PUIlUI:A~nO

ShDUnp Sis Pencea e Pal Fifty

The Advent

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The ADVENTFebruary, 1964

CONTENTS

Paee

EDITORIALS -Nalini Kanta Gupta 'i

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE

NEW_!",GE -Rishabhchand 13

READINGS IN THE BRIHA-...DARANYAKA UPANISHAD -M. P. Pandit 18-

THE INTEGRAL WELTANSCHAUUNG -V. Madhusudan Reddy 21

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER -M. V. Seetaraman 29

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER -Rishabhchand 39.T HE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD -Na/ini Kanta Sen 45

REVIEW -S.K. Ghose 52

Edited by: NOLINI KAmA GUPTA

Published by : P. COUNOUMA

SRI AUROBINI:'~ ASHRAM, PONDICHERRY-2

Printed by' AMIYO RANI. GANG"LI

at Sri Aurobindo Ashram PressvPc . erry-2

PRINTED IN iNDIA

The truth of all things is in the calm oftheir depths.

Sil.l AUROBINDO

THE MOTHER

·Vol.- XXI. No. 1 February, 1964

The Divine gives itself to those who give themselveswithout reserve and in all their parts to the Divine.For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss,the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge,the seas of Ananda. Sri Aurobindo.

EDITORIALS*

T~ MOl'HE~S COMMENTARY

ON

DHAMMAPADA

XIX

OF THE JUST

cannot be just. Hedistinguish between the just and

(I)

in full knowledge, according to law andwho guards the Law is indeed called:

(2)

6 THE ADVENT

One does not become wise by talking ~ch; one is called-wise. if one is forbearing, without fetlf'. or foe. (3)

It is not that the more you talk the more you become theupholder of the Law. Even If you hear a little of the Law,but observe it by your body, if you do not deviate fromthe Law, then you become the upholder of the Law. (4)

He is not an Elder whose head has turned grey; he has !)implygrown in years, he has become old in vain. (5) •

He is called an Elder in whom dwell Truth and Law, amityand self-control and self-restraint, the wise one who iscleansed of all impurities. (6)

One cannot be saint/ike by the finish of one's speechpr by thepolish of one's complexion if one is jealous and envious .and malicious. (7)

He indeed is said to be saint/ike, he i-. wUe in whom all thesethings have been eradicated, uprooted from the verybottom, who is cleansed of all impurities. • (8)

One who does not follow the Path, who speaks untruth, who isfull of desire and greed cannot be the saint-mendicantby merely shaving his head. (9)

He is the saint-mendicant who has eradicated all impurities,great or small, becauseof this eradication of impurities. (Ioj

One does not become a saint-mendicant simply by beggingalms of others nor by observing all the cults. (I I)

He indeed is called a saint-mendicant who transcends here belowboth si1], and virtu~ remains wholly pure and leads alife .of know~t!dge in <the world, (12)

- ,

..

'.

EDITORIALS

One who is foolish nd ignorant does TWt become a Hermit bymerely keeping ~Qnt. He is wise who holds the balance,as it were, (13)'

Keeping the good and rejecting the evil: he is a sage becauseof this, he has a right kTWwledge of both the worlds. (14)

He is TWt Noble who hurts living creatures ; one becomes Nobleby not doing violence to anyone. (15)

It is not through moral precepts nor ritual observances northrough much learning nor through still meditation nor alonely life nor by thinking, "I have attained the felicity,the Deliverance which men of the world never enjoy", thatyou can be a Disciple. Do TWt believe it, until you haveachieved the total extinction of desire. .(16)

7

LET us keep the last text. It is interesting.Certainly it is not easy to get rid of all desires, it Heeds a whole

life ~t times. But to tell the truth, it seems to be a very negative'way, although at some moment of self-development, it is a disci­pline which, is very useful, even indispensable to practise, if onedoes not want self-deception. Because you begin at first by get­ting rid of the big desires those that are quite obvious and troubleyou so much that you cannot have any illusion with regard to them;then come subtler desires that take the form of things that shouldbe done, that are necessary, even at times as commands from within,and this needs time and much sincerity to discover and .overcomethem ; in the end it looks as if you had finished with these accursedlesires in the material world, in outward things, in the vital world,4t!-the emotions and feelings, in the mental world in the matter of

• ideas, when all on a sudden you discover them again in the spiritualworld and there they are more dangerous, more subtle, more.shaspand much more invisible and covered by a saintly appearance whichone does not dare call desires.

And when one has succeeded' in o~rc9ming all that, indiscovering, ousting and getting rid of them, even then one has doneonly the negative side of the work, -

• s THE ADVENT •

The Buddha says or is made to say th~ when one is' fr~ fromdesire 'one necessarily enters into. infinite. bliss. Perhaps it is ~

somewhat arid bliss, but anyhow it does not seem to me to be thequickest way.

On the other hand if one were to seize the problem bodily, .jump into it with courage and determination and instead of under- •taking a long, arduous, painful, illusory hunt after desires, one gaveoneself up to the Supreme Reality, to the Supreme Will, to thesupreme Being, relying entirely upon Him, with an urge . of thewhole being, of all the elements of the being, without calculating;that would -be the swiftest and the most radical way to getting ridof the ego: One may say that it is difficult to do the thing but at least

-ft-has a warmth, a fervour, an enthusiasm, a light, a beauty, anardent and creative life.

It is true that without desire there remains nothing muchto sustain the ego and the impression is that the consciousness getsso hardened and that if the ego crumbles into dust, then"somethingof one's very self also falls into dust and one is ready to enter intoNirvana which is annihilation pure and simple.

But what we consider here as true Nirvana is the disappearanceof the ego into the splendour of the Supreme. And this way, I callthe positive way, the self-giving that is integral, total, perfect,without reserve, without bargaining.

There is such a profound delight that nothing can be comparedto it, in the mere fact of not thinking of oneself, not existing foroneself, referring nothing to oneself, thinking only of what issupremely beautiful and luminous and delightful and powerful,compassionate and infinite.

This is the only thing Plat deserves, that is worth attempting.All the rest is only "marking time on the spot.

The difference is between climbing a mountain by walking >

¥ound it slowly, laboriously, step by step during centuries and •openiilg the invisible wings and flying straight to the summit.

, XX.. "Of all the Paths the " est is ths Eightfold ene, of all the Truths

the best is the Fourfold. one, of all the Rules of life the

\

EDITORIALS

best is detachment and of all men the best is one who haseyes. (r)

This indeed is the Path, none other exists for the purification ofvision. Take to this Path. This alone confounds Mara. (2)

Take to this Path and you shall end your suffering. I haveknown where the thorn hurts and I am explaining thePath. (3)

You must yourself make the effort, the Master only explains.They who take to meditation and follow the Path arefreedfrom the bondages of the Adversary. (4)

All becomings are transitory. When one sees by the rightknowledge, sufferings vanish. Such is the Path of Purity.

(5)

All becomings bring suffering ,. when man sees by the right know­• ledge, his sufferings vanish. Such is the Path ofPurity, (6)

All movements are without being ; when one sees by the rightkn<nlJledge, sufferings vanish. Such is the Path of Purity.

(7)

9

When it is time to be up, one keeps lying down, when youngand strong one indulges in indolence, when the mind is fullof vain notions, when one is so slothful, then one neverfinds the way to right knowledge. (8)

~eep guard on your speech, control your mind, iet not the bodyact wrongly. Keep these three laws of action clean and .,.;follow the Path as directed by the sages. (~

Concentration brings knowledge, lack of concentration 'bringslack of knowledge. Know this d.ouble Jt1th~one leading toprogress, the other to the contrary; engage yourself so thatyour knowledge may increase. • (10)

10 THE ADVENT •

Out down the forest of desire, not 1tUI"ely one tree. "Dangerlies in the forest. Cut down therforest and its bushes, beout of it and free. (II)

As long as a man has not rooted out the last of his desire forwoman, his mind remains tied down even as a sucklingchild is to its mother. (12)

Pull out your self-attachment even as one does an autumn lotusout of the pond. Speak of that Path of Peace alone asis"directed by the Buddha. (13)

Here shall I stay during the rains, and here during autumnand summer. A fool only contemplates in this way. He

" does not know.what may just stand in the way. (14)

Death seizes a man engrossed in his children and cattle­heads and carries him away, even like a mighty floodoverwhelming a sleeping village. (1"5)

Children or parents or friends are of no avail in serving you.When Death seizes you none of your family will be yow'saviour. (16)

A wise man shielded by correct conduct knows this perfectlyand blazes his way to Nirvana. (17)

'.

Here are some very useful recommendations: moderation mspeech, control of the mind, abstention from wrong doings. Thisis very good.' - ._

This one goes to the very root, but it is very good also : "A'S• 10Dir as a man has not rooted out the last of his desire for woman,his~d remains tied down even as a suckling child is to its mother".

And -finally : "Pullout your self-attachment even as one doesan autumn lotus..out of the' pond". These are good subjects formeditation. .. •

These recommendations seem to have been meant for people

..

• BDITORIALS II •

.0

who . are just at the -beginning of the Path from the intellectual.point of view. One imagines easily a gathering of country people,people with a simple mind, to whom one has to say : "Just listen,it is no use making plans, for you do not know what will happento you tomorrow. You are amassing wealth, you are struttingabout in your family, you are making schemes for the morrowand the days following and you are not aware that death is onthe watch and at any moment it can pounce upon you."

However the intellectual development has advanced a little• more and these things need not be said--one must live them !

live in the consciousness that things are altogether 0 impermanent,never to be attached, if one is to be free to progress with the uni­verse and grow according to the eternal rhythm. This one unaer­stands. But what is important is to practise. Here one has theimpression that these things are told to people who have neverthought qf'them be fore and so they have the full power of an active

• force.After all, in spite of all appearance humanity progresses; it

ha~ progressed particularly in the mind. There are things thatneed saying no more...or otherwise one must go to countries thatare in the primitive state and even so-for ideas have spreadeverywhere, the mental light has spread everywhere and in themost unexpe cted places one comes across receptive and under­standing agents.

Really one has the impression that in the last century a light •came and spread upon the earth with the result that certain ideas,idea-forces, new ideas with the power to stir up the cogsciousnessin men have lost their actual validity, they are now old. Anotherh ew light has been at work. •~ In practice, the progress is not very great, even in some res­

pects perhaps there has been a retrogression, but in the mind~n

the understanding, in the intellectual vision of things, there liasbeen truly a great change. -

It seems we are marching on the way at an accelerated paceand such things as were once of capital iJnp~rtance are becomingcommon-places beside new discoveries. Life as it is is bad, dis­order is everywhere, suffering is everywhere, confusion is everywhere, •

12 THE ADVENT

chaos is everywhere, ignorance is everywhere-we all know it, itis such a hackneyed thing.

But that one can come out of it through a total realisation, atotal transformation, through a new light that will establish orderand harmony in things, is a message of hope that has to be brought.It is that which is true, it is that which is dynamic. It is a new life "that has to be built up.

Then all these difficulties that seemed so unsurmountable­they fall down of themselves.

When you live in the light and the delight, can you cling to :darkness and suffering?

NOLINl KANTA GUPTA

.'SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

CHAPTER III

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

(VI)

The Age of Reason

SPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ

SPINOZA (1632-1677)

WIT H the advent of Baruch Spinoza, a fresh wind blows in the• realms of modern thought. A rationalist, in the medieval

sense of the word, he was, like Descartes, a staunch follower of thegeometrical merhod and the canons of rigorous logic, but the funda­mental substance of his philosophical thought was derived from theJewish theology and bore unmistakable marks of the Schoolmenof the Middle Ages. Discarding the dualism of Descartes, whichwas but a thinly-veiled concession to the atomism of Natural Scienceand the empiricism of Hobbes and Locke, Spinoza reverts at onceto the traditional pattern of pantheistic philosophy, and sets it forthwith strict mathematical precision and un ssailable logic, withoutappealing to authority or revelation of- any kind, Austerely scru-,~ous in thought, ascetic in temperament and habit, and uncom-

-- promising in his defiance of Jewish orthodoxy, he stood foursquarefor the vindication of the sufficiency of reason to investigate andascertain the truth of God, the truth of the World, and the truthof the soul and life of man. In him, for the first time in the Ageof Reason, the ancient and the modern c front each other in agesture of reconciliation-the ancient in the grain of its thought,and the modern in the method of its expression. Spinoza i one of

13

•

".

•

• the outstanding illustrations of our contention that the modern,in spite of its impatient revolt against the 'ancient, cannot exist and.grow llS a rootless sapling. Its revolt is only a sharp reaction againstthe cramping codes and conventions of the past, a reaction, whichis creative and constructive in its secret intention and working,however much it may appear to fritter itself away in a blind anddestructive denial. The soul of the past lives on in the heart of theseething present, and imparts a constant inspiration to itsevolutionary march.

Spinoza holds with Descartes that philosophy is the genera­lisation of mathematics. He is also, like Descartes, deterministicin his philosophy. For, the laws of Nature are, according to him,i~;xorable and impeccable, and nothing can happen that had not tohappen. .The basic doctrine of his metaphysics is the concept ofSubstance. "By substance, I understand that which exists in itself,and is conceived by itself." This Substance is one and ipdivisible,though it appears to be divided in its universal material extension.•It is infinite and eternal, and there is nothing in the world that isnot a modification of it. There is infinite diversity in its unabroglibleunity, a proliferating mass of names and forms, energies and qualities,and their incalculable operations. But how does Spinoza accountfor this diversity ? He says that though Substance is one ;nd unique,it has numberless attributes and their varying modes. "By attributeI understand that which the intellect perceives as constituting theessence of the substance." "By mode I understand the modifica­tions of the substance, i.e., that which exists in and is conceivedby something other than itself."

Substance is equated with Nature and God. God, Nature, andSubstance mean one and the same thing. And this Substance isself-conceived self-creating, and self-existent. It is the Cause ,irself, and the single cause of all that takes shape in the universe. ­Being..mtinite, it has infinite attributes, and the affections or modesof those attributes ate also necessarily-Spinoza will say , contin­gently, infinite. We can, with one important reservation, call itSat in the Vedantic.se~e. But Spinoza's Substance is immanentin and identical with Nature or the universe. It has no transcendentstatus. It can rfierefore, be called the Sat only in its immanental

• SRI AUROBINDO AND na NEW AGE

aspect.•Its · infinity is only a temporal and spatial infinity, no t theabsolute infinity of the supracosmic Being. This circumscriptionof God within the bounds of the universe or Nature was, perhaps,a natural reaction in the mind of Spinoza against the all-too-commonconception of the extra-cosmic Deity of the Jewish and Christian-theologies. Unity being the master concept of modern scientificthought, Spinoza could not evidently bifurcate it by positing theextra-cosmic God over against the cosmic Nature as two polar truthsof existence. He lacked the harmonising comprehensiveness of theVedantic vision.

The Age of Reason conceived God only under two attributes,thought and extension. And this was the standpoint of Descartes,who was led by this prevailing distinction to postulate his trenchant­dualism of-Mind and Matter. But Spinoza was more true to thescientific spirit of his age in his rejection of this dualism, which heattributed to the partial view of the human mind. God or Sub­stance is one, and Mind and Matter are only its attributes, not tobe essentially differentiated from each other. It is the unity of theSubstance or the wholeness of the universe that explains and makesus glimpse the truth of everything. To see parts only, and judgethem by the limited intellect is to miss the fundamental, infinitetruth of existence. To see the whole is to know the truth. It is asynthetic vision, acquired by love of God, self-discipline and ethical

• austerity that Spinoza advocated, and not the use of the alembicof the analytical reason which breaks up the unity, and atomises thewhole.

There was a note ofhigh moral elevation, and passionate, broodingreligious ardour in the teaching of this Jew philosopher who, ex­corrimunicated and execrated by the jewish.Churchfor his challenginghe~es, took to lens-grinding for keeping his body and soul together,~d devoted the major portion of his time and his solitude to the• •development and expression of his rationalistc, metaphysical ethics.•Spurning the offers of honourable and lucrative posts, he contentedhimself with simple living and high thinking, and jealously 'cherishedhis freedom of thought and expression to the ast .day of his lonelylife.

Starting from the thought of Descartes, and reducihg his method

THE ADVENT

to a more logical and scientific pattern, Spinoza tackled the mootproblems of ontology, epistemology and axiology, which shows hisadherence to the age-old traditions of ancient philosophy. Hismetaphysics is generally misinterpreted or misunderstood becausehe has clothed certain key ideas of his in terms which have sinceundergone vital changes in their connotations. It is only by studyinghis metaphysics in the light; of his key concepts, linked together inan organic unity, and taking his terminology in its distinctive sense,that we can appreciate its value and find its proper place am! its defi­nite contribution to modern thought. For instance, when Spinozasays that. God or Substance, though the sole Cause and substratumof the universe, has neither will nor intelligence, it startles us that a

"philosopher of Spinoza's insight and stature should seriously advancesuch a proposition! But what he really means by saying that "willand intellect do not appertain to the nature of God" is that our intel­lectual faculty bears no resemblance to the wisdom or intelligenceof God, which is one with His Essence, and not a separate, limitedfaculty, and that His Will is as remote from our will as our will is fromthe instinctive drive of the animal nature. God's Will is a foresightworking itself out in a spontaneous process, or an idea in its inherentdynamism, which either affirms or negates itself. God thinks withoutthought, and acts without the agency of a humanly conscious will.He is perpetual motion and change, and yet preserves in the verymutations and modes of its Substance a stirless immutability, without ­which no motion or change could take place. The reason, whichSpinoza so much glorifies and regards as the highest faculty in manand th,¥ solitary means of understanding the unitarian truth of exis­tence, is, what we may call, in the language of the Vedanta, the purereason, agrii buddhi, purified and freed of the mixture of the imagina­tion, the emotions: and the passions, and enlightened and wi ened

,-enough to take a synthetic view of the organic unity of the infinite• ang sternal Substance or God. And the first postulate of reason is,

necessity, which is-equated with the universal Law of Nature. Every­thing is determined by Necessity, which is the all-ordaining and all­ruling Law of N~tur inexorable and ineluctable, flowing out fromthe absolute perfection of Gild. An understanding acceptance ofthis Necessity; and a glad l\l1d unreserved resignation to it sums up

RI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE 17

the ethical teaching of Spinoza. To those who ask; "Why did notGod create all men in such a manner that they might be governedby reason alone ?", Spinoza would reply: " ...because material wasnot wanting to him for the creation of all things from the, highestgrade to the lowest; or speaking more accurately, because the laws

~. of his nature were so comprehensive as to suffice for the creation of. everything that infinite intellect' can conceive..."

The philosopher, by accepting the determinism of Nature'slaws, takes equal delight in all that is and all that shall be; for every­thing is but a mode of God's infinite Substance. He banishes allfear, desire and anxiety from himself, and contemplates on Godwith a love, an intellectual loves (amor intelleetualis Dei) which leadshim towards greater and greater perfection, till the difference betweenGod and his soul, between the infinite Substance and its individualmode, disappears in the ecstasy of union. The freedom and immor­tality of the soul are a natural consequence of this blissful identifica­tion, because, one with the Substance, the soul cannot but feel freeand immune from death. The lover comes to partake of the natureof the Beloved, and transcends in his consciousness all subjectionto death and suffering, which afflict mortal existence.

An exalted spiritual note quivers out of the philosophy of Spinozafor a brief moment, and finds a fading echo in the orchestral archi­tectonic of Leibniz. Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, and Leibniz, each,in his own way, celebrates the dignity and high empistemologicalpotentiality of human thought and reason, ami tries to keep alive agleam of the ancient intuitive faith. But the main current of modernthought had already set in the direction of scientific materialism, andthe chill blasts of growing scepticism and atheism threaten to snuffout the gleam, and leave man and his culture at the mercy of hisdoubting physical mind and its insatiable thirst for exploring the

..h1i1den possibilities and conquering the powers and riches of thematerial existence.

RISHABHCHAND

(To be continued)

1 It is to be noted that Spinoza here speaks of the "infinite intellect" of God.:: Here, too, "intellectual" means spiritual.

2

•

READINGS IN 'rItE BRIHA:DARANYAKA UPANISHAD

PRANA IN EMBODIMENT l '.

,

So, then, it is not merely the Self, the Brahman, that is real.The worlds that emanate, vyuccaranti, from It, the individual

formations therein and the Life-Force, Prana, that sustains them;are all equally real. Prana is nothing but the Self-energy put outfor purposes of manifestation universally and individually. Thel'panishad calls upon the seeker to perceive this real nature of Prana 'and meditate upon it as the most direct representation and immediateformulation of the Self in the individuation that is himself.

Lodged in the subtle body of man, this central Prana is like achild in embryo. Unlike his other parts like the eye, ear, nose, it dO~8

not dart towards objects outside; it has no direct contact with them.For this basic station, Prana breaks out fivefold for its varied opera­tions in the gross body which is called, significantly, the pratyddhdna.'scene of manifestation. Though it radiates in a fivefold form, it func­tions in the body and keeps itself in action primarily" through themain breath, prii1,Ja, which is compared to the post wh ich confinesit to that particular place of lodgement. And food, matter, is the •factor that determines the range of the movement of Prana. Thestrength or weakness of Prana is largely dependent uopn the nourish ­ment received from matter, food.

Though active all over the body, the Prana has its directingstation in the eye. There it is attended upon and adored and noar­ished by the gods "imperishable: Rudra through his bright-red

,energisings in the red streaks of the eye; Parjanya (Deity presicimg­~ver Water) through his life-building currents in the waterings of •the eye; Aditya (Sun) through his rays of light enlivening the pupilof the eye; Agni (Fire) through his consuming flames in the black

, 1I .22 dhitasya ddhdham pratyddhdham garbf:a dhito v rJlSab paic dd bhilm duddhiyate iti pratyd­

dJuih,,;m, prasutibham,1t (Rangaramanuj~

18

• READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANVAKA UPANISHAD 19

of the eye;' Indra through his illuminations in the white of the eye; •Earth below supporting in the nether lash of the eye; and Heavenabove through the upper lash of the eye. •

He who comes to know this nature of Prana, its locus and mode.of operations, and merges himself in its truth automatically pens his

• natural foes, seven in number: he blocks the outward' pullingactivities of his mind, intelligence and his five organs of senses.For they all derive their active existence from the breath of Pranaand are.dependent upon it for their functioning. He who has gainedconscious identity with this Prana becomes their master.

Prana is thus not only a premier Agent but, the text goes on,is the one Power of the Self that organises itself in and as so manysenses which perform the life-operations. It recalls a significantverse from the Shruti which speaks of a Bowl with its mouth down­wards and its base above." In that Bowl is placed the yasas,Glory full in form. On the rim of the Bowl sit seven seers, with-Yak,Speech, associated with the Word, as the eighth. The Bowl so des­cribed is both the Universe which has its foundation above (iirdhva­budhrm) in Brahman and the head of the individual whose openingis below in the form of the mouth and the base at the crown. TheGlory of many forms is the Prana which throws itself in the form ofso many senses (or prii7;Uls) and is the root cause of all the manifoldknowledge obtained through their operations. The seven seers are

• these seven senses powered by Prana, with viik, the tongue in theaspect of speech", as the eighth.

Each of these sense-organs is to be meditated upon as the Seerwhose revealing name denotes the connection. The two ears areGotama and Bharadvaja, one full of knowledge and the other whofills with plenty, bharat-viija. The two . eyes are Vishvamitra andJ~adagni, one who befriends the whole world with his lustre and the

-1Sther who eats what is born and defined. The two nostrils are-• Vasishtha and Kashyapa, one who is the best among those who dweiJ.

and the other who drinks in the waters of existence. Yak is Atri,

1 parailci (Katha Up. II.t.t) •t Arv4gbilascamasa ardvabudhnab tannin yqJo nihitam viJvarapam

TasaydsatQ nayab sapta tire tl4g Dl1ami brahma1,la samuidaneti• •a not as taste

20 tHE ADVENT

one who eats. For by Vak it is that the Gods take in what i,s offeredin the Sacrifice.

• . This is the meditation. One separates oneself from the activities. of the senses; becomes conscious of the Prana that moves th em;

enters into it by steady meditation and gains identity with it whichthen reveals itself to be none other in truth than the Truth of the­Self, served by seers who have attained to divinity and attended uponby the cosmic Gods in their appropriate manifestations in theindividual scheme.

