the Knowledge-Power, empowered to express and arrange the supramental creation. Descent into the Throat Centre. 4. The Sun of Supramental Love, Beauty, and Bliss, releasing the Sou lof the Knowledge-Power to v