The Standpoint of Indian Art INDIAN art is not in truth unreal and unnatural, though it may so appear to the eye of the ordinary man or to an eye habituated to the classical tradition of European art. Indian art, too, does hold the mirror up to Nature; but it is a different kind of Nature, not altogether this outward Nature that the mere physical eye envisages. All art is human creation; it is man's review of Nature; but the particular type of art depends upon the particular 'view-point that the artist takes for his survey. The classical artist surveys his field with the physical eye, from a single point of observation and at a definite angle; it is this which gives him the sine qua

The Place of Reason ANOTHER point in Sri Aurobindo's view of consciousness which troubles Prof. Das is about the exact nature and function of Reason. For while on one side Sri Aurobindo never seems to be tired of pointing out the inherent incapacity of Reason – in the good company of the ancient Rishis – as an instrument for the discovery or realisation of the Absolute or the integral Reality, he asserts, on the other hand, almost in the same breath as it were, that mind can have some idea or conception of what is beyond it, which it so often vainly strives to seize or represent. Evidently, the rationalist logic fails to hold together the two ends, as it is further seen in Prof. Das's

The Base of Sincerity THE great, perhaps, the greatest secret of life – uttamam rahasyam, to quote the familiar phrase of the Gita-consists in finding, in coming in contact with and remaining in permanent contact with this centre of our being, the nucleus of our living. And curiously, if we are alert and observant enough, we discover that this mysterious thing is not very far to seek. There is hardly any developed human being who has not had, some time or other in the course of his life, a feeling or perception that he is free, he is happy in a miraculous way, as if he is above or away from the vicissitudes of external life, nothing touches him and he is unique and self-fulfilled, he is o

The Immortal Person THE whole purpose of man's life upon earth, it may be said, is to make an individuality of himself and to grow in that individuality and organise it perfectly. An ordinary man is a most disorganised entity and possesses no individual character. His mind is a conglomeration of thoughts and ideas which do not particularly belong to him, but to everybody, being elements of the world-mind in general. His vital being too is a medley of desires, impulses, energies that are not personal in any sense, but pass through him or take a long or short-term asylum in him from the universal vital force. The body, being a definitely delimited object, is perhaps the only thing t

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 contradictory elements in the make-up of a modern n

Modernist Poetry A Modernist poet sings – O bright Apollo “Tin’ andra, tin' heroa, tina theon," What god, man or hero Shall I place a tin wreath upon! and a modernist critic acclaims it as a marvellous, aye, a stupendous piece of poetic art; it figures, according to him, the very body of the modern consciousness and resthesis. The modern consciousness, it is said, is marked with two characteristics: first, it is polyphonic, that is to say, it is not a simple and unilateral thing, but a composite consisting of many planes and strands, both horizontal and vertical. A modern con­sciousness is a section of world-consciousness extending in space as well as

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

Federated Humanity THE last great war, out of its bloody welter, threw up a mantra for the human consciousness to contemplate and seize and realise: it was self-determination. The present world-war has likewise cast up a mantra that is complementary. The problem of the unification of the whole human race has engaged the attention of seers and sages, idealists and men of action, since time immemorial; but only recently its demand has become categorically imperative for a solution in the field of practical politics. Viewed from another angle, one can say that it is also a problem Nature has set before herself, has been dealing with through the ages, elaborating and leading to a final issue.

In Quest of Reality THIS is, they say, the age of Positivism – no mystic obfuscation, but clear light in the open sun. Let us enquire a little into the nature of this modern illumination. Positivists are those who swear by facts. Facts to them mean naturally facts attested in the end by sense-experience. To a positivist the only question that matters and that needs to be answered and can be answered is whether a thing is or is not physically: other questions are otiose, irrelevant, misleading. So problems of the Good, of the Beautiful, of God are meaningless. When one says this is good, that is bad, well, it is a proposition that cannot be related to any fact, it is a subjective p

Knowledge by Identity SRI AUROBINDO says, knowledge – true knowledge – comes always by identity, i.e., when you are identified with the object, when the knower and the known are one. He further adds that even ordinary knowledge, sense-perception, comes in fact by that way, although it may look otherwise, viz., as a process of logical induction or deduction or both. When I am angry, he illustrates, I know I am angry because I become anger or when I know I am existent, it is because I am one with my existence. Prof. Das¹ seeks to controvert the position. He says, when there is complete identity there is no knowledge. If I am wholly one with the object, I get merged and lost in it. W