M. P. PANDIT

•

•

THE INTEGRAL WELTANSCHAUUNG

." (continued/rom the last issue)

pROF. Whitehead, perhaps, is the most outstanding philosopherof-the present day in the West, more evolutionary in his out­

look than even Bergson or Alexander. A comparison of Whitehead'sphilosophy with that of Sri Aurobindo reveals striking resemblancesas well as fundamental differences. For both Sri Aurobindo andWhitehead evolution is not merely one principle among manyothers which explain the world as it is and as it will be in thefuture, but it is the one principle round which have clustered allthe other prjnciples and without which they cannot be understood.They are both equally opposed to all forms of dualism; they are notdevotees exclusively either of Being or of Becoming and are forward­looking buoyant optimists. As for their fundamental differences,Whitehead's theory of evolution is naturalistic, whereas SriAurobindo's is spiritualistic. Whitehead's philosophy of organismis based upon a purely naturalistic principle, namely, what he callsprehension, a kind of feeling which is the inner spring or motive force

• of the entire world of process. It is the one great unifying factorwhich, starting from the lowest forms of it in electrons and molecules,

. reaches out to the highly developed aesthetic emotions and sentimentsand moves on further to the uncharted immensities of the. future,spreading a network of events or actual entities so closely knit togetherso as to form one organic whole. It presents a magnificent schemeof.~erfectly interrelated world of actual entities, but it cannot blind

'-;S to the fact that it is reared upon a purely naturalistic principle,. It is clearly a case of evolution from the standpoint of the beginning.:The higher processes are here all interpreted in terms of the lower,exactly as is done in the nineteenth-century evolutionistic theoriesof Darwin, Spencer and others. It is a purely-naturalistic theory ofevolution. In striking contrast to this is Sri Aurobindo's theoryof evolution. Here the higher processes are the measuring rod for

21

22 THE ADVENT •

the lower ones, and not the lower for the higher. The principle ofevolution itself is derived from the nature of the highest principle,the -Ultimate Reality. The key to the understanding of the natureof evolution is not to be found in the processes of Nature but is tobe sought in the Ultimate Reality. Evolution, therefore, is theascent of physical nature, life, mind, etc., to the Ultimate Reality;made possible by the circumstance that these lower principles arethemselves expressions in varying degrees of perfection, of the sameultimate Reality. As inadequate expressions of Ultimate Reality,there is an urge in them to complete and perfect themselves. SriAurobindo, therefore, like Hegel, looks at evolution from the stand­point of the end. But the end, as conceived by Hegel, is a purelyrational end, an end conceived by Thought. For Sri Aurobindo,Thought is not the Ultimate Reality, but there are various gradesof reality above Thought which have to be climbed before the Ulti­mate Reality can be reached. No end, in fact, short of the Absolute,is competent to give an adequate account of the nature of evolution,

Whitehead identifies the principle of Creativity with novelty.This creativity or novelty is the inner spring of the process of -evolu­tion, both at the lower and the higher stages. It is haunted by adread, the vanishing of the past. Mere novelty, therefore, hasonly a negative and hardly any positive value. It is axiologicallyof neutral quality. It cannot serve therefore as a directive principleof evolution : it cannot supply the missing element in Whitehead's .philosophy, namely, a goal of evolution. In Sri Aurobindo thedynamic element is not supplied by a mere urge for novelty but bythe far .more effective teleological idea of a definite goal of the entireprocess of evolution, a goal which takes it far beyond the limits ofthe finite-the Infinite. •

"There comes no close to the finite's boundlessness,There is no last certitude where thought can pauseAnd no terminus of the soul's experience."

This goal is, again, Iiaked up by him with the question of the originof the world. As the world aas originated from Sachchidananda,so its goal is " to return to. Him.

THE INTEGRAL WEL'I:ANSCHAUUNG

Th s 'we find that both Hegel and Whitehead are committedto the principle of continuity. A true theory of evolution' is anemergent one and treats matter, life and mind as successive .anddistinct stages in the onward march of the world to its originalspiritual Source, Sri Aurobindo's philosophy gives us an assurance

~. that the future will not be a mere repetition of the past but thatit will reveal undisclosed possibilities which we cannot dream of.

Evolution, however, is the soul of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy.His theory of evolution is the pivot round which his wholephilosophy moves. Evolution is the movement which is thereverse of the movement of involution or creation. It -is becauseof the descent of the Spirit into matter, life and mind that thesecan ascend to the higher regions of the Spirit. Because the Spiritin creation has involved itself in matter, life and mind, therefore,matter, life and mind feel an impulse to rise to their Source: Evolu­tion, thus, 'is a sort of home-sickness of the Spirit'. The Spirithas descend'ed into the lowest particle of matter; therefore, .manerseeks to evolve into something higher than itself, namely, life. Thereis a crescent of the Spirit into life and therefore, life seeks to rise tosomething higher than itself-mind. Similarly, there is a descentof the Spirit into mind, and consequently mind must ascend tosomething higher than itself, namely, Supermind. ' T he highestprinciple so far evolved is mind. But evolution cannot stop with

• mind, for mind is not its last word. It must move further up andcome to the next stage, namely, Supermind. But when it does so,there will be a radical change in the nature of the world, for with the

. emergence of the Supermind the process of evolution becomes aprocess through knowledge, the previous process being throughignorance. Such, in brief, is Sri Aurobindo's most optimisticscheme of evolution.~ 7 It is the weakness of modern European philosophy, not the..

ancient, that it lives too much in the clouds and seeks after pure-. metaphysical truth too exclusively for its own sake. It was Nietzschewho brought back something of the old dynamism and practicalforce into philosophy. Indian philosophy bois always sought thetruth not only as an intellectual pleasure but in order to know howman may live by the Truth or strive after it. The Greek thinkers

THE ADVENT

• had also this praetical aim and dynamic force, but it acted only onthe cultured few. To both the Greek and European thinkers theproblem of cosmic evolution has been a subject of immense interest.But it does not as much interest the Indian systems of philosophy,because they are mainly interested in the destiny of the individual.They do not show much concern for the fate of the universe. Also ­on account of the predominance of the cyclical view, Evolutionbecomes only a passing phase, since it is followed inevitably by",Laya or Dissolution, and that again by another Evolution, and so,on . "Cosmically, therefore", as Prof. Maitra remarks, "there is forIndian philosophy a May-pole dance of Evolution and Dissolutionleading nowhere." Even the Sankhya which is supposed to lake evo­lution seriously, is no interested in it as a cosmic process but onlyso far as it relates to the interests of the purusas or individual souls.Sankara has shown how absolutely illogical is the claim of the San­khya that an unconscious Prakriti evolves for the sake of the pur­poses of the conscious purusas. Sankhya has no right "to speak f)f

the purposes of the purusas, for it takes them to be absolutely nirgunaand niskriya. Again so far as the purpose of salvation is concerned,it cannot be furthered by the evolution of Prakriti as Sankhya argues.Sankara's criticism is fatal to all systems of unconscious or mecha­nical evolution, to the Sankhya as much as to the modern Westernrepresentatives of it. Apart from this, the cyclical conception of theuniverse, which makes evolution and dissolution always followeach other, renders evolution absolutely meaningless. If evolutionis to have any meaning, it must be conceived as a steady march toa higher goal. Moreover, it must have a cosmic character.

Sri" Aurobindo's genius is at its best in the handling of theproblem of evolution. H~ has accepted the cosmic view of evolu­tion of the West but has rejected its mechanical character and_re-

_-placed it by a spiritual evolution. Likewise he has rejected ilie~

Cyclical view of the universe of Indian philosophy and th e indivi- .dualistic outlook of its theory of evolution, and substituted forthe cosmic and over personal outlook of the West. The result isan altogether new theory of evolution. It bases itself upon the ideathat the source of evolution being Sachchidananda himself, it can­not stop until the whole world is completely divinised. No limited

THE INTEGRAL WEI.T NSCHAUUNG 2$

objective, such as the naturalistic ideal of a perfect adjustment be­tween the organism and the environment or the realisation of akingdom of ends, which is Kant's social ideal, can be looked uponas the goal of evolution. What the thinkers in India ignored isjhe great truth that a divinised man can only emerge in a divinised

'world. The problem of salvation is intimately connected with thatof evolution. In fact, evolution may be called a Cosmic Yoga.

Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, in its gigantic sweep and globalvision, covering the whole range of mind, life, matter, and laying barethe hidden truths of the soul and the higher regions of the spiritwhich are at best but dimly felt by us, has perhaps no equal inbreadth and comprehensiveness of outlook in the whole range of thehistory of philosophy. "He envisages a world in which Spirit andMatter, Life and Mind are all essential ingredients and work har­moniously together, and where truth is achieved not by a negationor annulment of any of these, but by a transformation and trans­mutation of'them in the light of the Highest." Here Hegel per­haps comes nearer to him than any other philosopher either in theWest 'Or in the East. For it was he who laid before us the secretof the onward march of the Absolute Idea through the realms ofNature and History, treating these not as negations to be annulledor oppositions to be conquered but as progressive stages int he evo­lution of the Absolute in Time. But even Hegel does not envisagethe possibility of the Absolute shedding the full glory of its lightupon these nether regions. For the Absolute only works, accordingto him, unconsciously in Nature and consciously, but not self­consciously in History. Evolution must therefore go beyond Natureand History, before the Absolute can reach the final stage of itsprogression in time. There can thus be no possibility of man con­tinuing his life in Nature and having his relations with his fellow-

-men and yet receiving the supreme blessing from the Absolute. Spirit which will convert him into a Divine man. In Sri Aurobindo' ",philosophy for the first time man and his terrestrial life have re­ceived their full recognition. It is not only possible, but it is certainthat man in his terrestrial life will become, seoner or later, soonerrather than later, a Divine man. Between STi Aurobindo's philo­sophy and the ~reat Advaita philosophy of Sankarathere is a wide:

~HE ADVENT

divergence. For Sankara salvation would come only to the indi­vidual man ; there would be no transformation of the nature of maninto. that of the Superman or the Divine Man, nor the uplift of thewhole universe. But it is precisely this transformation of man intoa Divine Man, the emergence of a race of Gnostic Beings, represent­ing the culmination and fulfilment of human beings, which is the"chief message 0f Sri Aurobindo's philosophy. And further, heasserts that this transformation of man, this emergence of a race ofSupermen will take place in this world, in this terrestrial existenceof ours. This terrestrial life will receive the benefit of the higherlight that. evolution will bring in its train; there will be a generaluplift of all the different spheres of existence, physical, vital andmental.

Such is Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of evolution envisagingand integrating within itself all that is best in the East and the West.His philosophy of evolution is the direct outcome of his integralworld-view. In 'The Life Divine' he enunciates four main theorieswith their corresponding mental attitudes and ideals in accordancewith four different conceptions of the truth of existence. These wemay call the supracosmic, the cosmic and terrestrial, the supra­terrestrial or other-worldly, and the integral or synthetic or composite.In this last category would fall Sri Aurobindo's view of our existencehere as a Becoming with the Divine Being for its origin and its object,a progressive manifestation, a spiritual evolution with the supra­cosmic for its source and support, the other-worldly for a conditionand connecting link and the cosmic and terrestrial for its field, andwith human mind and life for its nodus and turning-point of releasetowards' a higher and a highest perfection. Our regard then mustbe on the first three to see where they depart from the integralisingview of life and how far the truths they stand on fit into its structure,

In the supracosmic view of things the supreme Reality is alone~

.entirely real. A certain illusoriness, a sense of the variety of cosmic .existence and individual being is a characteristic turn of this seeingof things, but it is not essential, not an indispensable adjunct to itsmain thought-principle. In the extreme forms of its world-visionhuman existence lias no real meaning ; it is a mistake of the soul ora delirium of me will to live, an error or ignorance which some-

THE INTEGRAL WELTANSCHAUUNG

how overcasts the absolute RealiW. But this idea of the total vanityof life is not altogether an inevitable consequence of the supra-cosmictheory of existence. In the Vedanta and the Upanishads, the Becomingof Brahman is accepted s a reality.

The cosmic-terrestrial view considers cosmic existence alone"'as real. Its view is confined, ordinarily, to life in the material uni­.ver se. God, if GGd exists, is an eternal Becoming; or if God doesnot exist, then Nature is a perennial becoming. Earth is the fieldor it is ~e of the temporary fields, man is the highest possible formor only one of the temporary forms of the Becoming.

The Supra-terrestrial view admits the reality of the materialcosmos and it accepts the temporary duration of earth and humanlife as the first fact we have to start from; but it adds to it a per­ception of other worlds or planes of existenc which have an eternalor at least a more permanent duration; it perceives behind themortality of the bodily life of man the immortality of the soul withinhim. There! arises from this view of things the idea that the truehome of man is beyond and that the earthly life is in some way orother @nlyan episode of his immortality or a deviation from a celes­tial and spiritual into a material existence.

But, finally, there must ropen in us, as our mental life deepensand subtler knowledge develops, the perception that the terrestrialand the supraterrestrial are not the only' terms of being; there is

• something which is supracosmic and the highest remote origin ofour existence. In this integration the supracosmic Reality standsas the supreme Truth of being; to realise it is the highest reach ofour consciousness. But it is the highest Reality which is also thecosmic being, the cosmic consciousness, the cosmic will and life;it has put these things forth, not outside !tself but in its own being,not as an opposite principle but as its own self-unfolding and self-

-drpression. A perfect self-expression of the spirit is the object of •our terrestrial existence. The supra-terrestrial existence is also a.

'truth of being; for the material is not the only .plane of our ekis­tence; other planes of consciousness there are to which we canattain and which have already their hidden IlPks with us. An inte­gration of this kind would not be possible if a spiritual evolution werepot the sense of our birth and terrestrial existence; the evolution of

28 THE ADVENT

mind, life and spirit in Matter is the sign that this integration, thiscompleted manifestation of a secret self-contained in it is its signi­ficance . A complete involution of all that the Spirit is and its evo­lutionary self-unfolding are the double-term of our material exis­tence. "An involution of spirit in the Inconscience is the beginning;an involution in the Ignorance with its play of the possibilities o[-=­a partial developing knowledge is the middle, and the cause of theanomalies of our present nature,--our imperfection is the sign ofa transitional state, a growth not yet completed, an effort that is.findingits way; a consummation in a deployment of the spirit's self-know­ledge and "the self-power of its divine being and consciousness isthe culmination : these are the three stages of this cycle of the spirit'sprogressive self-expression in life." It is a perfected and divinisedlife for which the earth-nature is seeking, and this seeking is a signof the Divine Will in Nature. Other seekings also there are andthese too find their means of self-fulfilment; a withdrawal into thesupreme peace or ecstasy, a withdrawal into the bliss of the DivinePresence are open to the soul in earth-existence: for the infinitein its manifestation has many possibilities and is not confined-by itsformulations. But neither of these withdrawals can be the funda­mental intention in the Becoming itself here; for then an evolu­tionary progression would not have been undertaken,-such aprogression here can only have for its aim a self-fulftlment here : aprogressive manifestation of this kind can only have for its soul of _significance the revelation of Being in a perfect Becoming.

Such is Sri Aurobindo's supreme enunciation, such his integralWeltanschauung as put forth in his magnum opus, "The Life Divine" .In the memorable words of Professor S.K. Maitra, we may say that," if the bridge of thoughts and sighs which spans the history" ofAryan culture, as it -has evolved so far, has its first arch in the Vedas,

. it has its last in Sri Aurobindo's 'The Life Divine'"

V. MADHUSUDAN REDDY

•

SAVITRI" TIiE MOTHER

• THE cup has to be emptied again and again if it is to be filledwith ever-new riches. The.vessel of the human consciousness

has to be kept free and ready for the advent of the felicities of the'higher altitudes of being. For what prevents -the inflow of the HigherConsciousness into the Lower is precisely the spirit of holding,grabbing and egoistic appropriation. Such a spirit not only insulatesthe gift s of Grace and therefore shuts the personality from the Source,but goes on distorting and corrupting them and therefore degradingitself in the process. This may lead to the denial and betrayal of theGrace, which becomes the iron curtain separating the being fromThat. The solution recommended in all spiritual disciplines toa~oid this perilous rejection of Grace, Brahma Nirakarana, is to offerthe gifts of the Divine Mother to Herself for Her use and work.This keeps the being always in contact with the Divine, before, duringand after the act of receiving. And the consciousness of the sadhakabegins to realize that the Divine is greater than all Her gifts and Hergifts are valuable because they embody Her Consciousness. So thetrue delight of the being is in communing with the Divine Con-

• sciousness in the gifts and not in the powers which accompany them.In fact, a gift from the Divine is a partial manifestation of the DivineConsciousness sent to the sadhaka to prepare him for receiving moreand more complete manifestations till the whole and integral DivinePlenitude is established in him. This process is prevented or'stoppedonly by the play of the separative individual consciousness with itsambitions in its ignorant and perverted state, and with its pride of

, t"nowledge and self-righteousness in its comparatively enlightened •• but none-the-less unregenerate state. The true fulfilment for ths

individual is in being a focal centre, one of the multitudinous centresfor the manifestation of the Divine Consciousness. It is to be at thecentre of the Cross for the manifestation of the Higher Part of theTranscendent both sideways and downwards in ·the universal con­sciousness around and below. This is possible only when the sepa-

29

o THE ADVENT

rate formation of the individual personality is dissolved ..and theseparate limited functioning of the instruments is made silent. Theorgans in man-his senses, vital being, heart, mind and the innerbeing-s-are so many concen ations and. therefore limitations of con­sciousness meant and developed to cognize, express and executevery finite movements of the finite and finitising lower consciousness.These concentrations have to be r leased and the consciousnessespent up in them soaked in the Divine substratum and its infinity ifthey are to manifest the Eternal. This twofold preparation of theindividuality and the instrumental personality is achieved by thegreat discipline and experience 'Of Nirvana. For NIrvana ensuresan eternal emptiness in the ing and the becoming and therefore apermanent foundation fer the manifestation of the Highest Super­conscient. The Divine Consciousness is a paradoxical blending ofMastery and Servitude, Transcendence and Immanence, Lordshipand Humility, Fullness and Emptiness. The sadhana of Nirvanaestablishes in Savitri, the Mother, this divine emptiness, the preludeto the Supramental Manifestation.

II

The profound inner revolutions and heightenings of conscious­ness in the Yoga of Savitri when she began the search for the soul,entered into the inner countries, contacted the Triple Soul-Forces,found the Soul, entered into Nirvana and discovered the All-NegatingAbsolute, are essen!" ally exp rienees within and they hav not ye tbegun to change her corporeal substance enough to make all thehuman beings recognize the migh'ty transformation in her. They are'accustomed only to' read outward signs' and so 'none saw aughtnew in her, none divined her state'. They are engaged in their normaldaily routine of sparing activities and plodding, small unchanging-

«works in the atmosphere of the happy quiet of ascetic: peace, and the.characteristic smiling old beauty of the landsacpe. Nature, theAncient Mother, continued to be passionately attached to Savitriand responded in a thousand different ways revealing her possessivelove and ignorance of the changes within or the po ssible andinevitable mutations without.

- SAVITil.l, THE MOTlmR

'~She too was her old gracious self to men....To all she was the same perfect Savitri :A greatness and a sweetness and a lightPoured out from her upon her little world.Life showed to all the same familiar face,

• Her acts followed the old unaltered round,She spoke the words that she was wont to speakAnd did the things she had always done.".

The glow and warmth of her psychicised personality manifestingthe wideness of the higher consciousness have been the experienceof all before and they feel the same even now. They are not awareof the inner transformation in her consciousness.

"They saw a person where was only God's vast, .A still being or a mighty nothingness.".

Sa;itri's experience of Nirvana 'does not lose hold of Existence andthe uraverse. This Nirvana, this self-extinction, while it givesan absolute peace and freedom to the soul within, is yet consistentin practice with a desireless but effective action without.' She hasrealized 'the pbssibility of an entire motionless impersonality andvoid Calm within doing outwardly the works of the eternal verities,

.Love, Truth and Righteousness.' She is passing through the great· experience of the Buddha, Sakyamuni, and the Seer of the Taitti­• riya Upanishad who spoke of the Asat, the Non-Existent, which• • 'alone was in the beginning and out of which the existent was

. born'. The mind, heart, will and the senses register no movementfor there are no formations in them at all, And everything is donein and by the Void-all word, speech and act. An unknown, unfelt.~rgy kept the body in tact or it was impelled by the momentumgathered in the past, by Nature. .:...

"Perhaps she bore made conscious' in her breastThe miraculous Nihil, origin of ou~ SOU$And source and sum of the vast world's events,The womb and grave of thought, a cipher of God,

'FHE AI} EN'

A zero circle pf being's totality.It used her speech and acted in her acts,It was beauty in her limbs, life in her breath;The original Mystery wore her human face."

The Absolute Non-Existence is 'an absolute eternally unrealisedPotentiality, an enigmatic zero of the Infinite out of which relativepotentialities may at any time emerge, but only some actually succeed .in emerging into phenomenal appearance'. All the movementsof the instrumental personality are now taking place without theirinstrumentation. This is an experience more profound than the onein which all the instruments make their movements because of thevery presence and presiding influence, Sannidhirnatra, of a deeperconsciousness. The Nihil contains all and so it does all includingwalking, speaking, breathing, maintenance of the cell-shape andcell-harmony. Savitri is passing through the great experience ofthe Tao.

III

Steeped in the womb of Nirvana, Savitri could well see the otherpossibility taken advantage of by the souls with the Bush to Nirvanaas their elected and chosen destiny. It is the absolute withdrawalof the consciousness from all manifestation and the possibility of it ~

at all and dissolution or laya in the Asat, Now the mortal ego perishes ­in God's night:

"Only a body was left, the ego's shellAfloat mid drift and foam of the world-sea,A sea of dream .wat hed by a motionless senseIn a figure of unreal .reality."

;. The progressive dissolution of the separative consciousness seemsto lead inevitably by the very momentum gathered by the anni­hilating power ofNirvana to the absolving of all individuality as well.One could foresee ill one's impersonal consciousness with its peculiarnon-mental mode the threatening abrogation of all individualityand even cosmic consciousness.

SAVITRI, :tHE MOTHER

"The individual die, the cosmos pass;•These gone, the transcendental grew a myth,The Holy Ghost without the Father and Son,Or, a substratum of what once had been,Being that never willed to bear a worldRestored to its original loneliness,Impassive, sole, silent, intangible."

33

This is a state beyond all gradations of consciousness where hierarchyhas no "meaning and all fixation of boundaries and planes of beinghas become fluid and non-existent. Thus the Transcendent DivineFather and the Individual Immanent Divine Son have mergedin their basic substratum of the enveloping and broodingconsciousness of all so-called planes of being and becoming, theHoly Ghost. Each world is only a kind of concentration or crystalli­sation of the Original Consciousness delimiting itself and measuringitself in a -special way and keeping to the particular rhythm orDharma which holds all things, beings, forces and personalities inthat plane. This power of finitising the Infinite, the Great Maya,is passed by and penetrated and the basic Asat is experienced. Orrather, the sole Original loneliness has withdrawn the Maya intoitself and so -Infinity remains Itself without any other. A completeplunge into this Original Immense Nude Consciousness is well-nigh

.. possible and it is certainly the most powerful way of exit from thecosmos, Moksha. And there are souls with the definite push toMoksha as the deepest aspiration of their being and the path ofexclusive Nirvana is the one quite valid and proper to them. Nirvanafor them is an end in itself. The supreme and sublime ' Silence,Shanti, defying, denying, withdrawing and transcending all dynamismis all for them. .

IV

The Avyakta, Akshara or Shunya to which the .experienceof Nirvana leads is only an aspect of the Supreme Truth-Conscious­ness, which somehow includes it aleng with all mutable conscious­ness. The supreme Brahman, in the wonts of the ansient wisdom of3

34

the Upanishads, is at the same time the Quality-less and the All­Qualiticd, Nirguno Gunee. The Great Purushottama, in the wordsof "the Bhagavad Gita, transcends and includes the Immutable andthe Mutable, Akshara and Kshara. The blending and integrationof the two apparent opposites of Silence and Activity is made possibl ein the Infinite by a Higher effectuating Power, Para Prakriti, the Su p- .ramental Ishwari Shakti. And the road to the realisation of the Supra­mental is in and through the Silence. The poise in the K shara andthe lower Prakriti denies the static substratum and so becomes thefield of contraries and dualities and therefore Ignorance-a D~rkness.The stationing in the mere Akshara where Prakriti is held backdenies all movement and so becomes the field of the One without anyfield. It is no doubt the realm of Knowledge of the One but thisKnowledge, Vidya, excludes the Many and because of its apparentfinality is, in the words of the Isha Upanishad, a greater Darkness-tata bhiiya iva tamah, If the Silence of the Nirvana is soughtneither for its own sake nor as an end in itself and if one's aspirationis not limited by it, Nirvana points beyond itself to a Higher Super­conscience, the plane of Integral Knowledge-Vidyam ca avdyamca ubhayam veda. This makes the working on Prakriti by thePara Prakriti directly and with all its native dynamism and power fortransformation a certainty and even inevitability. For- this complexand complicated interconnectedness of the higher and the lower,the Divine and the Antidivine and Undivine, the Silence and theActivity, itself ensures and warrants the 'interplay of the Higheron the Lower and the consequent transformation when the highestis brought into touch with the lowest. The divine emptiness of theconsciousness of Savitri has made the working of the Supramentalon the lower triple world of Ignorance, where She has come,

_ possible. So with Savitri, the Silence of the Nirvana becomes the. base, the necessary base, for the Transcendent Supermind to manifest '­

;a the world of Ignorance.

Yet all was not extinct in this deep loss ;The being trayelled not towards nothingness.There was some high surpassing Secrecy,...In the hush of the profound and intimate night

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 35

She turned to the face of a veiled voiceless Truth•Hid in the dumb recesses of the heartOr waiting beyond the last peak climbed by Thought,-.Unseen itself it sees the struggling worldAnd prompts our quest, but cares not to be found,-

~ Out of that distant Vast came a reply.

This Supermind is contacted in two ways: by the method of verticalascent of consciousness crossing the Overmental Cosmic or globalawareness-s-thc last peak climbed by Thought-c-or by the lateralinward penetration of consciousness leading to the identificationwith the Divine behind the Psychic Being who lifts the blazinglamp of Supramental Knowledge from within to the completelyconsecrated devotee. Tesdmaham samuddhartd jiiiinadipenabhdszoatd, And this miracle happens in the depths and the .heightsof the being far removed from the daylight wakeful awareness, inthe night of the surface consciousness, yii nisii saruabhiitdndm tasydmjdgarti samyami, The immobile silence of Nirvana in whichall the instruments have been steeped has stopped their finitising,delimlring and even at their very best only translating power. Mind, ·heart and body have become ready to manifest the Transcendentdirectly. •

"These thoughts were formed not in her listening brain,Her vacant heart was like a stringless harp;Impassive the body claimed not its own voice,But let the luminous greatness through it pass."

