Life and Self-Control (A Letter) THERE is no doubt that Europe knows very well the art of life which in our country is totally lacking. In the East it is only Japan that knows it and knows it well enough. Our country on the whole and most of the East is at present steeped in inertia. You have asked me the exact meaning of control of the senses and what is its necessity in life. For, in India we have held up this ideal on an elaborate scale, but to what effect? Europe cares little for it, yet she rules the world. Firstly, whether self-control is necessary or not depends on the nature of our ideal. Self-control is only a particular means to a particular end. If

The Obscene and the Ugly – Form and Essence OBSCENITY has its place in art, but not ugliness. Obscenity and ugliness are not the same, nor are decency and beauty. To maintain and hide the brute in man is a characteristic feature of the civilised world, and this is what is called decency. And to expose this brute nature to daylight is obscenity. Is there any necessity or usefulness at all in exhibiting the brute nature in any sphere of a civilised society? Brute truth may be admitted in the world of scientific research. But the question arises whether an artist also has the same privilege. From the standpoint of the creation of beauty what purpose

Lone to the Lone THE quintessence of spirituality is said to consist in, as has been described in the famous phrase of the Alexandrine mystic philosopher Plotinus, the flight of the lone to the lone. God is a solitary and the other solitary is the soul: so when one solitary mingles with the supreme solitary, the result is utter solitariness, which is spirituality at its apex, its highest height. The world, in this view, is an excrescence, an epiphenomenon – Illusion, Maya. God is the transcendent Reality, above and beyond all manifestation, negating all multiplicities and relativities of creation: He is indivisible, single, absolute unity – ekamevādvitīyam, kevalam – neha nānāsti kinc

Three Degrees of Social Organisation DECLARATION of Rights is a characteristic modern phenomenon. It is a message of liberty and freedom, – no doubt of secular liberty and freedom – things not very common in the old world; and yet at the same time it is a clarion that calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has sanctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also pari passu developed a fissiparous tendency in human organisation. Society based on or living by the principle of Right becomes naturally and inevitably a competitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing more – and, of course, nothing less – than a bundle of rights, human aggregation is

INDEX A. E. (George Russell), 45, 152,195,275 Adwaita, 139 Aesop, 97 Africa, 56, 101 Agastya, 281 Agni, 9, 247 Ajanta, 136, 179 Akbar, 93, 394 Alexander, 208, 394 Allies, the, 75, 88, 89 America, 56, 72, 81, 87, 89, 91, 103-4, 111, 119, 209 Amitabha, 273 Anarchism, 112 Anaxagoras, 326 Angst, 377 Anselm, 150 Apollo, 177,220 Aquinas, Thomas, 150 Aristotle, 128, 182,219,322 Arjuna, 60, 188-9,384-5, 391 Arminius, 88 Arnold, Matthew, 68, 192, 240, 272 Artemis, 195 Asia, 16, 48, 70, 101, 148, 152-3, 240, 245 Asoka,93,195 Asura, 18

THE COMING RACE   The New Humanity   THE world is in the throes of a new creation and the pangs of that new birth have made mother Earth restless. It is no longer a far-off ideal that our imagination struggles to visualise, nor a prophecy that yet remains to be fulfilled. It is Here and Now.   Although we may not know it, the New Man-the divine race of humanity is already among us. It may be in our next neighbour, in our nearest brother, even in myself. Only a thin veil covers it. It m

Divine Humanism A GOOD many European scholars and philosophers have found Indian spirituality and Indian culture, at bottom, lacking in what is called 'humanism'.* So our scholars and philosophers on their side have been at pains to rebut the charge and demonstrate the humanistic element in our tradition. It may be asked, however, if such a vindication is at all necessary, or if it is proper to apply a European standard of excellence to things Indian. India may have other measures, other terms of valuation. Even if it is proved that humanism as defined and understood in the West is an unknown thing in India, yet that need not necessarily be taken as a sign of inferiority or deficienc

The Right of Absolute Freedom A NATION cannot claim the right, even in the name of freedom, to do as it pleases. An individual has not that right, the nation too has not. A nation is a member of humanity, there are other members and there is the common welfare of all. A nation by choosing a particular line of action, in asserting its absolute freedom, may go against other nations, or against the general good. Such freedom has to be curbed and controlled. Collective life – if one does not propose to live the life of the solitary – the animal or the saint – is nothing if not such a system of controls. "The whole of politics is an interference with personal liberty. Law is such an interferen

The Nature of Perfection PERFECTION is often understood to mean the highest or the utmost possible development, even if it be in one particular line or direction. That, however, can better be called success or achievement. True perfection is not an extreme growth, however great or commendable it may be: it is the harmony of an all-round growth, the expression of the unified total being. And yet this does not involve a stultification of any limb or a forced diminution of any capacity. Perfection does not consist either in the harmonisation of the utmost possible development of each and every capacity, attribute or power of being. First of all, it is not a possible ideal, given the condi