The Life Divine   Chapter II         The perfect truth of the Veda, where it is now hidden, can only be recovered by the same means by which it was originally possessed. Revelation and experience are the doors of the Spirit. It cannot be attained either by logical reasoning or by scholastic investigation,— na pravacanena, na bahuna srutena; na tarkenaisa matir apaneya. "Not by explanation of texts nor by much learning", "not by logic is this realisation attainable." Logical reasoning and scholastic research can only be aids useful for confirming to the intellect what has already been acquired by revelation and spiritual experience. This limitation, this necessity are th

      Page-136 Page-137 Page-138       A Colloquy         TRANSLATION OF SRI AUROBINDO'S BENGALI ORIGINAL              KING         What a formidable wild spot, a desolate land       Have we chosen to live in! Pressed under hard rules we are;       We have discarded our fondness for our native land; forbidden for us       To look upon cherished faces. Is it true then       That this world is someone's play, to whose eyes the bondage of rules       Is only an image of his fancy? True then that there is someone       Under whose direction we—blinded by illusion—       Wander in a field hemmed i

Notes on the Texts       Nagpur Speeches. These three speeches, delivered by Sri Aurobindo in Nagpur on 30 and 31 January and 1 February 1908, are reproduced here from an old English translation of a Marathi pamphlet. The portions of the pamphlet giving information on the circumstances under which the speeches were delivered are reproduced as Document 9 of Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo. The speeches, given in English, were translated into Marathi probably for publication in a Nagpur newspaper, and subsequently issued in pamphlet form. A member of the Central Provinces police then translated the pamphlet so that it could be examined by the British authorities and po

Hymns of the Atris   HYMNS TO THE VISWADEVAS AND TO THE MARUTS   A HYMN TO THE VISWADEVAS V. 42. 1-5         1. Let the Word of my thought be full of the peace that it may embrace1 the godhead as Wideness and as the Harmony and as the Enjoyment and as the Infinities of being. Yea, let the Master of all Might hear it who is the multicoloured birth of things, the sacrificer on the five planes, whose path none can cleave across, the creator of the Bliss.       2. Let the infinite Consciousness clutch my affirmation to her bosom, as the Mother her child attractive to her heart in the fullness of her bliss; the soul state of love and joy which has its founda

Aryan Origins   THE ELEMENTARY ROOTS OF LANGUAGE         The elementary roots of language are in sound the vowel or semivowel roots, and in sense those which convey the fundamental idea of being, burdened with the cognate and immediately resultant ideas of the substance that pervades and the motion that bridges the space and time through which being expresses itself, in which it exists and relates its different points to each other. These ideas inherent in knowledge would in a primitive race work themselves out dimly, by a slow process, from the initial expression of immediate feelings, experiences, sensations and needs. But the speakers of the Aryan language were not, acco

The Bourgeois and the Samurai         TWO ORIENTAL nations have come powerfully under the influence of Western ideas and felt the impact of European civilization during the nineteenth century, India and Japan. The results have been very different. The smaller nation has become one of the mightiest Powers in the modern world, the larger in spite of far greater potential strength, a more original culture, a more ancient and splendid past and a far higher mission in the world, remains a weak, distracted, subject and famine-stricken people, politically, economically, morally and intellectually dependent on the foreigner and unable to realise its great possibilities. I

       Page-182 Page-183 One Without a Second   TRANSLATION OF AN ESSAY WRITTEN IN SANSKRIT BY SRI AUROBINDO         OM. There is Brahman alone, the One without a second. Being and Non-Being are its forms and It is also beyond Being and Non-Being. There is nothing else except That. All that is contained in the three times and all that is beyond the three times is indeed that One Brahman alone. Whatever is in the universe, small or large, noble or mean, is Brahman alone, Brahman alone. The world is also Brahman. It is true, not false.       That alone is the Transcendent Being, beyond all the three times, beyond all the world

Archival Notes NATIONALIST POLITICS IN BENGAL 1908-1909       In a previous issue (A & R, volume 4, pages 112-19) we examined the differences between the Moderates and the Extremists which led to the rupture between the two parties at Surat. On 28 December 1907, the day after the free-for-all at the Congress session, the Moderate delegates met in the pandal under police guard. Extremists, even those "who were ready and offered to sign the declaration required",1 were not admitted. At the meeting the Moderates adopted a manifesto calling for the Congress to be revived "under convention".2 A committee was formed for drawing up a constitution; it was decided that this committee w