• Her consciousness has become the playground of the Infinite withits White Lightning Light, the All-Puissant Agni, the OmniscientVidyashakti. What the sages had realised-as far dlstant glimpses ina trance of the highest tapasya, she reveals naturally and spontaneously

ItO their joy and surprise.

"Something unknown, unreached, inscrutableScnt down the messages of its bodiless Light,Cast lightning flashes of a thought not ours,Crossing the immobile silence, of her mind :In its might of irresponsible sovereignty

'tHE ADVJ!Nit

It seized on speech to give those flamings shape,Made beat the heart of wisdom in a wordAnd spoke immortal things through mortal lips.Or, listening to the sages of the woods,In question and in answer broke from herHigh strange revealings impossible to men,Something or someone secret and remoteTook hold of her body for his mystic use,Her mouth was seized to channel ineffable truths,Knowledge unthinkable found an utterance.Astonished by a new enlightenment,Invaded by a streak of the Absolute,They marvelled at her, for she seemed to knowWhat they had only glimpsed at times afar.

v

The sadhana of Savitri differs basically from the sad hana ofmost Yogis and tapaswins. They start by forming a strong individualpersonality, an enlightened Purusha in some level of their being­Vital, Mental or Overmental or very rarely indeed Supramental.But the Purusha so formed however great and unique and full ofLight and Plenitude of the Higher and sometimes even the HighestTruth-Consciousness remains an isolated miracle of creation, a ~

Siddha or Perfect Man in a world of imperfect beings. For even theformation of one Gnostic Individual does not solve the problemofearth-consciousness. But Savitri has offered even this very Gnosti cindividuality of hers to the Supreme Lord by passing through theexperience of Nirvana, the extinction of all separative individualityand delimiting finitising movement of the instrumental membersof the personality. She has 'annulled herself so that God might b't:'~

;: So her divine emptiness has become now an instrument of the 'd ualPower at being's occult poles'-The supreme Superconscient aboveand the nethermost Inconscient below..

"Inconscient Nature dealt with the world it had m ade,And -using still the body's instruments

SAVITlU, lI'HE MOTHER

.Slipped through the conscious void she' had become;The superconscient Mystery through that VoidMissioned its word to "touch the thoughts of men."

37

All the movements of this world with its Ineonscient foundation are~ccepted and have their impact. on her consciousness. But her con­sciousness on any level no longer gives the usual response of thefinite members in ignorance. For there is now no witnessing mindin her, npr the hushed receiving heart, nor the individualised separateperson reacting with whatever great or small poise of her being.

"A thought came through draped as an outer voice.I t called not for the witness of the mind,It spoke not to the hushed receiving heart;It came direct to the pure perception's seat,An only centre now of consciousness,If centre could be where all seemed only space;No more shut in by body's walls and gates,

• Her being a circle without circumferenceAlready now surpassed all cosmic boundsAnd more and more spread into infinity."

This is the state of being the universalised individual, a conscious_ but not separative intermediary between the Inconscient and the

Superconscient, the Lord and His universe.

" T his being was its own unbounded world,A world without form or feature or circumstance,I t had no ground, no wall, no root: of thought,Yet saw itself and looked on all aroundIn a silence motionless and illimitable.There was no person there, no centred mind,No seat of feeling on which beat eventsOr objects wrought and shaped reactions's stress." .

Her identification with the Lord is so complete tHat she no longerreacts in any sense of the word. All outer and inner Tesponse born

THE ADVENT

of a separate individual formation in personality or instrumentalityhas given place to an absolute stillness and immobility and thereforeabsolute readiness and passivity for the Supramental Shakti and theDivine's hour of manifestation. This integral readiness to embodyand manifest is the whole and the only question now. And thereadiness is all.

There was no motion in this inner world,All was a still and even infinity.In her the Unseen, the Unknown waited his hour.

REFERENCE:

Saoitri: Book Seven', Canto Seven.

M.V. SElITARAMAN

.'.

•

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

EDpCATION

xv

EDUCATION OF THE. VITAL (Con/d.)

T H E development of the aesthetic sense, the love of beauty, inthe child is of capital importance in the education that aims

to be integral. Both the Mother and Sri Aurobindo set a great storeby this development. To be a lover of beauty, a lover of art, is tobathe one's life and nature in the splendour of the sunlight and torai se them ihto the essential delight of the universal exi stence andthe harmonious perfection of the Spirit. For, beauty is the radiantsmile-of the divine Delight. It is the reflection of the love andharmony which sustain and inspire the world in its upward striving.

It is commonly held that spiritual life is a life of bareness andvoluntary privation. The cult of beauty, the love of art, can onlybe a hindrance to it, inasmuch as it entails a constant openness to

_ the lu re of the senses and the seductions of the insidious glamour ofappearances. But that is a view derived from a superficial experienceof the perversion of art or an abuse of the aesthetic sense. True art,

• according to the Mother, "must serve as the revealer and teacher"of the divine beauty in life. "In other words, the a tist must beable to enter into communion with the Diyine and receive the inspira­tion as to what should be the form or forms for the material realisation

... of the divine beauty."> Infinite Delight, infinite Love and infiniteBeauty are aspects of the same- Reality. As soon as one comes into-

•contact with the Divine Reality, one perceives His Delight every­where, His Love and Beauty thrilling and shining in everything. .I t is not that one becomes wilfully blind to the ugliness and deformity, .

1 Sr i Aurobindo and The Morher 0" Education

39

4° THE ADVENT

of the material world and the repulsive welter of animal Rassions.- but behind all apparent ugliness of forms and chaos of discordant

elements, one sees the glory of the eternal Beauty and its inalienableDelight as the sap and sus enance of the universal existence. SriAurobindo says that beauty is "the intense impression, the concen­trated form of delight". It can be said to be the crystallisation of the :all-pervading delight of the Spirit, attracting all earthly beings tothe Eternal and Infinite. It is the destiny of the physical form ofman, according to the Mother, to embody and express thjs divineBeauty. What art iacarnates ill moments of inspiration, man mustexpress in 'hi s transformed body and in its own terms. Besides," ... in expressing true beauty in the physical, he also sets an example,becomes an instrument of education.'" It is the purity, freedom,and harmonious perfection of the oul, or of the Divine in the sow,-and it is the same Divine everywhere-that must radiate throughthe physical form of man. This educative value of beauty has to bealways kept in view, for beauty plays a great part in shaping humancharacter into a poem of delight and loveliness by chiselling awayits roughnesses and angularities, If human life in this industrialage has become crudely utilitarian and even vulgar, if modern culturehas taken to the worship of the Mammon and the machine, it isbecause man has banished beauty from his life as a dreamer's luxury.And where beauty is absent, uncouth vulgarity and unblushingugliness occupy its place and usurp human life, character and cul­ture. Art is exploited for commercial purposes, and the artist,whose business is to "enter into communion with the Divine andreceive the inspiration as to what should be the form or forms forthe material realisation of the divine Beauty'" panders to thedebased taste of the philistine rich and the vulgar public.

The educative power of. true art must be harnessed to 'theformation and transformation of the character of the child. What

.-1s usually done by systems of discipline for the education and puri-.ficition of the vital is, as we have already seen, a general repressionof the vital urg~, and an ascetic abstinence from most pleasures.

-1 The Mother in The Yoga of Sri Au~obi"do-Part Seven-by Nolini Kania Gupta• Ibid, •

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

It is a typically puritanic conception of -education which, thanks tothe development of modem psychology and its growing applicationto education, is giving way to a more liberal and generous dealingwith the vital. Cavalier repression, as modem psychology tells· us,is a silly method, attended with explosive consequences. It coerces'the vital and stangles its power and joy. What the Mother advocatesis the radically effective method of seeking the consent and co­operation of the vital im its own transformation. This conscioushelp and collaboration of the vital in its own transformation makesfor a sure and enduring result. " ... this help is ef the utmost im­portance if one wishes to have an all-round growth of. the indi­vidual and his activity." This idea 0[. the conscious cooperationof the vital may sound fantastic to the average human mind, but it isnone the less quite possible and practicable. Let alone he mind andthe vital, even the body has its own consciousness, which can bedeveloped, and disengaged from the normal tangle of human nature,and become 'autonomous to the extent of following its own intui­tions in the work of self-perfection. The Indian conception ofthe Aeriamaya Purusha (the physical being), the Pranamaya Purusha(the vital being), the Manomaya Purusha (the mental being), etc.as integral but autonomous parts of the composite human being isbased upon an incontrovertible truth of psychological experience.The harmony of the organic being can only be assured by a con-

• scious mutual interaction of these autonomous correlates. To developfull consciousness in each of the parts of the being, even in the cellsof the body, is what Nature is tending to through evolution.

The question which presents itself here is: How to set aboutthe work of character-building in the child through the transformationof his vital? "To become conscious of the many movements inoneself and take note of what one does and why one does it, is the

, indispensable starting-point. The child must be taught to observehimself, to note his reactions and impulse and their causes, to be·~

'come a clearsighted witness of his desires, his movements of violenceand passion, his instincts of possession and appropriation anddomination and the background of vanity against which .they stand

I ri Aurobindo and tire M other 0 11 Educati on

~HE ADVENt

with their counterparts of weakness, discouragement; depressionand "despair."!. . This is a kind of psychological education which is imparted

nowhere in the world to the child, so far as we are aware. Rather,it is regarded as something too- subtle for the child. It is not evenimparted to the youth. And yet it is the one indispensable part 0;any radical and integral education, an education which can transformthe very stuff of the child's nature, character and conduct in a mostdetailed and systematic way . The secret of success in a~ educa­tion, any discipline, is that it must not be felt as an imposition fromwithout. -The child must be taught-and this is the best methodof teaching-that he is teaching himself, acquiring more and moreknowledge of what he is, what he should be, and how he can be whathe has to be. Free in his intitiative, unencumbered by traditionsand conventions, and unimpeded by rules and restrictions hedevelops his personality with the spontaneity of a growing plant.What he needs, in the beginning of his education, is"the fosteringlove and care of the teacher who does in regard to him just what -thegood gardener does in regard to the plant. "

The work of evolution is going on even in the metal, the plantand the animal, but it is a veiled and indirect operation, subcon­scious and tardy, because Nature has not been able to enlist theconscious co-operation of these entities. She proceeds, as if she wasblind and groping, in what appears to be her somnambulist Yoga. 2 ~

But when Nature becomes conscious in conscious man, the work ofevolution assumes a different aspect. It reveals its secret meaning,its purpose and its goal. Not all at once, but gradually in the wakeof the-evolutionary enlightenment of consciousness. The mindof man begins now to observe itself, that is to say, a part of it standsaside and watches 'what takes place in the other parts of the being.This detached part is the witness Purusha. It can, not only watch.;

..but assert its awakening will to approve or disapprove the actionsana reactions of .the nature. Its detached observation gives it aknowledge of how Nature works in the darkness or twilight of igno-

c1 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Oil Education! The higher Nature, Para Prakriti , stands with her all-seeing and all-directing Intelligence

behind the ignorant and fumbling working of the lower, executive Nature, Apara Prakriti.

THE TEACHINGS OP THE MOTHER 43

ranee. And knowledge being power, it comes to exercise its willto .control, rectify and rearrange or remould whatever it finds erringor discordant in the Nature. Self-cbservation leads to a sustainedand resolute exercise of-the will, ana a progressive control and mas­tery. "This will is to be instilled in the child as soon as he is capableof having one, that is to say, at a much younger age than is usuallybelieved."! Mere self-observation without the effective power of thewill to change one's nature and character is an idle pastime. It leadsone nowhere. Knowledge gained by self-observation is not tran­slated into the terms of power, because without practice and appli­cation, the knowledge itself remains imperfect and futile." It is onlyby application that knowledge widens and perfects itself, and ac­quires the power to win over and convert the rebellious parts of thenature and weld them all into a cooperative and composite harmony.

How to teach the child to exercise his will ? "There are differentmethods according to different cases for awakening this will to sur­mount and conquer: on certain individuals it is rational argumentsthat are effective, for others sentiment and goodwill are to be broughtinto play, in others again it is the sense of dignity and self-respect;for all, however, it is the example shown constantly and sincerelythat is the most powerful means."!

The teaclfer has to observe and see which of these differentmethods can be profitably applied .to the case of a particular child.

• Those children in whom the intellect is more developed than theheart may take kindly to the first method, while those in whom theheart and the vi tal are more developed than the intellect are likely

• . to respond spontaneously to the other methods. But the most im­portant part of this teaching can be done by the personal exampleof the teacher himself. If the teacher has. himself achieved or is onthe way to achieving mastery of his own vital, and its transformation

....by a constant and sincere exercise of his will, his example will havefl very beneficial effect upon the child. His own character and way­of life will be a potent, though silent, lesson of self-control to thechild. It will be a beacon to him, stimulating the child's will and

1 S ri Aurobindo and the M othe r on Ed ucation• Ibri d

44 THE ADVENT

resolution, and encouraging him on the difficult path of self-conquest."Once the resolution is firmly established, there is nothing more

to' do than to proceed with strictness and persistence, never toaccept. defeat as final. Ifyou are to avoid all weakening and with­drawing, there is one important point you must know and neverforget: the will can be cultivated and developed even like the musclesby methodical and progressive exercises. You must not shrinkfrom demanding of your w.ill the maximum effort even for a thingthat appears to be of no importance; for it is by effort that, capacitygrows, acquiring little by little the power to apply itself even to themost difficult things. What you have decided to do, you must do,come what may, even if you have to begin your attempt over andover again any number of times. Your will will be strengthened bythe effort, and in the end you will have nothing more to do than tochoose with a clear vision the goal to which you will apply it,"

Therefore, so far as the transformation of character by self­conquest goes, self-observation is the first step, and self-control ,bya steady exercise of the will the next. This dual method will achievea total purification and discipline of all the elements and energies ofthe child's being, till a higher power intervenes to quicken andconsummate the work of transformation.

(To be continued)

RISHABHCHAND

1 Sri Aurobjndo~ and the Mother 011 Education

•

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD

~ (AN EXPOSITION I~ THE LIGHT OF SRI AUROBINDO'S TEACHING)

THE Taittirya claims our special attention as it gives us a glimpseof. the method of self-development laid down by our most

ancient sages including those of the Rigveda. It declares that "manmay evolve from plane to plane of his being and embrace on eachsuccessively his oneness with the world and with Sachchidanandarealised as the Purusha and Prakriti; conscious soul and naturesoul of that plane, taking into himself the action of the lower gradesof being as he ascends. He may, that is to say, work .out byan inclusive process of self-enlargement and transformation theevolution o~ material into the divine or spiritual man."!

• This is one of the most ancient Upanishads, placed immediatelyafter ~e Brihadaranyaka and the Chhandogya. It keeps close tothe Vedic root, reflects the old psychological system of the Vedicseers and preserves what may be ealled its spiritual pragmatism­the divine perfectibility of human nature. There is no trace here oflater ascetic and antipragmatic Vedanta.

It forms the three penultimate chapters of the Taittiriya Brah­mana, laying down successively, the early preparation, the realisa­tion of the individual soul and the Eternal in the Cosmos. The

. : last chapter of the Brahmana forms the Mahanarayana Upanishad.By the way, the name Taittiriya, (derived from tittira, a partridge)

is peculiar and in support of it, the Vishnu Purana (111.5) narratesa story which will bear repetition. Yajn~valkya·s teach r, annoyed

, with his spirit of independence and self-importance, ordered him togive back all the learning he had imparted and Yajnavalkya dis :'

•gorged all he had received from the teacher, including the Yajur Vida,as if it was something concrete. His co-disciples assumed the formof partridges and picked it all up-and that is how the name'Taittiriya' comes into being. By his concentrated effort however,Yajnavalkya earned the grace of the Sun god-the image of divine

45

THE ADVEN'

Knowledge, and produced a new Samhita of the Yajurveda, calledthe 'Shukla', white or luminous (the other Samhita-the Taittiriyabeing called Krishna or black for distinction). The story probablyconveys the tradition tha-t Yajnavalkya dissented from the inheritedSystem-which had to be learnt up bit by bit, in the manner of allmental knowledge and received the luminous new system by inspira­tion from the source of all knowledge.

The first chapter of the Upanishad Sikshavalli, the chapter ofpreliminary education, indicates how young students wereprepared for higher life. It starts with a prayer:

"Be peace to us Mitra. Be peace to us Varuna. Be peace to usAryaman, Be peace to us Indra and Brihaspati, May far-stridingVishnu be peace to us,"

The invocation, taken from Rig veda 1.90.9, calls for peace,protection and aid from well-known gods. As Sri Aurobindo says, "gods are cosmic powers of the Divine whose mission is to lead manin his upward march to his destiny and to help him in the struggleagainst the forces of darkness, division and ignorance. The Sun,Surya Savitri, is the master of supreme truth,-truth of being, ofknowledge, of process and act and movement and functioning.The four powers of Surya, indispensable previous conditions torestablishing the truth in human nature, are "a vast parity and clearwideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood-this is Varuna;a luminous power of love and compassion leading and forming intoharmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses-this is Mitra; animmortal puissance of clear discerning aspiration, and endeavour,-this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment ofall things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering-this is Bhaga" who is invoked in the fourth section. "The Heavenis our father and Earth our mother; Vayu, the master of Life linksthem together by the mid air, the region of vital force."

" Ind ra is the puissant, the power of pure existence self­manifested in mind" and Agni is "the seven-tongued power of Will, aforce of God instinct with knowledge." "Brihaspati is the masterof the inspired word, the power of the soul" and "Vishnu, of thevast pervading motion, (urukramay upholds all the worlds".

The first lesson (section 2) is the correct chanting of the Vedas.

• 'rHE TAlTTlRIYA UPANISHAD 47

This wa~ held to be of great importance, the effect of a mantradepending on sound vibration. Next comes the five great Samhitas,or groups of five-concerning the worlds, the shining fires, the know­ledge, progeny and the self. This is training the mind to see thiIigsanalytically in a new light of interrelationship.

The fourth section contains a prayer to Indra for endowingthe intelligence with the power to receive and hold the higher truths :-

"He who is the Bull of the Vedas of universal form, he who wasban! in the sacred hymns of the immortals-May Indra satisfy methrough' t/;e intelligence. 0 God, May I become a vessel of the Immortal.May my body be full of vision and my tongue of sweetness, may I hearmuch and Vast with my ears. ' For thou art the sheath of Brahmancovered over and hidden by the intelligence?":

Here Indra "plainly appears as the power and godhead of theDivine mind", says Sri Aurobindo, and he cites the passage. as anexample of the development of Vedic idea and image in the Upani­shads, bringing out the spiritual significance and the psychologicalfunctions of the vedic gods more openly than in the cryptic versesof the.Veda.

The Rishi further prays that disciples may come to him inlarge numbers and bring him material prosperity and fame as ateacher of the sacred lore. He does not believe in asceticism but inright enjoyment, which dispels the evil dream of sin and error. So

n , he prays to Bhaga to enter into him and wash him clean like a river. of hundred streams. The god is a neighbour, the Rishi feels, but• further progress in identification depends on the god's grace.

The fifth section gives the Vyahritis-the seedwords, the. rhythm of"self-manifestation of the Supreme in the various worlds.In tae Upanishadic and Puranic tradition, there are seven of them,three lower, Bhur, Bhuoar, Svar-of matter, life and mind, the

;:riple worlds of ignorance with which alone we are familiar; threehigher worlds of divine knowledge- jana, Tapas, Satyam,-of·.delight, conscious force and existence; and the link world, Mahas,of Vijnana, Supermind-hymned in the Vedas as the Truth, theRight and the Vast-"satyam, rtam, brhat" tpe primary originand source of all creation in the lower worlds, also called the greatpath, mahaspatha.f of return to the Supreme. "These. four together

THE ADVENT •

make the fourfold fourth world. Sometimes this upper world seemsto be divided into two, Soar, the base, Mayas, or divine ·beatitudeof the Summit, giving five worlds or births of the ascending soul.""In the Upanishads and Puranas there is no distinction betweenSwar and Dyaus ; and therefore a fourth name had to be found forthe world of Truth and this is the Mahar discovered according tethe Taittiriya Upanishad by the Rishi Mahachamasya as the fourthVyahriti.?" "That is the Brahman, that is the Self" declares the.Rishi, "the other gods are its members". Indeed the Supermindis the consciousness of the Lord of Creation and the origin of.allthings, the source of all light and power, in the lower world.

Further, the same rhythms of self-expression of the Divineobtain in all the various fields of our experience. First, of theworlds, "the earth is Buur, the sky is Bhuvar and the other world isSoar, .M ahas is the sun ; by the sun all these worlds increase andprosper."

Then of "the shining fires or the lights of heaven", or thecosmic powers that lead us upward, Fire, Air and Sun are the nrstthree, while the source, Mahas, is the Moon, the symbol of spisitualityand of Divine delight. Of the revelations, Rik, Sam and Yaju, thefourth, the basis, is the Eternal. Of the individual being, the threebreaths or functions of the life force have their basis, Mahas, in food.

"These are four words of his naming and each is four again. He- who knows these, knows the Eternal and to him all the gods carry the •

offering." For, the perception of oneness underlying the Universe ·.-the realisation that everywhere all things and functions are ex- •pressions of the various rhythms of the Divine idea is the first step ·0.towards intellectual approach to the Divine. .

The next, the sixth, section gives the place of the representativeof the Self in mental nian-the centres for concentration on thesyllable, OM, given in Section 8. ~

: "This heauen of ether is in the heart within, there dwells the Bei~W110 is all mind, •the radiant and golden immortal. B etween the twopalates, tjUs that hangs down like the breast of a woman, is the wombof Indra; yea where.the hair at its end whirls round like an eddy, thereit divides the sknll and pushes. through it,"-that is from the throatopening out to higher ranges at the crown of the head.

'fIt& TAITTIItIYA QPANISHAO -49

He' is established as Bhur in Agni, as Bhuvar in Vayu, as Soarin the Sun, as Mahas in the Eternal. He attains to the ki1lgdomof- Himself ; He attains to the Lord of Mind,. He becomes the Lordof Speech, Lord of Sight, Lord of Hearing, Lord ofKnowledge. There­after this too He becomes,-the Eternal whose body is all ethereal space,

3J)hose Soul is Truth, whose bliss is in Mind, who takes his ease in Prana,the Rich in Peace, the Immortal. As such, 0 Son of the Ancient Yoga,do thou adore Him."

This self of the Mind is known as the Lord of all individual andCosmic functions and becomings.

• The next section, the seventh, is a lesson in classification, seeingall in various groups of five-three groups of the material worldone of the embodied human being and one of the elements of hisbody.

Thc eighth section declares that the syllable "Om is the Eternal,OM is all this universe". And the sound is widely used in sacrificeand is the means of attaining the Eternal. The importance of thesacred syllable is emphasised in all scriptures. Sri Aurobindo saysin the. Savitri (Book III, Canto 2).

"The voice that chants to the creator FireThe symboled OM, the great assenting word."

The ninth section lays down the duties of the householder.: The primary emphasis is on reciting and teaching the Veda. The• other duties specified are righteousness, truth, concentration or

•.. askesis, self-mastery and attending to the household fires and theordinary family responsibilities.

"The tenth, which is extremely interesting,. gives a hymn ofself-knowledge as Rishi Trishaaku's voicing of the Vedas-the core

"'of Vedic teaching. It is not found in the present compilation of' -,the Rigveda. Shwetashvatara also quotes quite a few more lost gemsof the vocal Aryan past. .

"I am He that moves the Tree of the universe and my glory islike the shoulders of a high mountain. I am lofty and pure like sweetnectar in the strong, I am the shining riches of the world. I am the4 .

mE ADVEN

deep thinker, the deathless one who decays not from the beginning'l.-The integral teaching of the Upanishads embraces both static

and the dynamic aspects of the Divine. The Vedas lay emphasison ' the identification with the dynamic aspect, giving birth to theVishvadevas-all the cosmic forces of light-imaging them in theindividual and attaining to divine perfection, culminating in identification with the Lord of the universe. The Eternal in the universeis imaged as a tree also in other hymns of the Rig Veda,? and inthe Upanishads, and the Gita". .

In connection with this last, Sri Aurobindo says, "this tree, ofcosmic existence is eternal and imperishable, is an infinite move­ment and its foundation is above in the Supreme of the Infinite.Its principle is the .an cient sempiternal urge to action, praurttiwhich for ever proceeds without beginning or end for the originalSoul of existence. Its source is beyond time in the Eternal butits branches stretch down below. The branches of this cosmictree extend both below and above, below in the material and abovein the supraphysical planes."

The last section sets forth the exhortation to the sjudentsreturning home ' after completing their education, laying down thehigh moral ideal of the householder: .

