CHAPTER XXIX   THE IDEA OF A LEAGUE OF NATIONS    THE only means that readily suggests itself by which a necessary group-freedom can be preserved and yet the unification of the human race achieved, is to strive not towards a closely organised world-State, but towards a free, elastic and progressive world-union. If this is to be done, we shall have to discourage the almost inevitable tendency which must lead any unification by political, economic and administrative means, in a word, by the force of machinery, to follow the analogy of the evolution of the nation-State. And we shall have to encourage and revive that force of idealistic nationa

CHAPTER XXIII   FORMS OF GOVERNMENT   . THE idea of a world-union of free nations and empires, loose at first, but growing closer-knit with time and experience, seems at first sight the most practicable form of political unity; it is the only form indeed which would be immediately practicable, supposing the will to unity to become rapidly effective in the mind of the race. On the other hand, it is the State idea which is now dominant. The State has been the most successful and efficient means of unification and has been best able to meet the various needs which the progressive aggregate life of societies has created for itself and is still creating. It

CHAPTER XX   THE DRIVE TOWARDS ECONOMIC CENTRALISATION   THE objective organisation of a national unity is not yet complete when it has arrived at the possession of a single central authority and the unity and uniformity of its political, military and strictly administrative functions. There is another side of its organic life, the legislative and its corollary, the judicial function, which is equally important; the exercise of legislative power becomes eventually indeed, although it was not always, the characteristic sign of the sovereign. Logically, one would suppose that the conscious and organised determination of its own rules of lif

INTRODUCTION   AT THE time when this book was being brought to its close, the first attempt at the foundation of some initial hesitating beginning of the new world-order which both governments and peoples had begun to envisage as a permanent necessity if there was to be any order in the world at all, was under debate and consideration but had not yet been given a concrete and practical form; but this had to come and eventually a momentous beginning was made. It took the name and appearance of what was called a League of Nations. It was not happy in its conception, well-inspired in its formation or destined to any considerable longevity or a supremely successful career. But that

Ramayana, the story of the Sanskrit Ramayana freely retold in Bengali verse by KRITTIBAS. (A) a 3:426 14:319 (Bengal) National College The Bengal National College and School, Calcutta, was set up by the National Council of Education, Bengal, on 14 August 1906 with Sri Aurobindo as the principal. Sri Aurobindo, however, resigned on August 2, 1907. In 1910, the college merged with the Bengal Technical Institute founded by Sri Tarak Nath Palit; the united institution came to be known as the Bengal National College and Technical School. Some time later, after the arts side of the college met with failure, the technical side was developed into the Jadavpore College of Engineering and Technol

  The Life Divine CHAPTER XXI THE ASCENT OF LIFE Let the path of the soul to the godhead lead up towards the original ocean by the working of the Mind.                                                                                                                                                             Rig- Veda         The great Delight of things conquering the third law of status affirms and governs all by the soul of universality ; then in his winged and wide ascent he manifests the fourth status and adheres firmly to the ocean that is the fountain of these waters.                                            id .       

  The Life Divine. CHAPTER XVIII MIND AND SUPERMIND         He discovered that Mind was the Brahman.                                                                     Taittiriya Upanishad.        Indivisible, but as if divided in beings.                                                                Gita.        The conception which we have so far been striving to form is that of the essence only of the supramental life which the divine soul possesses securely in the being of Sachchidananda, but which the human soul has to manifest in this body of Sachchidananda formed here into the mould of a mental and physical living. But so

  The Life Divine CHAPTER XIX LIFE        Puranic energy is the life of creatures; for that is said to be the universal principle of life.                                                                                                                             Taittiriya Upanishad ARGUMENT        [Mind as a final action of Supermind is a creative and not only a perceptive power; in fact, material force itself being only a Will in things working darkly as the expression of subconscious Mind, Mind is the immediate creator of the material universe. But the real creator is Supermind; for wherever there is Mind conscious or subconscious,

  THE LIFE DIVINE CHAPTER XIV. THE SUPERMIND AS CREATOR     All things are self expanding of the Idea.     Vishnu Purana.     A principle of active Will and Knowledge superior to Mind and creature of the wilds is then the intermediary power and state of being between that self-possession of the One and this flux of the Many. This principle is not entirely alien to us; it does not belong solely and incommunicably to a Being who is entirely other than ourselves or to a state of existence from which we are mysteriously projected into birth, but also rejected and unable to return. If it seems to us to be seated on heights far above us, yet a

  The Life Divine CHAPTER XXII THE PROBLEM OF LIFE       This it is that is called the universal Life.     Taittiriya Upanishad,     The Lord seated in the heart of all existences turns all as upon a machine by his Maya.     Gita.     Man when he knows the Eternal who is Truth, Knowledge and Infinity shall enjoy, in association with the Eternal who has the all-discerning consciousness, all that he now desires. Taittiriya Upanishad,   ARGUMENT.     [Life being a divided movement of consciousness a though really an undivided force becomes a clash of opposing truths each striving to fulfil itsel