III. MINOR CHARACTERS Nothing more certainly distinguishes the dramatic artist from the poet who has trespassed into drama than the careful pains he devotes to his minor characters. To the artist nothing is small; he bestows as much of his art within the narrow limit of his small characters as within the wide compass of his greatest. Shakespeare lavishes life upon his minor characters; but in Shakespeare it is the result of an abounding creative energy; he makes living men as God made the world, because he could not help it, because it was in his nature and must out. But Kalidasa's dramatic gift, always suave and keen, had not this godlike abundance; it is therefore well

Fate and Free-Will A QUESTION which has hitherto divided human thought and received no final solution, is the freedom of the human being in his relation to the Power intelligent or unintelligent that rules the world. We strive for freedom in our human relations, to freedom we move as our goal, and every fresh step in our human progress is a further approximation to our ideal. But are we free in ourselves? We seem to be free, to do that which we choose and not that which is chosen for us; but it is possible that the freedom may be illusory and our apparent freedom may be a real and iron bondage. We may be bound by predestination, the will of a Supreme Intelligent Power

Indian Art and an Old Classic WE HAVE before us a new edition of Krittibas' Ramayana, edited and published by that indefatigable literary and patriotic worker, Sj. Ramananda Chatterji. Ramananda Babu is well known to the Bengali public as a clear minded, sober and fearless political speaker and writer; as editor of the Modern Review and the Prabasi he has raised the status and quality of Indian periodical literature to an extraordinary extent, and has recently been doing a yet more valuable and lasting service to his country by introducing the masterpieces of the new school of Art to his readers. His present venture is not in itself an ambitious one, as it p

-06_The Evolutionary Process— Ascent and Integration.htm CHAPTER XVIII The Evolutionary Process— Ascent and Integration As he mounts from peak to peak... Indra makes him conscious of that goal of his movement. Rig Veda.¹ A son of the two Mothers, he attains to kingship in his discoveries of knowledge, he moves on the summit, he dwells in his high foundation. Rig Veda.² I have arisen from earth to the mid-world, I have arisen from the mid-world to heaven, from the level of the firmament of heaven I have gone to the Sun-world, the Light.³ Yajur Veda.4 IT IS now possible and necessary, since we have formed a sufficiently clear idea of the

BOOK II Part II THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE IGNORANCE THE SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION CHAPTER XV Reality and the Integral Knowledge This Self is to be won by the Truth and by an integral knowledge. Mundaka Upanishad.¹ Hear how thou shalt know Me in My totality... for even of the seekers who have achieved, hardly one knows Me in all the truth of My being. Gita.² THIS then is the origin, this the nature, these the boundaries of the Ignorance. Its origin is a limitation of knowledge, its distinctive character a separation of the being from its own integrality and entire reality; its boundari

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Our Life Divine first appeared serially in the Arya from August 1914 to January 1919. Volume I, revised and enlarged, was first published in book from in November 1939: Volume II, recast and enlarged, followed in July 1940, in two parts. These were reprinted in 1943 and 1947. the Sri Aurobindo Library, New York, Issued a single volume edition in 1949 and reprinted it in 1951. an edition under the imprint of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, also in a single volume, appeared in 1955 and was reprinted in 1960. The India Library Society Education (New York) came out in 1965. The present edition in two volumes forms part of

CHAPTER XVI The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence When all the desires that cling to the heart are loosed away from it, then the mortal becomes immortal, even here he possesses the Eternal. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.1 He becomes the Eternal and departs into the Eternal. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.2 This bodiless and immortal Life and Light is the Brahman. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.3 Long and narrow is the ancient Path,—I have touched it, I have found it,—the Path by which the wise, knowers of the Eternal, attaining to salvation, depart hence to the high world

CHAPTER XXVII The Gnostic Being A perfect path of the Truth has come into being for our journey to the other shore beyond the darkness. 1Rig Veda.1 O Truth-Conscious, be conscious of the Truth, cleave out many streams of the Truth. Rig Veda.2 O Flame, O Wine, your force has become conscious; you have discovered the One Light for the many. Rig Veda.3 Pure-white and dual in her largenesses, she follows effectively, like one who knows, the path of the Truth and diminishes not its directions. Rig Veda.4 By the Truth they hold the Truth that holds all, in the power of the Sacrifice, in the sup

CHAPTER XXIV The Evolution of the Spiritual Man Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides.... Whatever form the worshipper chooses to worship with faith, I set in him firm faith in it, and with that faith he puts his yearning into his adoration and gets his desire dispensed by Me. But limited is that fruit. Those whose sacrifice is to the gods, to elemental spirits, reach the gods, reach the elemental spirits, but those whose sacrifice is to Me, to Me they come. Gita.1 In these there is not the Wonder and the Might; the truths occult exist not for the