Speak truth, walk in the way of thy duty, neglect not the study ofVeda... Thou shalt not be negligent of thy duty, thou shalt not be negli­gent of thy zaelfare ; thou shalt not be negligent towards thy increaseand thy thriving. Thou shalt not be negligent of thy works unto theGods or thy works unto thy fathers. Let thy father be unto thee as thy ,God and thy mother as thy Goddess whom thou adorest. Serve the ' ,Master as a God and as a God the stranger in thy dwelling. The wOl'ksthat are without blame before the people, thou shalt do these with" dili­gence and no others... Whosoever are better and nobler than we amongthe brahmins, thou shalt refresh with a seat of honour them. Thou

," shalt give with faith and reverence and with fellow-feeling. If thoudoubt of thy course or of thy action, then to whatsoever Brahmins Dethere who are careful thinkers devout, not moved by others, lovers ofvirtue, not cruel or ,severe, even as they do in that thing, so do thou.As to men accused and arraigned by their fellows, whatsoever Brahminsbe there, who. are careful thinkers, devout not severe or cruel, even as

'rHE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD

they are towards these, so be thou. This is the law and the teaching:This is the Commandment

. The chapter closes with the same prayer with which it ope1?-s:

NOLINI KANTA SEN

I Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga I p. 457.2 The tr~nslations are, except when otherwise indicated, all taken

from Sri Aurobindo's The Eight Upanishads, on which the expo-sition is based. .

3 On the Veda, p. 203·

4 The Founda tions of Indian Culture, p. 311.5 Rigveda 11-42 .7.6 0 11 The Veda, p. 203.

7 For example in Rigveda X·31.7; X.127.4.8 Katha Upanishad, 2.3.2; Gita, 15.1.

..

REVIEW

Resurgent India. Sisirkumar Mitra. Allied Publishers Private­Limited. Bombay, 1963 pp. 432. Rs. 26.00.

WE have forgotten how to feel and remember. How el~e explainour neglect and total misunderstanding of the Indan Re­

naissance-P Or why, after a brilliant start, did it seem to waver andwane, it not lose its track ? The reasons for this deviation are toomany and complex. But to a deeper view the deviation apart, theFire still burns and it will lead us to victory, a victory very differentfrom what we now know or think of,-a new age and a new race.Such, to the discerning few, is the rationale of Resurgent India,history as apocalypse.

Sri Mitra's remarkably well produced book is a sustained anduncompromising analysis of the inner values, the mystic moticationsof the Indian Awakening and going back to earlier day s, returningto the roots, an affirmation of India's eternal suadharma . It neededboth courage and insight to do so. Most histories of modern Indiahave been such drab and docile echoes of "western standards ofhistriography" that it is almost a shock-the shock of recognition '-to come upon this re-discovery of the reality of the Vedic -.vision of the destiny of man. But once that vision is admitted, its 'renewal in any modern personalities and movements-in art, litera- '.,ture, science, religion, philosophy, politics and education-leading, .by degrees, to its climax and fulfilment in the life and works ofSri Aurobindo, "the last ~f the Rishis", becomes but a logical finale.And that is what our author, in effect, says. ~.

He describes his effort, modestly, as "a book on modern Indianrenaissance through a biographical approach". Indeed, it is muchmore than that. Nineteenth-century world-history for its backdrop,and the recovery of-the ancient past as the opening scene of a swiftlymoving drarna-csuch is the unfinished saga of Modern or MotherIndia. Like subject, like author. Sri Mitra has an easy and enviable

52

ftEVIEW 53

flair for the sublime and his gallery of portraits-Ram Mohan,Devendranath, Rajnarayan, Keshubchandra, Ranade, Tilak, Daya­nanda, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Rabindranath, Jagadishchandra;Abanindranath and others-is as fair as it is imposing, a wonderfulstory wonderfully told. The present generation has moved so faraway from these men and motives that this orientation of interest

.. and call to verities might come as a surprise to many. Openly and.by implication, the book is a work of revaluation, I had almost saidrevelation. It is sure to flutter the dovecotes.

• Simply put, on the positive side, the characteristics of theIndian Renaissance as Sri Mitra sees these things (helped in thisas in other matters by his Master's vision), are mainly three: aspiritual motive; the acceptance of the whole of life instead of thetime-worn illusionism or ascetic withdrawal; and, finally, universalism.Also this time it will be part of the 'progressive. mind' of humanityand avoid the earlier compromise between society and spirituality.In the words-of Sri Aurobindo: "The utility of the compromisein die then actual state of the world cannot be doubted. It securedin India a society which lent itself to the preservation and the wor­shit> of spirituality, a country apart in which as in a fortress thehighest spiritual ideal could maintain itself in its most absolute purityunoverpowered by the siege of the forces around it. But it was acompromise, not an absolute victory. The material life lost thedivine impulse to growth, the spiritual preserved by isolation its

.. height and purity, but sacrificed its full power and serviceablenessto the world. Therefore, in the divine Providence the country of

. : the Yogins and the Sannyasins has been forced into a strict and. imperative contact with the very element it had rejected, the dementof the progressive Mind, so that it might recover what was nowwanting in it." (The Synthesis ofYoga, 30.) 'As ourauthor repeatedly

-points out, this has been the direction and the driving force ofNew India. And this is what the great ones, each in his own -,way, have done. Especially in the vision and labour pf Sri Aurobindo(and the Mother) are prefigured the clearest indication of' .a noblerfuture not only for India but for the human race faced with a crisisof choice and transition, "the final dream", as Sri Aurobindo calledit in his message of August 15, 1947. Later, speaking of the same

54 THE ADVENT

possibility, he wrote: "This possibility, if fulfilled, would meanthat the human dr am of perfection, perfection of itself, of its puri­fied and enlightened nature, of all its ways of action and living,would be no longer a dream but a truth that could be made realand humanity lifted out of the hold on it of inconscience and igno­rance." (The Supramental Manifestation) Such is the contenthe put into India's date of liberation, a date with destiny. WillNew India be worthy of that dream? Here patriotism is not enoughand, appearances notwithstanding, the leaders. of the IndianRenaissance did not make that mistake.

Sri 'M itra deserves credit for staging his heroic thesis withoutfear or favour. For sure many, probably more than will openly admitthe fact, will be grateful to him for setting the balance and providingus with life-values that we had all but lost. The very recognitionof such an aim would be a liberation of the will and intellect, thelifting of an incubus.

In the last section, 'The Hour Has Come', he has drawn at­tention to the many traditions, occult and religious, that refer tothe coming Age of Tr uth. To this there is a striking parallel in therecent scientific thought of Julian Huxley, Alexis Carrel, de Chardinand others. Perhaps this is more than a coincidence, this growingsense of "unrealised possibilities" (Huxley) and of '"a higher order"(de Chardin). For those who have followed our author so far, thisis the heart of the matter, the rationale of the Renaissance, theVedic vision. And the hour is or could be now, what Sri Aurobindohas called the Hour of God. We are faced with a "choice of being".

The choice is always ours. Then let me chooseThe longest art, the hard Promethean wayCherishingly to tend and feed and fanThat inward fire, whose small precarious flame,Kindled or quenched, createsThe noble or ignoble men we are

. The world we live in and the very fates,Our bright or muddy star.

In this over-all, inside history of the Indian Renaissance which sums

REVIEW 55

up all pis earlier works, Sri Mitra has proved, not for the first time,that Indians can not only make but also write history-tlie only 'kind of history that matters, th history of human becoming} "thebirth of a divine race. Here is hist0~ with a difference-s-history whoselanguage is the Sun, a Hymn to the Mystic Fire in which (ourauthor along with) the pioneers of a new India-and a new world- stand like hierophants singing of the Dawn Eternal.

This humble, honest, inspiring re-statement of the deeperrhythms of Indian life and mind, and, above all, its account of Sri;\urobi~do's work and vision, political and yogic, will send manyreaders to the Master's own immortal writings. That will be oneof its many services. For as our author has shown, what few willdeny, nor deny for long, Sri Aurobindo is the soul of India-andthe world to be. "I declare to thee that heavenly Flame, for I knowit."

S. K. Ghose

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The ADVENTApril, 1964

CONTENTS

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER -Rishabhchand

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE-Rishabhchand

. THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD -Nalini Kanta Sen

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER -M. V. Seetaraman

Page

5

12

17

22

25

31

49

54

65 .

-Nolini Kanta Gupta

-Sri Aurobindo

EDITORIALS

SRI AUROBINDO AND VEDIC

lNTERPRETATION

READI GS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA

• UPANISHAD -M. P. Pandit

THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION

ON ART AND BEAUTY: THE LADDER

OF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE -A. B. Purani

The Sun and the Light may be a help, andwill be if it is the true Light and the trueSun, but cannot take the place of theMother's Force.

SRI AUROBINDO

Vol. UI. No. z•

Aprir, l,&f

[NTThe Divine gives itself to those who give themselveswitho'ut reserve and in all their parts to the Divine.For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss,the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge;the seas of Ananda. Sri Aurobindo.

EDITORIALS·

THE MOTHER'S COMMENTARY

ON

DHAMMAPADA

XXI

MISCELLANY..If to give up a small pleasure is to find a vast 'pleasure, then

it is wiser to give up the small in view of the vast. (I)

If one seeks one's pleasure by inflicting pain upon others"thenone is entangled in the meshes of enmity and is not Ifreedfrom it. ' . (2)

.:....=

• Based OD the Mother', Talb

-,

6 nm ADVENT

To reject what should be done, to do what should not be doneis just how the dePTqped and the deluded increase theirsins. (3)

They who keep a perfect vigilance over their body, who donot indulge a thing that should not be done, ever doingfaithfully what should be done, they are the good soulswho have knowledge: sins disappear from them. (4)

He slays his at (egoism), he slays his mother (lust), he slaystwin kings (wrong views), he slays the whole State withall its adherents (the senses) and still he remains the stain­less, the Brahmin. (5)

He slays his father, he slays his mother, he slays the two warrior. kings, he slays the fifth one, the tiger, and still he remains

stainless, the Brahmin. (6)

They are truly awake in perfect wakefulness, who followGautama, who have their mind fixed upon the Buddhaday and night. (iJ

They are fully awake in perfect wakefulness who followGautama who have their mind fixed upon the Dharmaday and night. (8)

They are fully awake in perfect wakefulness who followGautama, who have their mind fixed upon the Samgha.

(9)

They are fully awake in perfect wakefulness who followGautama and have their mind vigilant about the body.

(10)

They are fully awake in perfect wakefulness who followGauta~ and have their mind fixed upon compassion.Ci ty

They are fully awake in perfect wakefulness who followGautama and have their mind fixed upon meditation. (12)

EDITORIALS

A home is a painful thing, difficult to abandon, difficult toenjoy, difficult to inhabit. It is painful to live withunequals, painful to wander in the cycles. Do notwander, do not stray into suffering. (I~

A man of faith and virtue, like a man of fame and wealth,receives worship wherever he happens to be. (14)

The wise one shines from afar even like the snowy Himalaya,the unwise one is invisible like an arrow shot in thenight. . (15)

One who sits alone, lies alone, walks alone untiringly, disci­plining oneself all by oneself rejoices in his lonely forest.

(16)

7

STILL you must not make a mistake. For I believe all these• are rather images than material facts, because it is quite

certain that eating alone, sleeping alone, living in the forest all alonedoes • ot suffice to give you the spirit's freedom.

It has been noticed that most of those who live alone in thefor~st become friends of all animals and plants that are around them;but the fact of being all alone does not give you the power of goinginto an inner contemplation and living in communion with thesupreme Truth. Perhaps it is easier, when by the force of cir­cumstances you have nothing else to do, but I am not convinced ofthis. You can always invent occupations and it seems to me, asfar as my life-experience goes, that if one succeeds iIi subduing one'snature in the midst of difficulties, if one endeavours to be art alonewithin oneself with the eternal Presence, keeping the surroundingwhich the Grace has given us, the realisation which one obtainsthen is more true, more profound, more durable.

To run away from difficulties in order to conquer them is not asolution. It is very attractive. There is something in those who seekthe spiritual life which says : "Oh ! to sit down under a tree, quitealone, to remain in. meditation, not to have the temptation to speak,act, how fine it must be !" It is because there has been a v: ry strongformation in this direction, but it is very illusory. •

8 '.The best meditations are those that one has all on a. sudden,

~ because they seize as an imperative necessity. You cannot do other­wise than to concentrate, meditate, look farther than the appearances.And that seizes you not necessarily in the solitude of the forest, ithappens when something in you is ready, when the time is come,when the true need is there, when the Grace is with you. •

To me it seems that humanity has made a progress and the truevictory must be won in life itself.

You must be able to live alone with the Eternal an Infinitein the midst of all circumstances. You must know how to be free,with the Supreme your companion, in the midst of all occupations .That is indeed the true victory.

XXII

OF HELL

One who says of a thing that was not that it was goes to hell,also onewho doesa thing and yet says he has not done.Both of them on leaving the world will share the samefateelsewhere, for they are men of vile action. (I)

Many with the yellow robe on do evil without restraint. Theyare evil men who, because of their evil doings, take birthin Hell. (2)

Better it were to swallow a flaming iron-ball than to eat ofalms quested while leading a dissolute life. (3)

Four are the realms where the foolish who desire another man'swife are relegated: the realm of no merit, the realm of nosleep, the realm of censure and Hell itself. (4)

""he only gain is demerit and sinful the end. Brief is thepleasureof a fearful man and a fearful woman, the punish­ment hedoy that the Law inflicts. Therefore man must notgo to-another's wife. (5)

EDITORIALS

As a blade ofgrass wrongly held cuts the hand, even so asceticdiscipline wrongly done drags one to hell. (6)

Whatever work is done with looseness,whatever rule is observedunder compulsion, zohateoer discipline is felt as painfuldoes not "ring about a great result. (7)

A work that has to be done must be done with a firm zeal.• An ascetic that loosely wanders about raises dust upondust. (8)

It is better not to do a wrong thing; a wrong thing done bringsrepentance. It is better to do the right thing; a right thingdone brings no repentance. (9)

As a fortress-city is guarded from within and from without,even so guard yourself. Do not waste even a moment. Amoment wasted, you are thrown into Hell and you haveonly to lament. (10)

One who is ashamed of a thing not to be ashamed of, onewho is not ashamed of a thing to be ashamed of, possessesa false vision and comes to an evil end. (II)

One who has fear for a thing not to be afraid of, one who hasno fear for a thing to be afraid of possesses a false visionand comes to an evil end. (12)

• One who thinks of abandoning a thing. not to be abandoned,but finds in a thing to be abandoned a .thing not to beabandoned possesses a false vision and comes to anevil end. (13)

He who knows what is to be rejected and rejects it, he whoknows what is not to be rejected and does not reject itpossessesthe right vision and reaches the blissful end. (14)

9

10 THE ADVENT

With regard to all these teachings there are several ways of under-• standing them. The external way is of course quite flat and common­

place. With regard to the moral principles, always the same thingis said.. This Niraya (Hell), for example, which some take as a kindof hell where one is punished for one's sins, has also another sense.The true sense of Niraya is that kind of particular atmosphere that "one creates around oneself when one acts in contravention, not ofexternal moral rules, or social laws, but in contravention of theinner law of one's nature, the particular truth of each one which mustgovern all the movements ofour consciousness and all the acts of oarbody. The 'inner law, the truth of the being is the divine presencein every human being that which should be the master and guide ofour life.

When you take the habit of listening to this inner law, whenyou obey it, follow it, try more and more to let it guide your life,you create around you an atmosphere of truth and peace and harmonywhich naturally reacts upon the circumstances and creates so to ~ay

the atmosphere in which you live. When you are a man of justice,truth, harmony, compassion, understanding, of perfect good .....ill,this inner attitude, the more it is sincere and total, the more does itreact upon the external circumstances, not that it diminishes neces­sarily the difficulties of life but it gives to these difficulties a new senseand that allows you to face them with a new strength and a newwisdom; whereas the man, the human being who follows his impulses,who obeys his desires, who is very little embarrassed by scruples,who comes to live in complete cynicism, not caring for the effectthat his life may have upon others nor for the consequences more orless hanbful of his acts, creates for himself an atmosphere of ugliness,selfishness, conflict and bad will which necessarily acts more andmore upon his consciousness and gives a bitterness to his life thatin the end becomes for him a perpetual torment.:' It is well understood that this does not mean that such a manwill not succeed in what he undertakes, that he will not be able to 'possess what he desires; these external advantages disappear onlywhen there is within the inmost being a spark of sincerity whichpersists and makes him worthy of the misfortune.

If you see-a bad man become unlucky and miserable, you must

EDITORIALS II

immediately respect him. It means that the flame of inner sincerityis not altogether extinguished and something still reacts to ills badacts. •

Lastly, that leads us to the further conclusion that YQU mustnever, never judge on appearances and that all judgments youcome to from outward circumstances are always, necessarily falsejudgments.

To have a glimpse of the Truth, one must at least take one stepbackward in one's consciousness, enter a little more deep into one'sbeing and try to perceive the play of forces behind the appearancesand the divine Presence behind the play of forces.

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION

THE end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerfulrecrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution. It is

a principle of Nature that in order to get rid of any powerful tendencyor deep-seated association in humanity, whether in the rngss or inthe individual, it has first to be exhausted by bhoga or enjoyment,afterwards - to be dominated and weakened by nigraha or controland, finally, when it is weak, to be got rid of by samyama, reiectfonor self-dissociation. The difference between nigraha and samyamais that in the first process there is a violent struggle to put down,coerce and, if possible, crush the tendency, the reality of which isnot questioned, but in the second process it is envisaged as a deador dying force, its occasional return marked with disgust, then withimpatience, finally with indifference as a mere ghost, vestige orfaint echo of that which was once real but is now void of significsece.Such a return is part of the process of Nature for getting rid of thisundesirable and disappearing quantity. '

Sarhyama is unseasonable and would be fruitless when a force,quality or tendency is in its infancy or vigour, before it has had theenjoyment and full activity which is its due. When once a thing isborn it must have its youth, growth, enjoyment, life and final decayand death; when once an impetus has been given by Prakriti to hercreation, she insists that the velocity shall spend itself by naturalexhaustion before it shall cease. To arrest the growth or speedunseasonably by force is nigraha, which can be effective for a timebut not in perpetuity. It is said in the Gita that all things are ruledby their nature, to their nature they return and nigraha or repres­sion is fruitless. What happens then is that the thing untimelyslain by violence ill not really dead, but withdraws for a time into ­the Prakriti which sent it forth, gathers an immense force and returnswith extraordinary violence ravening for the rightful enjoyment whichit was denied. We see this in the attempts we make to get rid of our

~ evil sarhshdras or associations when we first tread the path of Yoga.12

•• THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION

...

If anger: is a powerful element in our nature, we may put it down fora time by sheer force and call it self-control, but eventually un- •satisfied Nature will get the better of us and the passion returnsupon us with astonishing force at an unexpected moment. Thereare only two ways by which we can effectively get the bette; of the

• passion which seeks to enslave us. One is by substitution, replacingit whenever it rises by the opposite quality, anger by thoughts offorgiveness, love or forbearance, lust by meditation on purity,pride b~ thoughts of humility and our own defects or nothingness;tais is the method of Rajayoga, but it is a difficult, slow and uncer­tain method; for both the ancient traditions and the modern ex­perience of Yoga show that men who had attained for long yearsthe highest self-mastery have been suddenly surprised by a violentreturn of the things they thought dead or for ever subject. Stillthis ubstitution, slow though it be, is one of the commonest methodsof Nature and it is largely by this means, often unconsciously or halfconsciously 'Used, that the character of a man changes and developsfrom life to life or even in the bounds of a single lifetime. It doesnClt'!!elestroy things in their seed and the seed which is not reducedto ashes by Yoga is always capable of sprouting again and growinginto the complete and mighty tree. The second method is to givebhoga or enjoyment to the passion so as to get rid of it quickly.Whenjt is satiated and surfeited by excessive enjoyment, it becomesweak and spent and a reaction ensues which establishes for a timethe opposite force, tendency or quality. If that moment is seizedby the Yogin for nigraha, the nigraha so repeated at every suitableopportunity becomes so far effective as to reduce the strength andvitality of the ortti sufficiently for the application of the final sumyama.Tais method of enjoyment and reaction is also a favourite and uni­versal method of Nature, but it is never comp1ete in itself and, ifapplied to permanent forces or qualities, tends to establish a see-saw

• of opposite tendencies, extremely useful to the operations of Prakritibut from the point of view of self-mastery useless and inconclu~ve.

It is only when this method is followed.up by the use of samyamathat it becomes effective. The Yogin regards the ortti merely as aplay of Nature with which he is not concerned and of which he ismerely the spectator; the anger, lust or pride is not his, it is the

universal Mother's and she works it and stills it for her own pur-' poses, When, however, the ortti is strong, mastering and unspent

this attitude cannot be maintained in sincerity and to try to hold itintellectually without sincerely feeling it is mithyiiciira, false disci­pline or hypocrisy. It is only when it is somewhat exhausted byrepeated enjoyment and coercion that Prakriti or Nature at the ­command of the soul or Purusha can really deal with her own crea­tion. She deals with it first by vairiigya in its crudest form of disgust,but this is too violent a feeling to be permanent; yet it leaves itsmark behind in a deep-seated wish to be rid of its cause, which sus­vives the return and temporary reign of the passion. Afterwardsits return' is viewed with impatience but without any acute feelingof intolerance. Finally supreme indifference or uddsinatd is gainedand the final going out of the tendency by the ordinary process ofNature .is watched in the true spirit of the samyami who has theknowledge that he is the witnessing soul and has only to dissociatehimself from a phenomenon for it to cease. The highest sta$eleads either to mukti in the form of laya or disappearance, the orttivanishing altogether and for good, or else in another kind of freedomwhen the Soul knows that it is God's lilii and leaves it to Him whetherHe shall throw out the tendency or use it for His own purposes. Thisis the attitude of the Karmayogin who puts himself ir, God's handsand does work for His sake only, knowing that it is God's force thatworks in him. The result of that attitude of self-surrender is thatthe Lord of all takes charge and according to the promise of the Gitadelivers his servant and lover from all sin and evil, the orttis workingin the bodily machine without affecting the soul and working onlywhen H~ raises them up for His purposes. This is nirliptatii, thestate of absolute freedom within the lilii.

The law is the 'same for the mass as for individual. The pro­cess of human evolution has been seen by the eye of inspired obser­vation to be that of working out the tiger and the ape . The force sof c..ruelty, lust, mischievous destruction, pain-giving, folly, bru- ­tality, ignorance were once rampant in humanity and they had fullenjoyment; then by . the growth of religion and philosophy theybegan in periods of satiety such as the beginning of the Christianera in Europe to be partly replaced, partly put under control. As

•THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION 1$

the law of such things, they have always reverted again with greateror less virulence and sought with more or less success to reestablishthemselves. Finally in the nineteenth century it seemed for a timeas if some of these forces had, for a time at least exhausted themselvesand the hour for samyama and gradual dismissal from the ev~lutionhad really arrived. Such hopes always recur and in the end they arelikely to bring about their own fulfilment, but before that happens

. another recoil is inevitable. We see plenty of signs of it in the reelingback into the beast which is in progress in Europe and Americabehind die fair outside of Science, progress, civilisation and humani­tarianism, and we are likely to see more signs of it in the-era that iscoming upon us. A similar law holds in politics and society. Thepolitical evolution of the human race follows certain lines of whichthe most recent formula has been given in the watchwords of theFrench Revolution, freedom, equality and brotherhood. aut theforces of the old world, the forces of despotism, the forces of tradi­tional privilege and selfish exploitation, the forces of unfraternalstrife and passionate self-regarding competition are always strugglingto eat themselves on the thrones of the earth. A determinedmovement of reaction is evident in many parts of the world and no­wfiere perhaps more than in England which ,was once one of theself-styled champions of progress and liberty. The attempt to goback to the old spirit is one of those necessary returns without whichit cannot be so utterly exhausted as to be blotted out from the evo­lution. It rises only to be defeated and crushed again. On the otherhand, the force of the democratic tendency is not a force which isspent but one which has not yet arrived, not a force which has hadthe greater part of its enjoyment but one which is still vigorous,unsatisfied and eager for fulfilment. Every attempt to coerce it inthe past reacted eventually on the coercing force and brought backthe democratic spirit fierce, hungry and unsatisfied, joining to itsfair motto of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" the terrible addi·

"tion "or Death". It is not likely that the immediate future of -the·democratic tendency will satisfy the utmost dreams of the loverof liberty who seeks an anarchist freedom, or of the lover of equalitywho tries to establish a socialistic dead level or the-lover of fraternitywho dreams of a world-embracing communism. Bqt some harmo-

16 Tim ADVENT •

nisation of this great ideal is undoubtedly the immediate future of• the human race. On the old forces of despotism, inequality and

unbridled competition, after they have once more over-thrown; aprocess of gradual samyama will be performed by which what hasto remain of them will be regarded as the disappearing vestiges ofa dead reality and without any further violent coercion be transformedslowly and steadily out of existence.

(Old Writing)SRI ATJROBIN!>O

..

SRI AUROBINDO AND VEDIC INTERPRETATION:

A REJOINDER TO EARLY CRITICISM 1

[Sri Aurobindo's first article on the Vedaformit1Jf the first chapter of the series, "The Secret of the Veda",

•was published on the 15th August 1914, in the first issue of themonthly magazine, "Arya". .

Perhaps the chapter was found to contain such revolutionaryideas that it was reviewed in the "Hindu" in its editorial byProf. Sunderram Aiyar, an orthodox Pandit. Sri Aurobindo'sreply to it was immediate.

