Hamlet : A Crisis of the Evolving Soul THE consciousness that rules over the tragedy of Hamlet, the destiny that works itself out in the play of the forces portrayed in that great drama, are the consciousness and the destiny of the human soul at a most fateful crisis, a crucial turning-point in the course of its evolution. The soul, lodged in the human embodiment, moves forward and upward, towards a greater and greater self-expression and self-expansion, a continual heightening and widening of its consciousness, a constant subli­mation and transfiguration of its mode of being and living. And in the progressive gradient so pursued, there are certain stages or level-crossings that can

Some Thoughts on the Unthinkable   GOD is not an autocrat – a despot like the Czar or the Shahan Shah, pedestalled high above and ruling over his subject-slaves according to his fancy and caprice, issuing ukases and firmans which suffer no delay or hindrance in their execution. God is, if he is at all to be compared to a king, more like a constitutional sovereign. He does not act as he chooses and pleases. There is a system, a plan, a procedure of governance; there are principles and laws and rules, and he abides by them. There are even agents and intermediaries, officers and servants – instruments through whom he works out his purpose. He is] the supreme dharmaraja, the lord and gua

THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY The Malady of the Century I   WHAT is the malady of our age? It is that man has lost touch with his soul. There were ages no doubt in the past, dark periods, when man's soul retired into the background, was obscured or veiled; but only today there seems to have occurred a definite cleavage, a clear sundering. Man no longer drags the lengthening chain that tied him, in spite of everything, to his divine essence; he has cut it clean and let himself adrift.   The Eternal Enemy appeared and spread out before our enchanted eyes the panorama of earth's riches and glories, not merely riches of comfort and pleasure and well-being, but glor

The Spiritual Genius of India WHAT is it that we precisely mean when we say that India is spiritual? For, that is how we are accustomed to express India's special genius – her backbone, as Vivekananda puts it – the fundamental note of her cultute and nature, which distinguishes her from the rest of the world. What then are the distinguishing marks of spirituality? How does a spiritual collectivity live and move – kim âsita vrajeta kim? And do we find its characteristic gait and feature exclusively or even chiefly in India?   Was not Europe also in her theocratic and mediaeval ages as largely spiritual and as fundamentally religious as India? Churches and cathedrals and monaster

A Chapter of Human Evolution THE appearance of the Greeks on the stage of human civilisation is a mystery to historians. They are so different from all that preceded them. There does not seem to exist any logical link between them and the races from whom they are supposed to have descended or whose successors they were. The Minoan or Cretan civilisation is said to be cradle of the Greek, but where is the parallel or proportion between the two, judging from whatever relics have been left over from the older, the more ancient one. Indeed that is the term which best describes the situation. Whatever has gone before the Hellenic culture is ancient; they belong to the Old Regime. Egypt is

THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION The March of Civilisation         WE are familiar with the phrase "Augustan Age": it is in reference to a particular period in a nation's history when its creative power is at its highest both in respect of quantity and quality, especially in the domain of art and literature, for it is here that the soul of a people finds expression most easily and spontaneously. Indeed, if we look at the panorama that the course of human evolution unfolds, we see epochs of high light in various countries spread out as towering beacons or soaring peaks bathed in sunlight dominating the flat plains or darksome valleys of the usual normal periods. Take the Augustan

Success and its Conditions SUCCESS in any undertaking can come only by the application of a quiet force. A force that is restless, shaky, nervous always misses the mark. A steady, controlled, almost rigid hand alone can shoot the missile that hits the bull's-eye. The Upanishad speaks of being one and indivisible with one's aim, even like an arrow-head fixed into the target. An undivided concentration naturally means an absolute unruffled tranquillity. How is this tranquil energism to be secured? What are the conditions that produce and maintain and foster it? The first condition is self-confidence. One must have trust in oneself, a full faith that one is able to do the thing. A pes

Sartrian Freedom THE poise of the ego, the consciousness of the psycho-vital Purusha as envisaged and experienced by Sartre leads to many other not less catastrophic conclusions. Here is something more on Freedom which seems to be almost the corner-stone of his system: "Freedom is not a being: it is the being of man, that is to say, his not-being". A very cryptic mantra. Let us try to unveil the Shekinah. "Being" means "be-ing" i.e. existing, something persisting, continuing in the same condition, something fixed, a status. Freedom is not a thing of that kind, it is movement: even so, it is not a continuous movement. According to Bergson, the true, the ultimate reality is a conti