During the years that followed, Sri Aurobindo created a vastbody of Vedic interpretation: the book "On the Veda" containsthe "Secret of the Veda" "Hymns of the Atris", and "Selected.'J!:mns". These were written between 1914 and 1920. But hisinterest in the Veda continued throughout and the "Hymns to

"the mystic Fire" was completed in 1946. The vast ground thesebooks covered proved the applicability of his psychological andsymbolic interpretation to the whole of the Rig Veda.

This work was folJowed up by some of his disciples: thelate Kapali Shastri wrote the Siddhiinjan Commentary in Sans­krit on the first Ashtaka of the Rig Veda. I compiled "SriAurobindo's Vedic Glossary based on the "Hymns to the MysticFire" and wrote the "Studies in Vedic interpretation" as an inde­pendent book applying his principles. M.P. Pandit has writtenmany articles covering various topics of the Rig Veda. Nolini

Kanto Gupta wrote on the Hymns of Madhuchhanda in Bengali.Recently a small number of Vedic scholars in India have

• been raising their voice against the dry linguistic. and historical •approach to the interpretation of the Veda. It is a happysign. It is heartening to find Sri Aurobindo's early labours

1 Quoted from The Hindu, Thursday, August 27, 1914.

2 17

TIlE ADVENt

on the Veda beginning to bear fruit after half a century. utehope a time will come when the world of Vedic scholarshipwill accept his psychological and symbolic basis as the correctone for the interpretation of the Veda.-A.B. PURANI]

WHILE thanking you for the generous appreciation in your .review of the "Arya" may I also crave the indulgence of your

columns,-if indeed you can spare so much space at such a timewhen the whole world is absorbed in the gigantic homicidal conflictconvulsing Europe,-for an answer to your criticisms on my "Secretof the Veda", or rather to an explanation of my standpoint whichthe deficiencies of my expression and the brief and summary charac­ter of my article in the "Arya" have led you, in some respects, tomisconceive. Surely, I have nowhere said that "Knowledge ofwhich no origin can be traced to previous sources must necessarilybe disregarded and discarded" ! That would indeed be a monstrousproposition ! My point was that such knowledge, when it ex~eda developed philosophy and psychology, stood in need of historicalexplanation-a very different matter. If we accept the Europeanidea of an evolving knowledge in humanity,-and it -is on that basisthat my argument proceeded-we must find the source of the Brahma­vada either in an extraneous origin such as a previous Dravidianculture-a theory which I cannot admit, since I regard the so-calledAryan and Dravidians as one homogeneous race,-or in a previousdevelopment, of which the records have either been lost or are tobe found in the Veda itself. I cannot see how this argument in­volves a regressus ad infinitum except in so far, as the whole .Idcaof evolution and progressive causality lies open to that objection.As to the origins of the Vedic religion that is a question which cannot

c be solved at present for lack of data. It does not follow that it hadno origins or in other words that humanity was not prepared by 'itprogressive spiritual experience for the Revelation.

Again, I certainly did not intend to express my own idea inthe description cf the Upanishads as a revolt of Philosophic mindsagainst the ritualistic materialism of the Vedas. If I held that

•SRI AUROBINDO AND VEDIC INTERPRETATION 19

view I could not regard the earlier Sruti as an inspired scripture orUpanishads as Vedanta and I would not have troubled myself aboutthe .secret of Veda. It is a view held by European Scholars and Taccepted it as the logical consequence, if the ordinary interpreta­tions of the hymns, whether Indian or European are to be maintained.If the Vedic hymns are, as represented by Western scholarship,

. . the ritualistic compositions of joyous and lusty barbarians the.Upanishads have then to be conceived as a revolt against the ri­tualistic 1Ilaterialism of the Vedas. From both premises andconclusion I have dissented and I have finally described not onlythe Upanishads but all later forms, as a development from the Vedicreligion and not a revolt against its tenets. An Indian doctrineavoids the difficulty in another way, by interpreting the Veda as abook of ritual hymns and revering it as a book of Knowledge. Itputs together two ancient truths without reconciling them effectively.In my view that reconciliation can only be effected by seeing even inthe exterior aspect of the hymns not a ritualistic materialism, buta symbolic ritualism. No doubt the Karmakanda was regardedas a.. :. despensable stepping-stone to the knowledge of the Atman.That was an article of religious faith, and as an article of faith I donot "dispute its soundness. But it becomes valid for the intellect-and in an irrtellecrual inquiry I must proceed by intellectualmeans,-only if the Karmakanda is so interpreted as to show howits performance assists, prepares or brings about the higher know-

. ledge. Otherwise however much the Veda may be revered in• theory, it will be treated in practice as neither indispensable nor"helpful and will come in the end to be practically set aside as has'happened, •

I am aware that some hymns of the Veda are interpreted in asense other than the ritualistic; even the European Scholars admit

_higher and religious ideas in the "later hymns" of the Vedas. I am •a~are also that separate texts are quoted in support of philosophicaldoctrines. My point was that such exceptional passages do notalter the general tone and purport given to the hymns in the actualinterpretations we possess. With those interpretations, we cannotuse the Rigveda as a whole, as the Upanishads can be used as a whole,as the basis of a high spiritual philosophy. Now it is"to the inter-

26 TIlE ADVENT

pretation of the Veda as a whole and to its general character thatI have addressed myself. I quite acknowledge that there has alwaysbeen a side-stream of tendency, making for the Adhyatmic inter­pretation of the Veda even as a whole. It would be strange if in anation so spiritually minded such attempts have been entirelylacking. But still they are side-currents and have not receivedgeneral recognition. For the Indian intellect in general, there areonly two interpretations, Sayana's and the European. Addressingmyself to that general opinion, it is with these two that I am prac­tically concerned.

I am still of the opinion that the method and results of the earlyVedantins differed entirely from the method and results of Sayanafor reasons I shall give in the second and third numbers of "Arya".Practically, not in theory, what is the result of Sayana's Commentary ?What is the general impression it leaves on the mind? Is it theimpression of "Veda" a great Revelation, a book of highest know­ledge ? Is it not rather that which the European scholars receivedand from which their theories started, a picture of primitive wor­shippers praying to friendly Gods, friendly but of a doubrfurrtem­per, gods of fire, rain, wind, dawn, night, earth and sky, for wealth,food, oxen, horses, gold, the slaughter of their enemies, even of theircritics, victory in battle, the plunder of the conquered ? And ifso how can such hymns be an indispensable preparation for theBrahmavidya ? Unless indeed it is a preparation by contraries, by .exhaution or dedication of the most materialistic and egoistic ten- .dencies somewhat as the green Old Hebrew Pentateuch may be ­described as a preparation for the mild evangel of Christ. My posi- : .tion is that they were indispensable not by a mechanical virtue inthe Sacrifice but because the experiences to which they are the keyand which were symbolised by the ritual are necessary to an integralknowledge and realisation of Brahman in the universe and prepare _the knowledge and realisation of the transcendent Brahman. Theyare, to paraphrase Shankara's description, mines of all knowledge,knowledge on all the planes of consciousness, and do fix theconditions and relations of the divine, the human and the animalelement in the ' being.

I do notclaim that mine is the first attempt to give an Adhyat-

•SRI AUROBINDO AND VEDIC INTERPRETATION 21

mic intespretation of the Veda. It is an attempt-the first or thehundredth matters little-to give the esoteric and psychologicalsense of the Veda based throughout on the most modem methodofpractical research. Its interpretation of the Vedic vocables is -basedon a re-examination of a large part of the field of comparative Philo­sophy and a reconstruction on a new basis which I have some hopewill bring us nearer to a true science of language. This I propose

. to develop in another work, the "Origins of Aryan speech". I hopealso to lead up to a recovery of the sense of the ancient spiritualconceptions of which old symbol and myth give us the indicationsand which I believe to have been at one time, a common culturecovering a great part of the globe with India, perhaps, as a centre.In its relation to this methodical attempt lies the only originalityof the " Secret of the Veda".

SRI AUROBINDO

·RE.-,\,OINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

FORM AND THE FORMLESS l

T WO are the deployments of the Eternal : The Eternal in Form,the Eternal as Formless. When It determines itself in form,

there arises naturally the possibility of de-determination, of freeingItself from the form, dissolution of the form i.e. Death. When itis formless there is naturally no dissolution, no death, it is immortal.Again, what is so determined, is fixed relatively to the space it occu­pies ; it is stationary even as what is not determined is not confined,is free in movement. Again, what is formed is concrete, palpableto the corresponding sense, it is identifiable as this; what is not soformed, the formless, is the beyond, beyond the range of actualityto the senses.

"These apparently opposite terms of One and Many, Forrrr'andFormless, Finite and Infinite, are not so much opposites as cqm­plements of each other; not alternating values of the Brahmanwhich in its creation perpetually loses oneness to find itself inmultiplicity, loses it again to recover oneness, but double and con­current values which explain each other; not hopelessly incompatiblealternatives, but two faces of the one Reality which can lead us toit by our realisation of both together and not only by testing eachseparately." (Sri Aurobindo)

Thus is Brahman manifest on all the planes of Its Self­exp ression, cosmically as. well as individually. Speaking of the-cos­mos, the Upanishad analyses the manifestation in both the aspects:the formed and the formless.

There are the five Elements which constitute this Universe,or these, the air .and the ether are more subtle than others. Whatis constituted of the other three Elements viz. earth, fire, water isthe formed and it partakes of the characteristics of Form i.e. death,

22

READINGS IN THE BRIHi\DI\RANYAKA UPANISHAD 23

fixation -and actuality. The essence, the core of this Formation ofBrahman is the solar orb that emits heat. For the Sun is indeedthe essence of the three constituent elements.

Turning to the Formless aspect of this cosmic manifestation ofBrahman, the Upanishad posits it as the air and the ether. It par­takes of all the characteristics of the Formless viz. it is immortal,it is moving, it is the beyond. The essence, the core of this mani­festation of Brahman is the Person in the Sun, the Divine Purushawho ensouls the life-giving Orb in the skies.

. As regards the individual aspect in creation, the Upanishadperceives the same truth-the formed and the formless,

All that is not the prii1;a life-breath, and not the ether, thesubtle sky in the heart, is the formed Brahman in the individualscheme. This partakes of the characteristics of Form i.e. death,fixation and actuality. And the essence of this formed entity isthe eye. For it is the eye that precedes and directs the rest.'

Consequently, the manifestation of Brahman as the formlessin this scheme is the prdna, life-breath, and the subtle sky in theheart: This partakes of the characteristics of the Formless i.e.it is immortal, it is moving, it is the beyond. And the essence ofthis formless individual manifestation is the Person in the right eye.This Purusha is the subtle being that is at the core.

This subtle Person is of variegated hue. As is the hue of the con­tacts, the impressions from outside that are impinged on the Person, sois the colour taken on by him. Now it is like a saffron colouredrobe; now like white wool, now like the red beetle (Indragopa),now like a flame of fire, now like the white lotus, now like the flashof lightning.

"The Upanishad has spoken of the two deployings of the Brah­man-as the Formed and the Formless. Lest it should be assumedthat these two categories cover the entire Brahman or exhaust it, .he Seer goes on to add that even this does not adequately describe .

the Brahman. Whatever may be posited, the Brahman is still beyondit. It is neither this nor that, neti, neti. 2 It i~ more, If is other.

t It is the eye that is first formed in the embryo, says the Satapatha Br. (IV. ii, I)2 "Brahman is the Alpha and the Omega. Brahman is the One besides whom there is nothing

else existent. But this unity is in its nature indefinable. When we seek to envisage it by the mind

THE ADVENT

It is Beyond all. And yet there is nothing which exists outside it.It is the Real of the real. All that lives is real, all the embodiedbeings are real; and of them the constituting Real is Brahman.

M. P. PANDIT

we are compelled to proceed through an infinite series of concep tions and experiences. Andyet in the end we are obliged to negate ou r largest conception s, ou r m ost comp rehensive ex pe ­riences in order to affin'n that the Reality exceeds all d efinitions. W e arrive a t the formula oftbe Indian sages, neti, neti, 'It is not this, It is not that', there is no experien ce wh ich can limitIt, there is no conception by which It can be defined." (Sri Aurobindo).

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

CHAPTER III

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

(VII)

The Age of Reason

LEIBNIZ (1646-1716)

UNLIKE Spinoza, who lived and died a martyr to the savage• fanaticism of the Jewish Church, and in privation and for­

lorn solitude, Leibniz lived and died a happy and prosperous man,universally esteemed and honoured. He was an invincible opti­mjst, who believed that everything was for the best in our materialworld, which is the best of all possible worlds, becaue God hascreated it in His unerring Wisdom. He was the most versatilegenius of his age, and some of his scientific findings anticipated laterdiscoveries of major importance. He "prepared schemes for thereunion of the Churches and for the European peace, foresaw anddes igned in outline a new science of statistics, contributed to thetheory of probability, was a founder of symbolic logic, projected auniversal language, studied optics, conceived the idea of calculatingmachines, speculated on human history, organised scientific re­search, and foresaw a new age of invention in mechanics. Histhought and his vision of great academies of knowledge and enlighten­.ment was the foundation of eighteenth-century rationalism.">.Like Spinoza, he had an inextinguishable faith jn reason.

Leibniz met Spinoza, but though they were on common groundin regard to the power and possibilities of human reason, their

1 The Age of Rea son (The Mentor Philosophers) p . 144 of the 3rd edition.

25

%6 THE ADVENT ••

systems diverged widely. Leibniz opposed to the dualism of Des­cartes his theory of monads, and to the pantheism of Spinoza, hisplplaristic theism. He contends, against Descartes, that extensionis not- the essence of Matter, but force of extension, which is active,and not, as Descartes holds, passive. He calls attention to themetaphysical or spiritual aspect of Matter, which is action, force,movement, and not inertia. He is, therefore, more in accord withthe modern theory of Matter and the discoveries of advanced science·than Descartes. To the unity and indivisibility of Spinoza's sub­stance he opposes the infinite multiplicity of the monads, each' ofwhich is unique, independent and autonomous-"windowless",as he calls them.' The world is composed of these monads or ele­mentary units. The monads are the "real atoms of nature", butunlike physical points, they have no extension, and unlike meta­physical points, they are concrete realities. Each monad acts ofitself, and is a self-contained, self-sufficient and self-developing en­tity, having no commerce or intercommunication "with others.Since nothing can enter into it from outside, it develops only whatis already within it. Its growth is a self-growth, directed bythelaw oT its own being, and uninfluenced by any extraneous factor.The inner activity of each monad is called perception, and the prin­ciple of its activity is desire or appetition. The degree of its percep­tion depends upon its inner development. Perception can be clearand distinct, or dim and hazy. The lowest monads, which formMatter, have little perception, that is to say, they are or appear tobe unconscious. This apparent unconsciousness is not, in fact, atotal absence of consciousness, but a shrouded and somnolent con- .•sciousness, passive and inert, which is what we know as Matter.From the lowest monads . to the highest, which is God, there ts aregular hierarchy, •representing different grades of development.We have, then, a whole system from simple monads to minds and

-souls, and reaching up to the highest, the central monad, God, who.is also the totality and harmony of the innumerable self-existentand self-active individual monads.

I "The monads "have no windows by which anything could go out or come inu.-Monado-logy by Leibniz, •

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE 27

The monads, though they are windowless and have no rapportwith each other, are yet each a mirror of the universe. Each monadcontains, as microcosm, all the essential principles of the universalcomposite, the macrocosm. Each is an epitome of the whole, -whichis God. Each represents clearly or obscurely, according to its deve­lopment, something of the Universal Spirit. The difference betweenone monad and another is not of content, but of representation, themode of expression. And therein lies the individuality of eachmo nad . r: The differences that mark off and distinguish one monadfrom another are only specifications and modifications of theircar dinal principles and elemental contents. No two monads are alike,because no two are at one and the same stage of development atone and the same time; and even if they were, their mode of re­presenting the living universal Unity would be different. Thedifferentiating quality is inherent in each monad.

But, it may well be asked, if each monad is unique and has nointercou rse with the other monads, how does Leibniz explain theunity of the universe ? How can God be the indivisible substratumand substance of the harmonious whole? To this question Leibnizreplies with his theory of the Pre-established harmony. Thougheach monad is different from the others, there is an analogy and afamily resemblance or correspondence between them. "Thoseon the lower stages in the scale of things as well as the most perfectmonads are forces, entelechies, and souls. Souls alone exist,! andthat which we call extension or body is nothing but a confused per­

-ception, a phenomenon, a sensible manifestation of effort, that isto say, of the immaterial."? Because each monad is a mirror ofthe universe, it contains the essential harmony of the universe. Itsgrowth and development and its communication with other monadsare all governed by this intrinsic harmony and are metaphysicalrather than physical. For, Leibniz fully subscribes to the view thatthe world is fundamentally a world of metaphysical reality of con-

1 Italics are ours .2 Hi story of Philosophy by Alfred Weber. Leibniz says : "The name of entelechies might

be given to all simple substances or created monads, for they have w1'thin themselves a certainperfection; they have a certain self-sufficiency which makes them the sources of their internalactivities, and, so to say, incorporeal automata".

THE ADVENT

sciousness and force, and only derivatively, a world of material ac­tuality. It is essentially noumenal, and only apparently phenomenal.

Leibniz's comprehensive philosophy attempts to unite thereligious and scientific postulates about reality, or rather presents anembracing, harmonious form of theodicy in the garb of a close-knitscientific system. The mechanical and the teleological factors areskilfully blended together, and life is envisaged as a living, purpose­ful, creative force, working out its infinite potentialities in the bestway possible, in spite of discords and aberrations that appear on thesurface. These jarring and jostling elements are, in metaphysicalfact, necessary conditions of its progressive advance. For, accordingto the law of continuity, enunciated by Leibniz, there is a continuouschange or modification in every monad, a change governed byits own inner law and tending towards the realisation of theperfection which is already in itself.

Each monad enjoys a certain freedom of will, and is the archi­tect of its own destiny, though its every act, every exercise of itsfree will is ultimately conditioned and guided by the incomprehen­sible will of God.! It is actuated by two necessities, the metaphysicaland logical necessity or the necessity of truth, and the hypotheticalnecessity or the necessity of fact. The former is a natural evolutionfrom its own being, and the latter is only contingent, though allcontingency is also ultimately derivable from the Will of God.Nothing happens in the world that has not had to happen.

Leibniz's philosophy is so broad-based and many-sided, andso subtly affiliated to the philosophies of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, ­St. Augustine, Nicolaus Cusanus, Bruno, Descartes, and Spinoza .and the geometry of Euclid that it is practically impossible to dis­engage the different threads of its complex web, and resolve -theapparent paradoxes and contradictions which baffle its analyticalstudents. The materialists have drawn out of it postulates and

• premises which reinforce their own convictions, and the philosophers,ofthe traditional schools have discovered in it nothing but a rational

1 "The final reason of things must be found in a necessary substance, in which the varietyof particular changes exists only eminently, as in their source; and that is what we call God ".Leibnla's views about God as dwelling in each soul and at the same time containing and encom­passing it, is a perfectly valid and spiritually verified Vcdantic truth.

•RI AUROBIND AND THE NEW AGE 29

justificasion for and a support of their cherished views. But .noneof them, I am afraid, have regarded it in the right perspective, anddone adequate justice to its vast and varied achievement. Let. ussee whether a fair and correct appraisal can be made by approachinghis manifold system through the universal truths ofIndian philosophy.

I propose to take some of his main postulates and study themin the light of the Vedanta and the Samkhya. Leibniz propoundsthe Samkhyan plurality of souls, but unlike Samkhya, he affirmsthe existence of God or the Central Monad as the absolute groundand substance of the whole universe. He is, therefore, at oncetheistic and pluralistic, or, if we carry his theistic conception to itslogical conclusion, we perceive a faint outline of a sort of monismemerging from the pluralistic multitude. But his monism is leftrather as a paradox than as a definite postulate. He is right in sofar as he calls the monads self-contained and self-evolving, for, thatis the Indian conception of the individual soul or the psychic being,but he has not taken into account the universality of the monads andtheir transcendence, without which their individuality would condemnthem to a perpetual imprisonment within their own confines and acqnsequent forfeiture of universality and transcendence. Hisscientific preconcern with the mechanism of the universe, the mathe­matical laws of its movement, and the atomistic trend of the scienceof his time precluded the supreme reconciliation of the multiplicityof the monads with the unified wholeness of existence and the sole,indivisible, omnipresent reality of God. Unlike the Gita, he failedto harmonise the Vedantic and Sarnkhyan standpoints. His theory

• of the Pre-established Harmony, of which he was justly proud, canhold good only on the highest level of the unitarian Spirit. There,it ~ true, everything is previsioned and preordained, but our phe­nomenal world cannot be called the best of all possible worlds,because it is so visibly seamed and scarred, so obviously afflicted

.with distortions and discords. Leibniz's optimism was made .the·target of some of the most biting satire of Voltaire, but Voltaire'ssatire could tell only against a parody of the philosophy of Leib­niz, not against his main predications. Kant was greatly influencedby Leibniz, whose wide philosophical sweep is, indeed, a remarkableachievement. •

30 THE ADVENT

•Leibniz's theory of evolution, as we can glean it from his teleo­

logy, ' is an anticipation of much of the most advanced thought onevolution, His law of continuity is an accepted law in science, andis known as Continuum.' H is chara cterisation of Matter as im­material force shows his scientific and metaphysical insight, andthe investing of each monad with the attributes of the souls raisesat once his metaphysics from the intellectual to the spiritual level.

Leibniz's identity of the part with the whole is a regular Vedanticviewpoint. His concept of the unity in plurality, though. he hasnot worked out its spiritual and psychological implications' in "asatisfactory way, is a truth established by the ancient Vedanta, andfully endorsed by modern science. His theory of the monad beingan epitome of the universe, a mirror and representation of theundivided totality or whole, and yet distinctly individual in itsgrowth and self-expression, is a singular piece of spiritual percep­tion, comparable only to the intuitive flashes of Plato and a very fewother Western philosophers. I do not think Leibniz laid any claimto spiritual experience of any kind; but the synthetic and harmonisingcapacity of his intellect, and the versatility of his genius built uI"'asystem which is almost unparalleled in the entire range of Westernphilosophy. He had, besides, a certain power of prescience or pre­vision, which bore fruit in the field of science no less remarkable thanin the field of philosophy. The di scoverer of th e in tegral calculuswas endowed with a special capacity for a more or less integral vision,and has given ample proofs of embodying in hi s thought somethingof the polychromatic future. He for eshadowed some of the vitalelements of the syncretic philosophy of the most modern tim es, andalso of the recent discoveries of modern psychology. The in tegral,synthetic philosophy of the future will confirm in the light of amore comprehensive and all-embracing spiritual experience someof the best elements of Leibniz's philosophy.

RISHABHCHAND·

t C/. Prasrita Pllrdnl-the eternal out-going div ine dyn ami sm--of the Hindu phil osop hy.

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD

(Contd. from last issue)

TH E second chapter, Brahmanandavalli, describes the fivesheaths of the spirit embodied in man.

. Th~ chapter starts with a brief prayer for th e benefit of theteacher and th e disciple and for mutual trust and good-will, which isessential for all teaching, above all, spiritu al teaching. Immediatelybeginsthe elucidation of the highest T ru th:

OM, the knower of the Eternal, Brahman, attains the Highest;for this the verse that was declared of old, Brahman is Truth, Brah­man is Knowledge, Brahman is Infin ite, he finds Him hidden in thecauern heart "Of being, in the Highest Heaven of His creature, 10, heenjoys all desire and he abides with the Eternal, ever with that cognisantai'ti1 understanding Spirit."

On this passage Sri Aurobindo says," "Whatever reality is inexistence, by which all the rest subsists, that is Brahman. An Eternalbehind all instabilities, a truth of things which is implied, if it ishidden in all appearances, there is such an unknown x...and thatis the hidden head of the Infinite and the secret heart of the Eternal.It is the Highest and this Highest is the All; there is none beyondand there is none other than it. To know it is to know the Highest

•. and by knowing the Highest to know all. For as it is the beginningand source of all things, so everything else is its consequence;as it is the support and constituent of all things, so the secret ofeverything else is explained by its secret; as it is 'sum and end of allthings, so everything else amounts to it and by throwing itself intoit achieves the sense of its own existence.

The Eternal is knowable. He defines Himself so that we mayseize Him, and man can become even while he exists in this body,a knower of Brahman. The knowledge of Brahman is a power and adivine compulsion to change and by knowledge he ·gains his highestbeing-it is a supreme accomplishment of all things that our present

31

THE AD\7ENT

•existence means and aims at, but in their highest sense and eternal

• values,A greater knowledge opens the possibility of greater being, and

that means greater power, consciousness, delight. The highestconsciousness is integrally fulfilled in delight. The knower of Brah­man has not only the joy of light but gains that which is highest,that which is supreme-the highest being, the highest consciousness,the highest delight, brahmavid dpnoti param,

The Highest is the Infinite; whoever attains the Highestconsciousness becomes infinite in being and embraces the· all. Tomake this clear, Brahman is defined as the Truth, Knowledge, In­finity, and the result of the knowledge of Him in the Secrecy, in thecave of being, in the supreme ether, is defined as the enjoyment ofall his desires by the soul of the individual in the attainment of itshighest self-existence. That is indeed a becoming one with Brah­man in His eternity and infinity but is also an association with Himin delight of self-fulfilment, asnute saha brahmand, And thatprinciple of the Eternal by which this association is possible, is· theprinciple of His knowledge, His self-discernment and all-discern­ment, the wisdom by which He knows Himself perfectly in all theworld and all beings, saha brahmand oipaicita. Delight of beingis the continent of all the fulfilled values of existence which we nowseek after in the forms of desire, to possess it purely and perfectlyis the infinite privilege of the eternal wisdom."

Paul Deussen proposes, says Hume in The thirteen Upanishads,to read iinanda, delight for ananta, infinite, in order to have the •customary definition of Brahman, as Sachchidananda and to intro- •duce the great culminating thought of the chapter. This shows thatwith their too human mi.nd they are unable to conceive of infinityexcept as a sum Of finites. Anania, pure infinity, freedom fromlimits, is the condition precedent of delight. The vast, that is

: felicity, bhumaiva sukham says Chhandogya; "absoluteness ofconscious existence," says Sri Aurobindo, "is illimitable bliss ofconscious existence; the two are only different phrases for thesamething. All illimitableness, all infinity, all absoluteness is puredelight."l0 (Life -D ivine, Vol. I, chapter 12.)

Parame vyoman is a familiar vedic expression for the highest

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 33

ether. '(he cavern of the heart is well-known in the Vedanta. TheSavitri (Book VII, canto 3) also has,

"Thou shalt see the fire burning on the bare stoneAnd the deep cavern of thy secret soul."

The section continues,This is the Self, the Spirit, and from the Spirit ether was born;

and from. the ether, air; from the air, fire; from the fire, waters;and from the waters, the earth. And from the earth, herbs and plants;and from herbs and plants food; and from food man was born. Verily,man, this human being is made from the essential substance OJ food.

The Self is the origin of all, and the stages by which His con­scious force took the form of matter are the bhiitas, the elementalstates of substance. This is the process of creation, visualised byrational thinkers of ancient India, of creation "by successive ex­pansions and "Contractions in the sea of force, originating longitu­dinal vibrations in its field," as described in The Life Divine, (Vol I,chlrl-'ter 10) and poetically imaged in Savitri, (Book II, canto, 5).

Man also comes into being with the birth of the body, andeverything here, sense, life, thought, all is founded on the formulaof material substance. His body is formed of matter, and of thisannamaya purusa, physical being, the Rishi points out the head,the sides, the self and the base of the human being, and quotes, in

. the next section,-Verily, all sorts and races of creatures that ·have their refuge

• : upon earth, are begotten from food; thereafter they live also by food.and it is to food again that they return at the end and last. For foodis the eldest of created things and they therefore name it the Greenstuff of the universe. Verily, they who worship tlie Eternal as food,

.. • attain the mastery of food to the utmost.... Lo, it (food) is eaten andit. eats; yea, it devours all creatures that feed upon it, and therefore •it is called food (annam) from the eating.H •

Matter was the first to be organised in this world and in Savitrialso it is called "the first born of created things." Man is a spiritliving as a mental being in the living body; but hrs first pre-occu­pation is with matter and this he takes as the only reality. The3

34 HE AbVE

result of pursuing it as such gives power over the material world,as is amply illustrated by the success of modern science.

Here starts the exposition of the ascending forms of the humansoul 'corresponding with the ascending series of worlds. In theSynthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo deals with the same ubject fromthe comprehensiv e outlook of integral perfection. Some extracts,compiled as far as p racticable in the Master's words, are set forthbelow for elucidation.

But, what ar e worlds? By worlds or planes of consciousness,of existence, we mean a settled poise or world of relations betweenPurusha .and Prakriti, Soul and Nature. All is universal existence:the soul, individual in the individual and universal in the cosmos,is that existence in relations with or its experience of the becoming;the principles or powers of the becoming are Prakriti, Nature. Thenature of each world is determined by the principles, the way inwhich Prakriti is set to deal with being, conscious force and delightof being. The obj ect everywhere is the developmentof its terms ofbeing, the power of being, the conscious delight of being.P

All is determined by the Spirit. Poised in the principle'" ofmatter it becomes the physical self of a physical universe in~the

reign of physical nature. In the individual it becomes a materialisedsoul, annamaya purusa. He can concentrate on the Spirit, turnaway from physical life and place his real existence beyond in otherworlds. But the dynam ic manifestation in him cannot rise entirely.above the limitations of the physical nature. The poise of the silent·passive self is easier for him to attain. ~

But he has the power of self-transcendence. Poised in the:principle of life, he becomes the vital self of the vital world, life-'soul of life-energy in a consciously dynamic world, which is hindthe physical world and of which the physical is only the outer crust.In the individual this Spirit becomes a vital soul, prdnamaya purusa, ~

Man h as in himself behi nd the physical being, subliminal to it, t isvital soul, this vital body and the whole vital plane con ected withthis life world or desire world from which suggestions and influencespour down constantly on his surface self. Man may awaken in hi sconsciousness to the vital plane and become the vital soul, liv ing inthe secret vital as well as the physical body.P

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 35

Says the Rishi,-Now there is a second and inner self which is other than this' that •

is of the substance offood ; and it is made of the vital stuff called prdnd,And the Self of prdna fills this self of food. Now the Self of .prii~a

is made in the image of a man ; according as is the human image ofthe other, so is it in the image of the man.

The main breath is the head of him : it effects all interchange. with the universal energy and makes for the duration of form of

living matter ; the breath pervasor, the nervous system, and thelower breath, expelling waste matter, are the sides; ether, providingfor equilibrium of the various life-forces, is his spirit which is theself of him, and earth is his lower member whereon he rests abidingly.

The next section, the third quotes,The Gods live and breathe under the dominion of prdna and men

and all beasts ; for priitJa is the life of created things and thereforethey name it the Life-Stuff of the All. Verily, they who worship theEternal as pri1t;la, reach (or, attain mastery of) Life to the uttermost.

And this Self of Prana is the soul in the body of the formerone which was of food.

The Gods are divine powers working in the cosmos, leading itsupward evolution; in the individual they represent the psychologicalpowers of perception, knowledge and action. And they all workwith the help of vital energy. It is a cosmic principle, operating asif divided in individuals. To the life-soul, Life-energy appears to

. be the sole reality. "The result of this realisation is a richer floweringof the dynamic Infinite, a greater possibility of an active effectuation

. • : of the bliss and power of the Eternal." This plane is the preeminent. source of occult powers. .

Above matter and life stands the principle of Mind" nearer tothe origin of things. The Spirit poised in mind becomes the mental

• soul of the mental world-the sattwic principle of pure and luminousmental nature. In the individual it becomes a mental soul, mano­maya purusa, which rules and determines entirely the forms ofits body and the powers of its life and is independent of limitationor oppression by its vital or corporeal instruments. Man too hasin himself subliminal, concealed behind his waking consciousness,this mental soul, and mental body, and mental plane. -It is possible

for him to awaken to this mental consciousness (including its higherranges, right upto the overmind.) and to become the mental being,capable of a life at least half divine. He can also realise the Selfor the Spirit in a much larger intensity, with a greater play of itsactive power and bliss.

The Upanishad also affirms that there is yet another inner Self,made of Mind, filling the Self of Prana, and made in the image of aman. The Vedas, the great Scriptures of self-perfection, naturallyafford the image of its form. The head is Yajus, which lay down theprocess of inner and outer sacrifice, the surrender and offering ofthe entire being, the vedic method of sadhana. The sides are Rikand Sarna: the Riks give the principles of the upward journey ofman, embodying in superb hymns the prayers for, and experiencesof, establishing divine powers in the inner being; and the Samas setthe same in music the notes of which lead the worshipper, with thespiral movement of its melody, to the presence of the godheadworshipped. The commandment, revealed code of conduct orobservances and rites (not the Brahmanas only, as taken by com­mentators) or subtle audible orders corning to sadhaks, is the spiritand soul of him. Its base is Atharvan Agniras, for Atharva formedthe path of sacrifice, says the Rigveda (1.83.5) and Angirasas, "theflaming powers of Agni," broke open the subconscient caves toconquer back the herds of light captured by the powers of evil.It may also mean the Atharvaveda, also called the Brahmaveda,which embodies the hymns or prayers in connection with the eventsand actions of everyday life, outside the institutional sacrifices, and >knowing the Eternal in the lotus of the heart.l''

But the vast light and profound bliss of the Spirit is beyond the"mind and for that the mental being has either to depart into- pureSpirit or develop further. I. As the scripture quoted here says, in thefourth section,

The delight of the Eternal from which words turn away toithautattaining and the mind also returns baffled, who knows the delight ofthe Eternal? He shall fear nought now or hereafter.

This is quoted once again later and is also found in otherUpanishads. Above the mind is the supramental world of know­ledge, maharloka. If man rises into the Knowledge-Self and becomes

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 37

the Knowledge-Soul, poised in gnosis, vijiUinamaya purusa if helives in the knowledge sheath, the causal body as well as in thesesubtle mental vital and physical sheaths then only can he draw dowathe fulness of the infinite spiritual consciousness. But this bodyIsnot yet developed in man. The supramental principle is howeversecretly lodged in all existences, and because of the unity of allexistence, its perfect manifestation here in spite of every veil is a

. certainty, for that is the law of the omnipotent Spirit.PSome systems take viffiiina as synonymous with buddhi, the

discerning intellect, the logical intelligence. They have to pass atonce from a plane of intellect to a plane of pure spirit, and the limitedhuman means of knowledge being taken to be the highest dynarnisof consciousness, its original movement. Buddhi is merely a lowerformation of gnosis. An opposite error identifies vljiiana with theconsciousness of the Infinite, free from all ideation or else ideationpacked into an essence of thought, chaitanyaghana, lost to otherdynamic action in the idea of the one. This is only one aspect, forgnosis includes an infinite knowledge of the myriad play of the In­fieite. I 2 Vijnana is the knowledge of the One and the Many, by whichthe Many is seen in terms of the One in the unifying Truth, Rightanll Vast of the Divine consciousness.l''

Supcrmind is the Truth-consciousness, its fundamental charac­ter is knowledge by identity. Mind is an instrument of ignorancetrying to know; Supermind is the knower possessing knowledge,because one with it and the known, therefore seeing all things inthe light of its own truth. It is dynamic, not only a static power,

: not only a knowledge but a will according to knowledge. It does. not therefore transcend all manifestation."

•This Self of knowledge, filling the Self of Mind, the soul inthe body to the former one which was of Mind is" also imaged in theform of a man : Faith is the head of him, Law is JW right side, Truth

• is his left side, yoga is his spirit and Mahas is his lower member iohereon-;he rests abidingly.

Shraddha, or faith, the will to believe, to live' what one sees orthinks to be the truth of himself and the existence. 'Shraddha mayo­yam purusha' says the Gita (XVII.2) and in that connection SriAurobindo says, "the soul is as it were made of faith,.a will to be, a

nm ADVENT

belief in itself and existence, and whatever that will, faith or consti­tuting belief in him, he is that and that is he." In the Supramentalworld, Knowledge and Will are one and every individual becomesthat aspect of the Divine Truth which he has to express by thatassured faith, Shraddha, that act of the conscious substance which isat once will and knowledge. The Rig Veda (X.I5I) also speaksof the power of Shraddha. The sides are Ritam and Satyam, the truthto be expressed and the process of the manifestation, which, says theRig Veda (X.I9I), came out of the flaming power of energisedconsciousness. These are incorporated in the very body of thesupraental being. Its soul is yoga, union with the Divine and basisthe 'Mahas', the vast consciousness. 'Mahas' may also mean theEarth in which the principle is involved and taken in that sense, thepassage will be a significant suggestion of its manifestation here.

Then comes the quotation :-"Knowledge spreads the feast ofsacrifice and knowledge spreads also the feast of works; all the godsoffer adoration to him as to Brahman and the Elder of the Universe.For if one worship Brahman as the Knowledge and if one swerve notfrom it neither falter, then he casts sin from him in this body and tossesall desire.

Yes, knowledge spreads the feast of sacrifice, for "we can takeup through the truth-mind all our mental vital and physical ex­periences and offer it up to the spiritual. -This was the secret mysticsense of the old vedic sacrifice-to be converted into the terms ofthe infinite truth of Sacchidananda" ; and of works also--for "wecan receive the powers and illuminations of the Infinite Existencein forms of a divine knowledge will and delight in our physical exis- _tence."' It is possible to find this Vijnanamaya Purusha in this body.w

At every step there is a reversal of consciousness "we are borninto a soul status 'and put on a new nature." But the supramentaltransformation is the great and decisive transition, the shaking off

,-the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance, and our firm foundationinthe truth of things, in the infinite consciousness, inviolable bS'obscurity, falsehood, suffering, or error.

Further, Vijnana changes our wishes and desires into a variousaction of Truth-Will and also takes up our parts of affection anddelight and changes them into the action of divine Ananda.

THE TAITTJRIYA UPANISHAD 39

This seems to be the very status and dynamis of perfection.But the Upanishad tells us that after the Knowledge- Self above-themental is possessed and the lower selves drawn into it, the last step,is to take up our gnostic existence into the Bliss self. In the gnosisthe soul, aware of its infinity also lives in a working centre forindi­vidual play of the Infinite. In its identity, it kee ps a di stinction ­without a difference for the joy of contact. I n the Ananda there isno centre, but All is, all are one identical spirit. T he joy of contact'in diverse oneness becomes altogether the joy of absolute identityin innumerable oneness... . The soul lives: it is no t abolished ­the Ananda plane is in fact the true creative princip le- Janaloka.P

This Self of Ananda, filling the Self of Knowledge, .the soulin the body to the former one of Knowledge is also imaged in theform of a man : Love is the head of him; Joy is his right side; pleasureis his left side; Bliss is his spirit which is the self of him ; the Eternalis his lower member wherein he rests abidingly.

"The wo d for love, priyam means properly the delightfulnessof the objects of the soul's inner pleasure and satisfaction. The vedicsiegers used the same psychology. They couple mayas, the principleof inner felicity independent of all objects, and preyas its outflowingas the delight and pleasure of the soul in objects and beings-theboon of pure possession and sinless pleasure in all things foundedon the Truth and Right in the freedom of a larg e universality."16

Then comes in section six the quotation,"One becomesas the unexisting, if he know s the Eternal as negation;

but if one kn1:JWS of the Eternal that He is, then men know him for the• saint and the one reality. And this Self of Bliss is the soul in the body: to the former one which was ofKnowledge. And thereupon there arise

these. questions. "When one who has not the Knowledge, passes over tothat other world, do any such travel farther ? @ 1' when one who knows,has passed over to the other world, does any such enjoy possession?"

Commentators interpret asat brahmeti veda as he who knowstfiat God does not exist, an unbeliever. From the questions it appearsthat this misses the point. One realises the Divine as he worshipsHim. He who seeks to know Him as the non-existent, loses 'hi s indi­vidual self which is dissolved in the I nfinite. But he who seeks Himin his becoming, in these five states of Consciousne ss becomes a centre

•

THI! ADVl!NT4°

of Divine manifestation to the extent of his realisation. And identi­fication with the Bliss-Self taking up in it the experiences of all theother planes, is the height of realisation, and he who achieves it inthe physical body possesses Him here, in his inner being. He isknown as a saint and as the One, the embodied supreme.

Two questions have been raised. No reply is given here to th efirst question, but other Upanishads say clearly that the full perfec­tion must be obtained here. Otherwise one has to come back againtill it is achieved on all planes.

To the second the reply is-The Spirit desired of old " I would bemanifold for the birth of peoples". Therefore He concentrated all Him­self in thought, and by the force of His brooding He creat ed all thisuniverse, yea, all whatsoever exists. Now when He had brought it f orth ,He entered into that He had created, H e entering in became the I s hereand the May Be there; He became that which is defined and that whichhas no feature; He became this housed thing and that houseless; H ebecame Knowledge and He became Ignorance; He became Truth andHe became falsehood. Yea, He became all truth, even whatsoever 'hereexists. Therefore they say of Him that He is Truth.

The object of creation is said to be desire. So does the Rigveda(X.129.4). The Spirit created all things and entered into everything to enjoy the play of relations. And that delight is accessibleon every plane-as stated later. The creation is said to be the resultof Tapas.-c-as in R.V. 1,190.5. "Tapas means literally heat, aft er­wards any kind of energism, askesis, austerity of conscious forceacting on itself on its object",17

Then comes the quotation,"In the beginning all this Universe was Non-Existent and Unmani- :

fest, from which thi s manifest Existence was born. Itself created itself;none other created -it. Therefore they say of it the well and beautifulmade".

All has come out of Asat. As Sri Aurobindo says, Non-being ~

is-only a word. "We really mean by this Nothing Somethi,ng beyon'tlthe last term to which we can reduce our purest conception and ourmost abs'traet or subtle experience of actual being as we know orconceive it while. in this universe. This Nothing is merely a Some­thing beyond positive conceptionv.P Chhandogya (VI.2.) rejects

•THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 41

the birth of being out of Non-being as an impossibility. So doesSankara. But the difficulty does not arise if Non-being is lakenin this sense.

This Ananda is everywhere,-And here comes the g!oriousaffirmation of the Rishi,-

Lo, this that is well and beautifully made, verily, it is no otherthan the delight behind existence. When he has got him this delight,then it is that this creation becomes a thing of bliss; for who could labourto draw in the breath or who could have strength to breathe it out,if there Ivere not that Bliss in the heaven of his heart, the ether withinhis being? It is He that is the fountain of bliss; for when the Spiritthat is within us finds the Invisible Bodiless Undefinable and UnhousedEternal his refuge and firm foundation, then he has passed beyond thereach of Fear. But when the Spirit that is within us makes for himselfeven a little difference in the Eternal, then he has fear, yea, the Eternalhimself becomes a terror to such a knower who thinks not. Whereofthis is the Scripture.

• Through the fear of Him the Wind blows; through the fear ofHim the Sun rises; through the fear of Him Indra and Agni and Deathhasten in their courses.

, . Yes, He is the lord of the Universe and rules over the cosmicgods, his own emanations.

Now (in section eight) comes the exposition of bliss, in everyplane, increasing hundredfold in every ascending plane. And theembodied sadhak, "Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire touchesnot" has access to the delight of every level according to the degree

• of his self-development. The consummation is the full delight of theEternal.

• Incidentally we get here a glimpse of stages between man and thethe Eternal, and every stage manifests its characteristic bliss. Gan­dharvas, Angels, have two levels, first, men who have become angelsand then heavenly angels. Then come the fathers living for evesIn their world. Then come gods, born in heaven, those who haveearned godhead by their deeds, then the great gods (probably thosewho take active part in the cosmic evolution), They are followedby Indra, the king in heaven, Brihaspati, the preceptor, the masterof word, the expressive soul-force. Then comes. Prajapati, the

nIB ADVENT

almighty father, finally the supreme bliss of the Eternal.This is the m igh ty affirmation of the spiritual Oneness of man

and the self of sup reme knowledge in Surya.. The Spirit who is here in a man and the Spirit who is there in the

Sun, if is one Spirit and there is no other. He who knows this, whenhe has gone away f rom this world, passes to this Self which is of food;he passes to this S elf which is of Prana; he passes to this Self which isof Mind; he passes to this S elf which is ofKnowledge; he passes to thisSelf which is of Bliss.

He who has this knowledge can take up all soul-former powersand joys of every pl ane successively, upto the supreme delight plane,after passing away from this body, for the soul still exi sts. But onlyafter death, not in this physical life? The Upanishads says, asmdt.10Mt pretya, and it is usually taken to mean after death; for it isthought that the " mental being exceeding his sphere does not returnbecause by that transition he enters a high range of experience pecu­liar to the superior nature. But this limitation is true only so long asman remains clo sed within the boundaries of Maya. But if he risesinto the Knowled ge-Self and becomes the Knowledge-Soul, Iivssin his causal body he will be able to draw down the fullness of thespiritual consciousness in his te rrestrial being.. . . T he passage beyondthe border is the culmination of Yoga of self-perfection by Self­Knowledge. The soul that aspires to perfection draws back and up­ward, says this Upanishad, fr om the physical into the vital, from thevital into the mental Purusha, from the mental into the knowledge­soul and from knowledge- soul into the bliss-purusha, TIllS selfof bliss is the conscious foundation of perfect Sachchidananda and topass into it completes the soul's ascension."19

The quotation of section four is repeated and it is stated. allmoral doubts cease; for tliere individual will is one with the divineWill which is one with the divine Knowledge.

For he'who knows the Eternal, knows these (moral doubts and sins)"and delivers from them his spirit; yea, he knows both evil and good"for what they are and delivers his Spirit, who knows the Eternal. Andthis is Upanishad, the secret of the Veda.

The chapter .ends with the initial prayer.The third, chapter Bhriguvalli speaks of horizontal extention

:

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 43

and the realisation of the cosmic principles, Matter, Life, Mind,Vijnana and Ananda, as manifestations of the Eternal. The previous •chap ter has given the inward or vertical ascension and realising theindividual soul-formations corresponding to and capable of enj oyingthe experiences of each of these states of worlds. And since in ancientIndian tradition knowledge is not merely intellectual understandingof the truth, but realising it, knowledge is not complete unless thecons ciousness posses ses it in self-expression-becomes the Truth.

. The tru th is successively found by the seeker himself through con­cen tratidn, And the chapter narrates how Bhrigu went to his fatherVa runa and asked for the Knowledge of Brahman and how he arrivedat it .

Just as Agastya, is called the son of Mitra-Varuna in the Vedasand elsew here, and Atharva, the son of Brahma in the PrashnaUpanishad, Bhrigu is here called the son of Varuna. Sri Aurobindosays, (On the V eda) "Bhrigus share with the Angirasas the creditfor bringing' down the fire, they found the flame secret in thegrowths of earthly existence and Angirasas kindled it in the altar<1f sacrifice . Very probably Angirasas are flame powers of Agni andthe Bhrigus solar powers of Surya", of whom Varuna is the form ofvas t purity. " T he Veda talks both of divine Rishis and humanforefathers, pitaro manusyd rsyasca diuyah, They may have beenoriginally demigods who became humanised as fathers of the raceand discoverers of Wisdom, or originally human sages deified by theirdescendants and in the process of apotheosis given a divine parentage

, and a divine function." Further, the habit of symbolism of the Rishis• tu rned even their own names into symbols.

After the same prayer as in the last chapter, it starts:•Bhrigu , Varuna's son, came unto his father Varuna and said

"Lord, teach me the Eternal." And his father declared it unto himthus "Food and Prana and Eye and Ear and Mind-even there." Verily,he said unto him "Seek thou to know that from which these creatures­~re born, whereby being born they live and to which they go hence and •enter again; for that is the Eternal." - .

Yes, matter, life, sense powers, mind aro all forms of, andapproaches to, Brahman. The Kenopanishad alse starts with theinquiry about the impeller of these and the power .behind them.

mE ADVENT

Then comes the criterion which is taken in the Brahmasutras janmiidi- a.rya yatah' the source sustenance and end of all.

As directed, Bhrigu concentrated himself in thought and by theaskesis of his brooding "He knew food for the Eternal".

This is however the first view of man, the spirit as mentalbeing in a living physical body. Rightly too, for it is a cosmic prin­ciple, and not only spirit but matter is also one and it satisfies the crite­rion, and all existences here are felt to be full of divine presence.

But soon the sense of inadequacy awakens; in even the uni­versal soul, iflimited by the material formula he could not be In entirepossession of himself. He approaches his teacher again and gets thesame advice-concentrate again. For the teacher adds "Tapas,askesis or concentration, in thought is the Eternal." "For consciousforce of the Supreme is Tapas by which the self dwells gatheredin itself, by which it manifests within itself, by which it maintainsand possesses its manifestation, by which it draws back from allmanifestation into its supreme oneness. Being dwelling in conscious­ness upon itself for bliss, this is the divine Tapas, and a Knowledge­Will dwelling in force of consciousness on itself and its manifestatic,is the essence of the divine concentration, the Yoga of the Lord ofYoga. Given the self-differentiation of the Divine in which wedwell, concentration is the means by which the individual soul identi­fies itself with and enters into any form or state (bhiiva) of the Self."20

By concentration he-knows then that Life is Brahman; for lifeforce is the cosmic principle of energy, one like matter-it is the lifeforce that is behind all formations of matter. Also it satisfies the crite- ,rion for all formation in the plane of Life and Matter. Again, doubt ­arrives and by the same process he comes to know of the principleof Mind above life and matter and nearer to the Supreme Cause.Then following the-same path he arrives at the principle of Know­ledge, supramental knowledge, the consciousness of the creator andzhe source of creation of the lower world. Finally:

He knew Bliss for the Eternal. FaT from Bliss alone, it appears;are these creatures born and being born they live by Bliss and to Blissthey go hence and return. This is the lore of Bhrigu, the lore of Varuna2V1l0 has his firm base in the highest heaven. Who knows, gets his firmbase, he becomes the master of food and its eater, great in pr?geny,

THE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 45

great in cattle, great in the splendour of holiness, great in glory.This is the highest principle, the very substance of the Divine

inherent in his conscious existence. These are the chords of Being,the principles, the various worlds in the self-manifestation .of theDivine, the stages by which self-conscious blissful Spirit came downinto the ignorance and by which from the darkness and inertiaignorant man may rise again to the supreme light and felicity. Allthese levels of the divine manifestation of the becoming of theSupreme Being Consciousness and Bliss,-'sarvamidam', ofthePrasna.All this 'Bhrigu knew in his inner being while still in his corporealframe.. The result is the height of well-being, holiness and glory.Living a full life inwardly divine, outwardly expressing as much ofit as the limitations of his mental-vital-physical frame (iidhiira) wouldallow. And, as the Kena says, becomes a live centre of Divine con­sciousness, attracting like a magnet those who are still engrossedin material life to higher truth and endeavour.

. The Upanishad continues (section seven):Thou shalt not blame food ; for that is thy commandment unto

labour. Verily, Prana also isfood, and the body is the eater. The bodyis established upon Prana and Prana is established upon the body.Therefore food here is established upon food.In the physical body, one result of contact with the Spirit isthe ascetic tendency and the Rishi warns the disciple against" relin­quishing the material world and neglecting this body and life forthey are interdependent. As in the Isha, the importance of embracingthe becoming is emphasised. Similarly Waters, the streams of con­scious energy, and the higher lights are interdependent, and the life­force that effectuates the conscious energy in the individual dependson- his body.

Thou shalt not reject food ; for that too is the vow of thy labour,Verily, the waters also are food, and the bright fire is the eater.

, Then emphasising the interrelationship still further it is said thaton the Earth the Highest Ether is dependent: •

Thou shalt increase and amass food ...Thou shalt not . reject anyman in thy habitation, for that too is thy commandment unto labour.Verily, earth also is food and ether is the eater. •So the injunction is: increase your wealth (annam bahukurvita).

THE ADVENT

As is said in The Mother, money power is necessary for fuller andricher manifestation of the Divine here and should be wrested fromthe adverse forces in whose grip it now is.

Section ten says that the God-knower feels the Divine is inevery activity and movement of animate and inanimate Nature, inhis own body as well as in outside world, and as the All in ether.And every seeker realises Him, in the way of his seeking and getsthe appropriate benefits.

Pursue thou Him as the firm foundation of things and thou shaltget thee firm foundation. Pursue Him as Mahas, thou shalt becomeMighty ; pursue Him as Mind, thou shalt become full of mind ; pursueHim as adoration, thy desires shall bow down before thee ; pursue Himas the Eternal, thou shalt become full of the Spirit ; pursue Him as thedestruction of the Eternal that ranges abroad, thou shalt get thy rivalsand thy haters perish thick around thee and thy kin who loved theenot.

The original for 'the destruction of the Eternal that rangesabroad' is Brahmanah parimarah, Literally parimarah means roundwhich all dies. This is given as in the Aitareya Brahman (VII.2l\)as a mantra for the self-defence of kings against their enemies inthe same words as here, and air is said to be that round which diethe five gods, lightning, rain, moon, sun and fire. The KaushitakiUpanishad gives a philosophical explanation as the absorption ordisappearance of all the gods or psychological powers in Brahmanas Life. Shankara takes it as worshipping Brahman as Ether whichis the soul of Air. Sri Aurobindo here seems to take it as the anni­hilation of entire manifestation into the silent Brahman.

Then comes the realisation of unity of the individual soul withthe supreme Knowledge Soul in the Sun in this body and as a resultof taking up all the inferior soul-formations into the highest. Thisrealisation and this result have been mentioned in the previous chapter;for the ultimate goal in both the ways is the same. Here the stateof ineffable delight is added.

Lo, he ranges"about the worlds, he eats what he will, and takeswhat shape he will and ever he sings the mighty Sama. "Ho! ho!ho! I am food! I am food! I am food! I am the eater of food! I amthe eater! I am the eater! I am he who makes! I am the first born

HE TAITTIRIYA UPANISHAD 47

of the Laui ; before the gods were, 1 am, yea, at the very hea~t ofimmortality.

Now that not merely the individual soul-form of delight butthe cosmic principle of delight is possessed he ranges at will overthe worlds, knowing both the joy and its object and himself, knowshimself as a partner of the supreme dynamism of the Divine.

He who gives me, verily, he preserves me ; for 1 being food, eat. him that eats. 1 have conquered the whole world and possessed it,

my lightis as the sun in its glory . Thus he sings, who has the know­ledge. This, verily, is Upanishad, the secret of the Veda. He whomakes the Scriptures, and the first born of the Laws-s-for he isunified with all knowledge and the source of revelation, " shastrayoni " ,of the Mahas and all his will and action come from the DivineWill one with the divine Knowledge.

"The cater eating is eaten" is a terrible and pregnant formula."The whole process of the universe is in it s very nature sacrifice(Compare Gita sahayajiuil) prajtilz) voluntary and involuntary:self-fulfilment by immolation to grow by giving is the universal1iw. That which refuses to give it self is still the food of the cosmicpowers.":"

• He conquers the entire universe in all its levels, attains sdmrtijya,the mastery over Prakriti, and shares the full light of the di vinegnosis and delight.

The ancient dawns of human knowledge as Sri Aurobindosays, left their witness to the constant aspiration- to which the

yo humanity is preparing to return today- for God, Light, Freedom,Immortality. Three and a half millenniums ago, our Rishis acquiredthese highest and deepest experiences in their organised entiretyby u revolutionary individual effort and ha ve left for us a record ofthe broad lines of progress and their res ul ts. Now that the Super­mind has been brought down into the terrestrial manifestation,{his achievement is within easier reach of the aspirant and with out.self-giving and conscious cooperation the Mother is ushering inthe new era of divine life on earth as the result of an evolutionarygeneral progression.

NOLINi KANTA SEN

4lS

REFERENCES

9 Compiled from the article, 'The Knowledge of Brahman' inThe Arya Vol. V, NO.4. Bengali version by the present authorin 'Upanishad prasange Sri Aurobindo.'

10 The Life Divine, Vol. I, Ch. 12.

I I Anna comes from the root ad, to eat. Osadhi literally meansthat in which light and energy are collected, that which is the .basis of growth, it is said to hold the honey of Soma, the divinedelight. Saroausadham means the universal nourishing sub­stance, translated here as the green stuff of the universe.

12 Compiled from On Yoga Vol I, Chapter XXII, 'Vijnana orGnosis.'

13 On Yoga Vol. II. p. 264.14 On Yoga Vol I. Ch. XV, p. 476.15 Gnosis and Ananda, Ch. XXIV.16 On the Veda, p. 568.17 The Life Divine, Vol. II, Ch. XII.18 The Life Divine Vol. I, Ch. IV.19 On Yoga I, p. 540.20 On Yoga, Vol. I, p. 366.21 On the Veda, p. 360.

.'"

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

EDUCATION

xv

MENTAL EDUCATION

WINDING up the main points of the education of the vitalor prana, the Mother speaks of the mastery and transforma­

tion of the vital movements and a radical change of character by ascrupulous and sustained observation of one's nature and a. steadyexercise of one's will. But, the Mother hastens to add, all thiseffort and its- right application and result will depend upon the idealone" has resolved to achieve. "The value of the effort and its resultw ill depend upon the value of the ideal."! The choice of the idealis, therefore, of the utmost importance in education. The ideal isthe mirror which reflects one's destiny. It is the seed of all futurefulfilment. It is the focal point of all our aspirations, the pole starwhich attracts our steps, the bewitching melody of the flute of theLord, the half-visible pilot at once galvanising and guiding ourlife . A life without an ideal is like a ship without a destination-

.. an aimless, senseless drift. The higher the ideal, the greater the" possibility of achievement; for, self-transcendence is the secret

purpose of life, nd the soul of man has no end of power to realisewhat it seeks. The ideal draws us out of the petty circle of ourselfish interests and sordid cares, and makes irs unfurl our wingsin the sapphire heavens of the infinite Spirit. And it is in the openinghuman mind that the ideal is first glimpsed.'. What we know and pursue as education today is mostly ron-"fined to the mind. What we mean by education is only mentaleducation. Moral and spiritual education is deliberately banned in

41 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education.

49

50

the interest of what is glorified as secular education. To impart tothe mind some splinters and snippets of knowledge, some usefulscraps of information! on various subjects, is all or almost all thatmodern bread-winning education is busy about, as if man was onlythe body and the mind, and the other parts of his organic natureneeded no education or development. Some stress on physicaleducation has come to be laid in recent years, but it hardly formsan integral part of the educational system, and is pursued as aseparate discipline and exercise, unconnected with mental education.Besides, even in the mind-oriented education, there is no provisionfor the ev.olution of the different faculties of the mind and the callingforth of the creative powers dormant in them. The imagination,memory, reason, judgment, none of these faculties are given anysystematic development, because the knowledge of human psycho­logy, which went to the making of the ancient systems of education,is woefully deficient and inadequate in modern educators. Onlythe brain is packed with a medley of fragments, and in a good manycases, overloading impairs its health and suppleness, and preventsits full development. "Generally speaking, education is taken -.:0

mean the required mental education. And when a child has beenmade to undergo, for a number of years, a course of severe training,which is more like stuffing the brain than educating it, it is consi­dered that whatever is necessary for his mental growth has beendone. But in reality nothing of the kind has been done. Even whenthe training is given with due measure and discrimination and doesnot impair the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind thefaculties it needs to make a good and useful instrument... " 2

The Mother's scheme of education, which is meant to preparethe child for a higher life and a divine self-fulfilment, comprisesfive principal phases : The first is the power of concentration, thecapacity for focussing one's attention on the subject on hand. Themind of the child remains usually dispersed, running about in manydirections. It is dragged by his senses from object to object. CJlcourse, it is true- that this constant shifting of the sens.es has the

1 leA merely well ..iti.formed man is the most useless bore on God 's earth,' -Whitehead.J Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education.

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER 51

salutary effect of awakening the mind of the child. But, in order toconvert this awakening into a steady curiosity and train it to a search­ing observation, the child must be led by some of the means modempedagogy has discovered, to collect his mind, gather up its wanderingenergies, and bring them to bear upon a particular subject or objectwhich has to be attended to "and studied. The truth, which Platohas insisted upon, and whieh cannot be too often emphasised, isthat the child has the power of concentration in him, and that allknowledge lies latent within him. If the way to concentrate isshown, ne can learn whatever he sets his heart on, whatever is con­sidered 'conducive to his development and progress. As in mostother things, so in this act of concentration, the teacher has not toinject and infuse anything into the child, but to evoke and fosterwhat is already in him.

What is the secret of teaching the child how to concentrate ?The central secret, apart from the various methods discovered bymodern edueation, is the art of stirring and engaging the interestof the child. " ...when you succeed in making him interested, he isnpable of a good amount of attention... the sovereign means is torouse in the child interest in the thing that one wishes to teach, thetaste for work, the will to progress."1 The skill of the teacher liesprimarily in his capacity for awakening and maintaining the interestof the child in whatever he happens to teach. Every subject canbe made interesting, if he only knows how to make it. And the bestand easiest way to do it is to take a genuine interest in it himself.

~ I cannot make a subject interesting to the child, if I am not myself• interested in it. Sincerity of purpose is here, as everywhere, the

only precondition of successful teaching. If the teacher teaches,not.for any personal gain or gratification, but because he loves thesubjects he teaches, he can never fail to 'arouse' the interest of thechild and hold his attention. Teaching is the best way of learning.A sincere and insatiable thirst for learning in the teacher, and Iearn-;ing more and more, in order to progress in life, is the one thing Withwhich the teacher will surely succeed in inspiring the child underhis care. "The love to learn is the most precious gift that one can

1 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education,

make to the child : to love to learn always and everywhere. Letall circumstances, all happenings in life be occasions, constantlyrenewed, for learning more and ever more."!

. But concentration to be really effective, must be concentrationon something. The child cannot concentrate on the void or on airyabstractions, That is why the Mother advises the cultivation ofthe power of observation, precision of recording, and faithfulness ofmemory. "The faculty of observation can be developed by variousspontaneous exercises, making use of all opportunities that help tokeep the child's thought wakeful, alert, quick."? Modern -schemesof education, in so far as they are loyal to the true spirit of science,advocate close and sustained observation. Sri Aurobindo says:"We do not observe sufficiently or with sufficient attention, and asight, sound, smell, even touch or taste knocks in vain at the doorfor admission.f" He calls it "tamasic inertia of the receiving instru­ments." "The student ought to be accustomed to catch the sights,sounds etc., around him, distinguish them, mark their nature, oro­perties and sources...."4 The child catches the sights, sounds-etc.much more readily than grown-up students, but he has to be taughthow to distinguish them and study their specific qualities,properties etc. '

In India, owing to a long tradition of other-worldly orientation,a general tendency to dreamy, idealistic abstraction, and a conse­quent apathy to any lively interest in scientific and practicalpursuits, the faculty of observation had not been given the encourage- .ment it deserves. Rather, in education, a premium had been puton the old scholastic and theoretical type of learning, and on th e ­outworn modes of the study of the humanities. The practical and .,objective, that is to say., the scientific side of education had beenavoided. The ideal student had been a sort of a book-worm, 'dazedand darkened with excessive reading", as Emerson would say, and __

: incapab1e of any original thought and imaginative creation. Hehad, besides, proved too unpractical, too languid and Iackadaisicdl,too much given to abstract speculation or idea-spinning to be able tograpple with the forces of life. His ivory tower had become his

1 a , Ct .. Sri "Aurobindo and the Mother on Education.

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER S3

prison. And society had put its stamp of approval upon him. It isonly since the impact of Western culture that a new breeze has •been blowing in the fields of education, and the concrete problemsof life have been receiving an increasing attention and seriousstudy.The powers of observation, the spirit of scientific exploration, in­vestigation, analysis and experiment, the empirical method of learningby trial and effort the secrets of Nature and the laws of life, are now

. being more and more encouraged and systematically cultivated.This scientific attitude and habit have led to a return of our con­sciousness to the neglected areas of our life and to the undevelopedpotentialities of human nature. Life and its forces, Nature and herlaws and her rhythms, have to be scientifically observed, scrutinisedand studied, if victory and mastery, and not defeat and flight, bethe ultimate goal of man on earth-victory in material life as wellas victory in the realms of the Spirit. Ignorance-and incapacitycannot lead to victory. The child's education must, therefore, bepolarised to -an existential victory, the triumph of the Spirit inmaterial life, the evolutionary emergence of the Purusha as the lordmid master of Nature. The Mother's system of education is gearedto this integral ideal.

(to be continued)

RISHABHCHAND

.-

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER

ALL spiritual sadhana or cultivation of inner life involves thecleansing, enlarging, deepening and heightening of the

instruments of perception in man's personality. Every instrument .-the senses, the vital, the mental or the subliminal-is just a finiteconcentration of consciousness in one plane of Being, and that is thereason why its vision of the world outside is so partial and"limited.The most intensive and extensive cultivation of anyone of theseinstruments could give the vision of the corresponding element inits field of functioning-the outer forms of things for the sen ses,the dynamic feelings motivating things for the vital, the Idea­Forces working behind for the mind and the occult Forces permeatingthese for the subliminal. But even the sadhana which does notneglect anyone of these instruments but includes them all missesthe basic substratum of the Spiritual Ether where all worlds havetheir being. Hence the need felt in the great spiritual adventure ofnegating all these in order to get at the Fundamental SpiritualEssence. The instrument which perceives this Essence is often thespiritualised mind which sees It as a Vast Impersonal Infinite Con­sciousness negating all worlds and when it is completely steeped inThat sees only That and declares all worlds as non-existent and Thatas the sole Existent. The next step is to deny the Existence of theExistent and lose all consciousness or awareness in the All-negatingVoid, the Non-Being behind even the Being. Sometimes theEssence is approached through the spiritualised heart and its visionof That is of a Supreme Person to whom all must raise their being,leaving aside all the worlds. Anyway, the gulf between the Ultimate

:Reality and the Manifestation remains unbridged and is pronounce~

unbridgeable. In fact, all such talk of bridging the gulf is lookedupon as an indication of ignorant attachment to the Darkness and alack of readiness for-the plunge into the Great Light of the Supreme.But the Yogic sadhana of Savitri, the Mother, shows a different roadto the Essence. which sees no gulf, because there is no gulf, between

54

-

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 55

the Ultimate and the Manifestation. The gulf is the creation of thespiritualised mind or the spiritualised heart because of their inabilityto hold together what appear to be sharp opposites. For, in thelanguage of the Isha Upanishad, "It is He that has gone abroad­That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, withoutsinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker, the One whobecomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly

. according to their nature from years sempiternal". The problemarises because the Reality and the Manifestation are seen not as theReality sees but as the faculties or the instruments in man's persona­lity, however spiritualised, perceive. One has to pass beyond thespiritualised consciousness to the Spirit and partake of Its ' creativeintegral vision. The natural poise of the Supreme Spirit is the Supra­mental Truth-Consciousness, Rita Chit, where all contraries arereconciled and realised as complementaries so necessary for thefulfilment of the complex destinies of the many-sided manifestation.To raise oneself to the Supramental is to realise immediately thatI ts Consciousness is a complete fulfilment of all that the faculties or

. -T..lstruments of perception in man have been aspiring for. In fact,there is a Divine Sense, a Divine Vital, a Dvine Mind and a DivineSubliminal in the Supramental whose distortions or imperfectmanifestations are these so-called instruments of perception. It ispossible by opening all the instruments to the corresponding divinecounterparts in the Supramental to divinise and transform these,and every individual who does this in himself free from any egoistic

• motive becomes himself the bridge between Eternity and Time.

II

The Sadhana of Savitri hitherto has been precisely one of passingbeyond all faculties or instruments of perception and her entry intoNirvana has served the purpose of liberating her simultaneouslyrrom the imprisonment in the separative ego or individuality andthe finite faculties. She now waits on the threshold of the Transcen­dent Supramental in an integral readiness to receive and transmit tothe world around whatever That chooses to reveal or manifest.In this trance in waiting and luminous tranquillity. She hears the

THE ADVENT

Word of the Silence, the supreme Anahata Nada. This trance isnot Indeed a hypnotic one of blissful non-awareness of the worldaround but one which combines with the complete wakeful aware­ness of tile external world-with its sleeping Satyavan and theenormous Night-the awareness of all the ranges of consciousnessbetween the surface and the superconscient, with the Unknowable'sVast.

"A voice began to speak from her own heartThat was not hers, yet mastered thought and sense."

Now she listens to "a greater Word born from the mute unseenomniscient Ray. The Voice that only Silence' ear has heard leapsmissioned from an eternal glory of Day." This voice is beyond allthought and feeling, the two major powers or instruments of man'spersonality-the reflecting, brooding or seeing part and the contac-ting, experiencing or emotive part. But the voice is the- voice of theall-fulfilling Supramental and therefore it masters thought andsense. Human thought and human sense are now completely taken- ­and transformed into the nature of Divine Thought and DivineSense. The result is an instantaneous transvaluation of all valuesin the light of the Supramental Truth-consciousness.

"As it spoke all changed within her and without;All was, all lived; she felt all being one;"

It is the vision of the One omnipresent Reality affirming all, denyingnothing, no, not even the nothing or non-being or the all-negatingAbsolute. All was. But everything not only exists but has a move­ment characteristically its own, a growth of consciousness accordingto its nature, Swabhava, and rhythm of self-development, swadharma..A ll lived. The Ultimate Reality is not only the supporting conscious­ness of all but That is the moving dynamic consciousness of all. Bulall the multitudinous organisations of consciousness are still theOne Supreme Being. She felt all being one. The vision of Onenesseverywhere and always in all planes of being and rhythms of move­ment is the key-note of the music of the Supramental. The deluded

-

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 57

---

impression of the unreality of the world which is the product of look­ing at things from the standpoint of the spiritualised mind is nolonger there. There is now no need for erecting a mental model ofan external universe which is only a structure in the mind and at bestan indicative symbol or sign. For now the Spirit sees all with itsown characteristic supramental mode of Truth-vision.

"A spirit, a being saw created thingsAnd cast itself into unnumbered formsAnd was what it saw and made; all now becameAn evidence of one stupendous truth,A Truth in which negation had no place,A being and a living consciousness,A stark and absolute Reality."

All are seen as the Brahman, sarvarh khalwidarh Brahma, VasudeavlJsaruam, The -Reality is not only all being but also all becoming.Purusa eoedam sarvam.

"There the unreal could not find a place,The sense of unreality was slain:There all was conscious, made of the Infinite,All had a substance of Eternity."

The Finite is not the opposite of the Infinite but one mode of being~ of the very Infinite. Time is not the opposite of Eternity but one

: organisation in the Eternal's bosom. Space and Time are only the. frontal manifestations of the Infinite and the Eternal.

III

Reality is One whatever be the plane of manifestation and the ;same Sachchidananda is in the end as the Unmanifest Beyond.Even the Non-Being glimpsed and entered into in the experienceof Nirvana is the same Reality:

"Yet this was the same Indecipherable;"

TIlE ADVENT

In fact, there is even a resemblance between the experience of theuniverse in the state of Nirvana and the present experience of theworld in the supramental vision-the perception of the universe asa dream, Only, in Nirvana the dream is an unsubstantial pageant emer­ging from nowhere, existing in a void and dissolving into Nothing,leaving not a rack behind. The seer and the seen in Nirvana arenegated and dissolved in an original void. But in the Supramentalvision, the soul is recovered and made one with the world it sees ina tremendously real spiritual consciousness. The universe and the .manifestation are the dynamic dreams of the Truth-cons iousnesswith a reality as concrete and more concrete than the wakeful reality.The solidity and substance of the dream get their strength from em­bodying the being or consciousness of the Eternal. The clasp of theworld by the soul is a living experience of ecstatic oneness.

"It was her self, it was the self of all,It was the reality of existing things,It was the consciousness of all that livedAnd felt and saw; it was Timelessness and Time,It was the Bliss of formlessness and form.It was all Love and the one Beloved's arms,It was sight and thought in one all-seeing Mind,It was joy of being on the peaks of God."

---

The Supreme Lord is Sat, eternal existence in all the levels of con- .sciousness and organisations of consciousness in each level, Chit,the consciousness which comprehends and feels in all, and the •principle of Ananda which holds all together and in existence. Eter- : .nity and Time, Impersonality and Personality are one Divine Con­sciousness. The subject, the object and the contacting or envelopingor uniting medium of all experience of knowing and loving are the

..... Lord's Being. The Supermind is the creator of all and organiser of ~an and once in tune with it one gets absolutely free from the cratn­ping limitations of movement of the instruments of perception. Onemoves and ranges' freely in all the planes of consciousness in themanifest and tIte unmanifest levels. One explores the infinites ofthe Infinite in the superconscient above with as much freedom as

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 59

one sounds the depths of the Inconscient below. Or 'One widensoneself to embrace the whole universe laterally or reduces one's con­sciousness to a point. All kinds of concentration of consciousness;inclusive, exclusive, transcendent, enveloping and encompassing atenormal and natural and simultaneous to the supramental awareness.

"She was all vastness and one measureless point,She was a height beyond heights, a depth beyond depths,She lived in the everlasting and was allThat harbours death and bears the wheeling hours."

It is precisely because of the limitations of the powers of awarenessof the instruments of perception that the contraries appeared ascontraries. But in the supramental awareness

"All contraries were true in one huge spiritSurpassing measure, change and circumstance."

. i'hus the three poises of the Individual, Universal and the Transcen­dent usually perceived by even the spiritualised mind or heart asexclusive of each other and therefore capable of being experiencedonly separately are perceived simultaneously.

"An individual, one with cosmic selfIn the heart of the Transcendent's miracleAnd the secret of World-personalityWas the creator and the lord of all."

Mind, Life and Body are not opposites of the Spirit but fields forthe manifestation of endless powers of the higher consciousness.

"Mind was a single innumerable lookUpon himself and all that he became,Life was his drama and the Vast a stage:The universe was his body, God its seul."

All phenomenon are the self-deployings of the one Noumenon.

THE ADVENT

"All was one single immense reality,All its innumerable phenomenon."

IV

The supramental VISIon "not only recognizes eternal Spiritas the inhabitant of this bodily mansion, the wearer of this mutablerobe, but accepts Matter of which it is made, as a fit and noble mate-,rial out of which He weaves constantly His garbs, builds recurrentlythe unending series of His mansions. Perceiving behind their appear­ances the identity in essence of these two extreme terms of existence,it is able to say in the very language of the ancient Upanishads,'Matter also is Brahman', and to give its full value to the vigorousfigure by which the physical universe is described as the externalbody of the divine Being."

"Her spirit saw the world as living God;It saw the One and knew that all was He." ---The ground of all manifestation, the space where all the creation

is laid and the movements happen is the Absolute Consciousness.Ignorance and Knowledge, Light and Darkness are organised inthe same Sachchidananda. Even all the movements in time areonly the movements of the Divine Consciousness. Nature and theSelf, Prakriti and Purusha are no longer separate but the whole of.Nature is felt in the self.

"All Nature's happenings were events in her,The heart-beats of the cosmos were her own,All beings thought and felt and moved in her;"

This identity with the universal consciousness and beings is notlimited to the mental or the vital but extends and includes all ttiephysical .consciousness as well.

"Her mind became familiar with its mind,Its body was her body's larger frame

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER.

~l

In which she lived and knew herself in itOne, multitudinous in its multitudes.She was a single being, yet all things;"

"She is the world and of the world, but also exceeds it in her con­sciousness and lives in her self of transcendence above it; she isuniversal but free in the universe, individual but not limited by a.separativc individuality. Her true Person is not an isolated entity,her individuality is universal; for she individualises the universe :it is at th'e same time divinely emergent in a spiritual air of transcen­dent infinity, like a cloud-surpassing summit; for she indiyidualisesthe divine Transcendence. All beings are to her her own selves,all ways and powers of consciousness are felt as the ways and powersof her own universality."

"She was no more herself but all the world.Out pf the infinitudes all came to her,Into the infinitudes sentient she spread,Infinity was her own natural home.Nowhere she dwelt, her spirit was everywhere,The distant constellations wheeled round her;Earth saw her born, all worlds were her colonies,The greater worlds of life and mind were hers;All Nature reproduced her in its lines,Its movements were large copies of her own.She was the single self of all these selves,She was-in them and they were all in her."

vThe first experience of this complete ide~tification with the

cosmic consciousness is one of losing one's separate identity int.qe universal subconscient, material, vital, emotional and men.tal:consciousness.

"What seemed herself was an image of the Whole.She was the subconscient life of tree and flower,The outbreak sf the honied bUGS of -spring;

THE ADVENT

She burned in the passion and splendour of the rose,She was the red heart of the passion flower,The dream-white of the lotus in its pool.Out of subconscient life she climbed to mind,She was thought and the passion of the world's heart,She was the godhead hid in the heart of man,She was the climbing of his soul to God.The cosmos flowered in her, she was its bed.She was Time and the dreams of God in Time;She was Space and the wideness of his days."

"A deep concentration seized on me, and I perceived that I wasidentifying myself with a single cherry-blossom, then through it withall cherry-blossoms, and as I descended deeper in the consciousness,following a stream of bluish force, I became suddenly the cherry­tree itself, stretching towards the sky like so many arms its innumer­able branches laden with their sacrifice of flowers. Then I hearddistinctly this sentence :

'Thus hast Thou made thyself one with the soul of cherry--­trees and so Thou canst take note that it is the Divine who makesthe offering of this flower-prayer to heaven.'

When I had written it, all was effaced; but now the blood ofthe cherry-tree flows in my veins and with it flows an incomparablepeace and force. What difference is there between the human bodyand the body of a tree ? In truth, there is none, the consciousness .which animates them is identically the same. -.

Then the cherry-tree whispered in my ear:'It is in the cherry-blossom that lies the remedy for the dis- ­

orders of the spring.' " Having thus the whole of the cosmos in herconsciousness she rises into the Transcendental and so becomesthe conscious bridge between the Eternal and the Temporal, theInfinite and the finite, the Superconscient and the Inconscient...

"From this she rose where Time and Space were not;The superconscient was her native air,Infinity -was her movement's natural space;Etercity looked out from her on Time."

SAVITRI, THE. MOTHER

"In a few days the new conquest was affirmed and made firm. Andwhat Thou attendest from the centre of consciousness which 'mywhole being represents at present upon the earth, clearly mani-.fested before it: To be the Life in all material farms, the Thoughtorganising and using this Life in all forms, the Love enlarging, en­lightening, intensifying, uniting all the diverse elements of thisThought, and thus by a total identification with the manifested.world, to be able to intervene with all power in its transformations.

On the other hand, by a perfect surrender to the Supreme Prin­ciple, to become conscious of the Truth and the eternal Will whichmanifests it. By this identification, becoming the faithful servant andsure intermediary of the divine Will, and uniting this conscious identi­fication of the Principle with the conscious identification of thebecoming, to mould and model consciously the love, mind and lifeof the becoming according to the Law of Truth of the Principle.

It is thus that the individual being can be the conscious inter­rnediary between the absolute Truth and the manifested universeand intervene in the slow and uncertain advance of the Yoga of~ature in order to give it the swift, intense and sure character of thedivine Yoga.

• It is thus that at certain periods, the whole terrestrial life seemsto pass miraculously through stages which, at other times, it wouldtake thousands of years to traverse.

At present, a Lord, the state of perfect and conscious surrenderto Thy eternal will is, as far as I can know, constant and invariable,

'behind every act, every movement, mental, vital or material. Thisimperturbable ca1m, this deep, peaceful, unchanging bliss which donot leave me-are they not the proof of it ? The passive, that is tosay, .the receptive identification with life, thought and love in allmanifested forms is an accomplished fact which appears as theinevitable consequence of surrender to the pure Truth.

But the moments when the consciousness is effectively the·Life animating and moulding all material forms, the Intelligence, •in an active and fully conscious way, at once in the mass and in thesmallest detail, in a sense of infinite plenitude and precise powers,are yet intermittent, though becoming more and more frequent andabiding. It is in these moments that the two consciousnesses are

THE ADVENT

simultaneous and melt into a single consciousness, indescribableand ineffable, in which are united Immutable Eternity and EternalMovement. It is in these moments that the work of the presenttime begins to be accomplished."

REFERENCES:

Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book VII Canto 7.The Mother, Prayers and Meditations.

M. V. SEETARAMAN

ON ART AND BEAUTY : THE LADDEROF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE

DIFFERENT LEVELS OF PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY

EVEN though beauty is everywhere there is room for a hierarchy init. Sri Aurobindo says: "All is from one point ofview beautiful;

but all i~ not reduced to a single level. All things can be seen ashaving divine beauty but some things have more divine beautythan others."

And this scale of beauty does not hold good only for one whoappreciates beauty but it applies to the artist as well; "In theArtist's vision too there can be gradations, a hierarchy of values­Appelle's grapes deceived the birds that came to peck at them butthere was more aesthetic content in Zeus of Phidias, a greater con­tent of consciousness and therefore Ananda to express and fill inthe essential principle of beauty, even though the essence of beautymay be realised perhaps with equal aesthetic perfection by eitherartist in either theme."

The creations of art do not all proceed from one plane of con­sciousness; different artists create from different levels,-from thephysical and vital attraction, to pure devotion or aesthetic percep­

.' tion, from reaction to shocks of life, attachment to an ideal, play of• creative imagination. This ladder of creative impulse might give us

different levels of the experience of beauty.,We will take a few examples at random. Byron writes: "Who

can view the ripened rose nor seek to wear it-P" In this line wefind the irresistible attraction which beauty exerts on the humanheart. But it also expresses the most common reaction of the.nesire-soul, the Kamanamaya Purusha, to the experience of beauty. •Byron here represents the ardent cry of the vitalbeing in man forthe possession of beauty. Coupled with the experience of beauty isthe tragic vein of disappointment and a justification of the posse­ssive impulse.5 6S

THE ADVENT

In Shelley's experience of beauty there is an ethereal and mysticstrain. Shelley and Keats are like caged birds trying to escape fromthe imprisonment of human limitations beating ineffectively theirwings against the bars. But their perception has great truth andpower; they stress the need for reaching out to the transcendentbeauty. Shelley writes :-

I can give not what men call love;But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above,And the Heavens reject not;

The desire of the moth for the star,Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afarFrom the sphere of our sorrow ?

Shelley's experience differs from that of Byrorr; .it is moresubtle, more delicate, suffused with elements of psychic beauty.It moves on a different plane. The poet admits that he cannogive to his beloved "what men call love",-there is an impliedcontempt for that love ! but he offers instead a far greater thing, theworship which the human heart offers to the Divine and which theSupreme does not reject. There is a thirst in the human heart forperfection unattained. Not only is it present in the human heartbut even in the insignificant moth there is an attraction for the light .of the stars and even the dark night holds in her heart the immortal~.

hope for the Dawn; from the world of sorrows the human being j­

feels devotion for the Divine. -Here there is no distracted cry of the human vital being to

possess beauty. There is instead an ardent aspiration to offer hi sdevotion to the object of love which the poet feels akin to the Divine.

Keats wrote those immortal lines :-

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is allYe know on earth and all ye need to know."

Beauty is one with the Reality. But Keats found the world far

ON ART AND BEAUTY : THE LADDER OF AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE 67.from being beautiful. So, he burst forth into a magnificent andfiery aspiration :-

But cannot I create ?Cannot I form ? Cannot I fashion forthAnother world, another universeTo overbear and crumble this to naught?Where is another chaos? Where? (Hyperion)

In the white heat of his intense impulse the poet did not,perhaps, realise that one chaos was quite enough; and if any schemeof perfection is to be realised it is by a transformation of this world,by man's ascent to the attainment of Beauty which is Truth and bya descent of the Truth which would bring beauty into Life.

There is here the intense expression of human need for per­fection, for beauty: the creative impulse in the poet sees the possi­bility of perfection in life on earth.

Words"lorth perceived the presence of a spirit behind theforms of Nature, he received intimations from the world of immorta-

__lity. His experience of beauty is largely in the field of Nature;to him Nature is living; outside Nature-particularly in humanlife-he was very much disappointed. He did not feel beauty inlife, in action or character as he felt in Nature. He wished man toidentify himself with the presence that pervades Nature. He des­cribes his experience in one poem thus-

"These beauteous formsThrough a long absence, have not been to meAs is a landscape to a blind man's eye;But oft in lonely rooms, and 'mid the dinOf towns and cities, I have owed to them,In hours of weariness, sensations sweet .Felt along the blood, felt along the heart"

The experience of beauty of Nature could).nfluence not onlyhis inner being but almost his nervous system and the. body.

At the same time, it seemed to open the third eye of knowledgein his consciousness and illumine the world with its light and trans­form it. He says

68' THE ADVENT

"while with an cye made quiet by the power ofharmony and the. deep power of joy

we see into the life of things" (Tintern Abbey)

This vision of "the life of things" endows the forms with universalbeauty.

Tulsidas, the great Hindi poet, describes the love at first sightbetween Rama and Sita thus :

"Lochan maga Ramahi ura aniDine palaka kapata sayani

"Bringing Rama to her heart along the path of the sight, Sita closedthe doors with her winking".

The aspect of beauty expressed here differs so much from thecharm of mere external form. The poet does not describe here thebeauty of either Rama or Sita, or the attraction they felt. The lovethat Sita felt for Rama seems so spontaneous, so much like recog­nition of the souls for each other. It seems as if Sita took Rama toher heart through the path of her sight and then closed, not merelyher eyes but, the doors of her heart, so that there was no chance foranyone else to enter there. And the suggestion-the Dhwani-indi­cates that Rama could not go out of her heart even if he wanted to .There is no question of why there was love. The experience ofbeauty carries everything before it; there is no logical cause, noexplanation. Beauty is beyond the net of logic and explanation. ­Here there is no question, as there is in case of Shelley, about the ac­ceptance of the pure offering of love. Here is the self-poised serenejoy of attainment, a feeling of fulfilment of the experience of beauty.

Beauty acts spontaneously and without any self-regarding motive.Bhavabhuti describes it in one' of his dramas :

" Vikasati hi patangasyodaye pundarikam"

"The Lotus blooms. at sunrise," why? Because there is betweenthem "iintara!; kop} hetu" "some inner, mysterious affinity." Theattraction of the bee for the flower is natural in a certain sense.

ON ART AND BEAUTY : THE LADDER OF AESTHETIC EXPERIT,lNCE 69

But the sunlight works on the flower on almost a different plane,their relation is on a higher plane and nearer the true expression of •beauty. From that absolute love for the Divine as the Beautiful camethe attitude of unconditional self-surrender known as Madhur-Bhava.

Tagore's sense of beauty is keen, colourful, universal and mystic.Beauty to him is unseizable,-though eternally alluring, beautyis the messenger from the unknown,-at times, from the Beloved.But beauty is unknowable and unattainable in life here. He callsher "Bideshini"-"a foreign lady" whom yet the heart knows­"ami cnini"-"I know."

In 'his poem on 'Spring' he asks :-"By what path did you makeyour way to the earth, 0 traveller !" "Tumi kon pathe je yele"­"I did not see your coming-ami dekhi nai tornare" "You cameupon my vision suddenly like a dream at the edge of the forest""Hathat swapan samo dekha dile, boneri kinare",

Tagore's Urvashi, an ode to the spirit of Beauty, is one of thefinest poems in literature. Says he, "you are not a mother, nor adaughter, nor a housewife, 0 Urvashi, Inhabitant of heaven" !

- Beauty has no duty, need not fulfil any social function, she comesinto being full-blown, she has eternal youth! (Naho mdtd; nahokZwya, naho vadhu, he nandana oasini, Urvasi.")

When she dances her ecstatic dance in the assembly of theGods, the waves of the oceans keep harmony with her steps, andand green sari of the earth moves into rhythmic waves of ecstasy,the stars fallen from her necklace deviate from their orbits in the

~ sky and suddenly the human heart beats in unison with her steps,' . and man forgets himself. Thus the dance of Beauty pervades every

thing in the universe-heaven, ocean, earth, man, all is in rhythmwith her dance.

In the last two stanzas the poet puts the question: "Will theancient day when Urvashi walked on earth, ever return? Theheart of the whole earth is pining for her, crying for her."~ "No !" replies the poet, "Urvashi will n~r return". Thepoet calls her nisthurd, cruel, and badhira-deaf-for she does notrespond to the call of the earth. In the last stanza he says : "Themoon of glory, Urvashi, has set and she is now a dweller on themountain where the sun sets, "asta gechhe she gaU1'ava sail, astd-

7° THE ADVENT

calvasini, Uroasi",-In some of his other poems like Balaka while trying to visualise

the goal of the journey of humanity the poet concludes with a noteof agnosticism. "Whither ?" is the question and the answer is "nothere, not here, somewhere else, at some other place". The beautifulvision of the poem emphasises the act of flight, not its destination.

The overtones of Tagore's poems are even more important thanhis expression. He is able to see the vision of the Universal in theparticular, of the subtle in the superficial, of the profound in thesimple.

In Sanskrit literature a distinction is made between creationsof the Laukika mind and those of the Seer, i.e. Arsha. In Bha­vabhuti's Uttararama Charita we find:-

Laukikiinarh tu sddhiindmArtham viik anuvartate

ni7Jiirh punarddydndmVdcam arthosnudhdoati,

"In the case of ordinary writers the speech follows the intent,the meaning, while in that of the ancient seers, the Rishis, themeaning runs after their speech".

This is an admission of overhead inspiration as a superior powerof creation than ordinary mind. It also means that the creator isnot a mere thinker but a 'Seer' or 'hearer' of the truth.

Rules of ordinary criticism in Sanskrit do not apply to these ":'Arsha'--overhead-creations. In Greek lit erature also a divineafflatus is held responsible for great creation. Even today, after somuch work by new psychology, the critics admit that the rOOI$ ofcreative power of the artist are mysterious. C. Day Lewis in hisbook The Poetic Image says :-

"It is a veiled vision, a partial intuition communicated to hilJlfrom the depth 6~.human heart. If he needs mystery, the last mys­tery is there, and of all that proceeds from man's heart, nothing ismore mysterious than virtue, the disinterested movements of moralfervour and intellectual curiosity, the spontaneous springs of Mercy,Pity, Peace and Love,"

ON ART AND BEAUTY ; THE LADDER OF AESTHETIC EXPERIE!'CE 71

Experience of Rasa gives delight and so, vel}' often Rasa anddelight-Ananda-arc regarded as equivalent. But there is a subtledifference. For the experience of Rasa,-aesthetic enjoyment, asubject, an I , is necessary. In the experience of delight the subject,the I, may be completely dissolved-or disappear. Delight can beself-existent,-without any outer support. Whereas for Rasa someouter support is needed. Even in the subjective aesthetic enjoy-

. ment there is needed a double action in consciousness, on one sidea detachment from the experience and on the other an identificationwith it~which is the result of unity with the cosmic spirit. Oneidentifies himself with the spirit of the poem, with a character in adrama or story, and at the same time a detachment keeps all "personalelements aside. The individual outgrows the limits of his ego,enlarges his being, and has the joy of the universal consciousness.That is why Vishwanath the Sanskrit critic speaks of the delight orRasa-c-as "Brahmdnanda sahodara" "Of the same nature as thespiritual delight of the Brahma".

The meaning of the word "Rasa" can be easily grasped if we- compare it with the liquid flow that keeps the tree alive. That sap

is the "Rasa" of the tree's life. The life of the tree depends uponit= It is the same sap that transforms itself into flower and ripensinto fruit. We get the taste, the Rasa, through the fruit. The Rasaof literature, poetry, music is similar to the sap that flows in trees,it is the stream of universal delight that flows through everything.That is why the Upanishad says: "who would breathe, who would

, continue to live, if this universal delight was not there." It is this• delight which finds expression in works of art and the creator

enjoys the delight while creating and imparts the same to others.• The capacity of aesthetic enjoyment is limited at present by

man's nature, i.e. by his mental, emotional, vital-and physical being.Man has been using the material of his experience from these fieldsfor aesthetic enjoyment. Now and then, some sparks from some~nknown higher regions have illumined his exp~nce with a lightthat can be called divine. The acceptance oC the phenomenonof inspiration, intuition etc as exceptional, points to the mysticorigin of such light.

But if man is a growing and evolving being and if ascent to

THE ADVENT

higher plane than mind is the goal of his evolution, then his aestheticinstrumentation, his creative power, and the field of his aestheticenjoyment of experience should not only expand horizontally butascend vertically. That will liberate man from the limits of his egoand widen him to universality. Such an ascent is possible now bya conscious effort-though the aspiration is present in man from th ebeginning of history. The demand on the human spirit today isthat he should make the effort now and be faithful to his inmost .urge.

Such an ascent of consciousness, it is often feared, would meanrenunciation of, or at least indifference to, life. That such an ascentto a higher plane must mean a negative condition is a current butmistaken idea. On the contrary, such a rise brings out an intensifi­cation of the powers of nature. So, the power of aesthetic enjoy­ment also increases in intensity, extension and subtlety. A rise inconsciousness brings about a state of ease and sereni ty- it is basedon a universal calmness and ease.

To Sri Aurobindo beauty is the highest aspect of th e Divine,and his faith is that divine beauty not only can but shall walk orr­earth ;-"Beauty shall walk celestial on earth" (Savitri). Three of hislong poems "Love and Death", "Urvasie" and Savitri deal with 'thesubject of love and therefore are concerned with beauty. The wholeoutlook breathes the spirit of one who not only knows true beautybut lives in secure intimacy with it. To him has come the vision ofthe universe, harmonious and beautiful. The beauty that one finds .in his works is universal, its expression is impersonal and yet it is- .the most intense. Beauty, in his view, is not only of the intellectual ­plane, nor merely of the life-plane,-though he is familiar with the ..beauty of those planes-but it also belongs to the overhead. • Butbecause it is of the overhead origin it is not abstract, and airynothing, it is on the contrary much more concrete. This can be

. very easily seen in hi s epic S avitri, where on four different occasions- Savitri, the p . -ess, is described : these descriptions are surcharged

with overhead beauty and yet all of them are convincingly concreteand intense, full of the colour of'<Iife,

Sri Aurobindo does not get, as do some other great creators ofbeauty, interimittent glimpses of this supreme beauty; he seems to

ON ART AND BEAUTY : THE LADDER OF AESTHETIC EXPERIEi'!CE 73

have his' permanent station on those heights. And he sees. andutters from those heights, the heights of intuitive vision, of inspira­tion, and overmind influx, All is securely possessed, truly felt andeffectively expressed-expression that is, in his own. word,"inevitable".

A. B. PURANI

· The .Adoen.t

The ADVENTAugust, 1964

CONTENTS

EDITORIALS -Nolini Kanta Gupta

YOGA AND HUMAN EVOLUTION -Sri Aurobindo

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE -Rishabhchand

Page

5

9

13

REAOINGS IN 'THE BRIHADARANYAKA

UPANISHAD -M. P. Pandit . ... 21

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER

-Rishabhchand

-M. V. Seetaraman

27

32

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME AsPECTS -A. B. Purani 39

REVIEW -Keshavamurti

Edited by NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

Published by : P. CoUNOUMA

SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM, PONDICHERF.Y-:l

Printed by: AMlTo RANJAN GANGULI

at Sri Autobindo Ashtam Press, Pondicherry-:lPaINTIlD IN INDIA

52

Even an hour of the soul can unveilthe Unborn.

SRI AUROBINDO

..

Vol. XXI. No. 3 August, 1964

The Divine g ives itself to those who give themselveswithout re serve and in all their parts to the Divine.For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss,the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge,the seas of Ananda. Sri Aurobindo.

EDITORIALS*

THE MOTHER'S COMMENTARY

ON

DHAMMAPADA

XXIII

OF THE ELEPHANT

An elephant in battle endures arrows 'shot from a bow. Ev enso, shall it endure censures, for men in the mass are, bynature, prone to .eoil. (1)

An elephant, when controlled, can be led to battle; him theking can ride. And among men the best is he who iscontrolled and endures censures. (2)

• Based on the M oth er's Talks.

5

6.

Mules, when controlled, are excellent, so also are the purebred horses of Sindh, so indeed are the mighty tuskers.But best of all is the man who has controlled himself, (3)

With such conveyances you cannot go where none has gone.He who has controlled himself goes out as a controlledperson on a controlled mount. (4)

The elephant, by name Dhanapala, is hard to control whenin heat. Not a morsel would he eat, if bound; heremembers only his free forest herd. . - (5)

When one is slothful, when one is gluttonous, one grows inflesh, even like a sleepy pig rolling from side to side­thus the fool is called to birth time and again. (6)

Till now this mind of mine has moved about doing 'sohateoer.it desired, whatever pleased it. Henceforth I shallthoroughly hold it under control even as the driver with hishook controls an elephant in heat. (7)

Take delight in vigilance. Stand by your mind. Lift your­self out of evil, even like an elephant sunk in a bog. (8)

If you have as your companion one who is intelligent andwise and of perfect conduct, then you will overcomeall obstacles and go forward with him, contented andcourageous. (9)

Ifyou do not have as your companion one who is intelligent andwise and of perfect conduct, then live alone, even likea vanquished king who has lost his kingdom or like anelephant alone in the midst of the forest. (10)

Better to liue alone, a fool is not a company. Live alone,do no evil, look not about, live like a lonely elephant. (II)

EDITORIALS

A friend in need is a thing ofjoy, a more or less satisfaction hereand there is a thing of joy, after death a good deed is a'thing of joy; it is a joy indeed to have abandoned allgriefs. (12)

In the world, it is a joy to serve one's mother, it is a joy alsoto serve one's father. And it is a joy to follow the pathof the Bhikkus, it is a joy to follow the path of theBrahmin. (13)

It is a joy to lead a pure life till old age, it is a joy to possess"a firmly established faith, it is ajoy to acquire wisdom. and

it is a joy not to do evil. (14)

7

THE first verse is a very wise advice: the war elephant who hasbeen trained does not start running away as soon as he receives

an arrow. H~ continues to advance and bears the pain that does notmake him change his spirit of heroic resistance and even that of heroicattack. Those who wish to follow the true path will naturally besubjected to all kinds of malevolence from those who not only do notunderstand, but generally hate what they do not understand.

If you are worried, grieved or even discouraged by the maliciousstupidities that men say about you, you cannot advance far on theway. And such things come to you, not because you are unlucky orbecause the odds are against you, but because, on the contrary,

. the divine Consciousness and the divine Grace takes your resolutionseriously and allows the circumstances to become the touchstone on

.-' the way to see whether your resolution is sincere and whether youare strong l!nough to face the 'difficulties.

"Therefore, if anyone sneers at you or says something that is notvery charitable, the first thing you should do is to look within yourselffor whatever weakness or imperfection be there that allows such a.thing to happen and not to be disconsolate, indignant or aggrieved,"because people do not appreciate you at what you' think to be yourtrue value; on the contrary, you must be thankful. to the divine Gracefor having pointed out to you the weakness or imperfection or defor­mation that you must correct.

THE ADVENT

Therefore instead of being unhappy, you can be altogether happyan ' derive advantage, a great advantage out of the evil that one wantedto do to you.. Besides, if you truly want to follow the way and do yoga, youmust -not do it for being appreciated or honoured, you must do itbecause it is an imperative demand of your being, because you cannotbe happy in any other way. Whether people appreciate you or donot appreciate you, it is absolutely of no importance. You may tellyourself furthermore that the more you are away from ordinarymen, foreign to the ordinary mode of being, the less the people willappreciate you, quite naturally, because they will not understandyou. And I repeat, it has absolutely no importance.

True sincerity consists in advancing on the way for the reasonthat you cannot do otherwise, you consecrate yourself .to the divinelife because you cannot do otherwise, you seek to transform yourbeing and come out into the light, because you cannot do otherwise,because it is the very reason of your existence.

When it is like that you may be sure that you are on the straightway.

NOLINI KANTA GurTA

;II

YOGA AND HUMAN EVOLUTION

THE whole burden of our human progress has been an attemptto escape from the bondage to the body and the vital impulses.

According to the scientific theory the human being began as theanimal, developed through the savage and consummated in themodern civilized man. The Indian theory is different. God createdthe world by developing the many out of the One and the materialout of the spiritual. From the beginning the objects which composethe physical world were arranged by Him in their causes, developedunder the law of their being in the subtle or psychical world and thenmanifested in the gross or material world. From kdrana to siiksma,from siiksma to sthiila, and back again, that is the formula. Oncemanifested in matter the world proceeds by laws which do not change,from age to age, by a regular succession, until it is all withdrawn backagain into the source from which it came. The material goes backinto the psychical and the psychical is involved in its cause or seed.h is again put out when the period of expansion recurs and runs itscourse on similar lines but with different details till the period ofcontraction is due. Hinduism regards the world as a recurrent seriesof phenomena of which the terms vary but the general formula abidesthe same. The theory is only acceptable if we recognize the truthof the conception formulated in the Vishnu Purana of the world asvifnana-vifrmbhitani developments of ideas in the Universal Intelli-

,.- gence which lies at the root of all material phenomena and by itsinQwelling force shapes the growth of the tree and the evolutionof the clod as well as the development of living creatures and the prog­ress of lJ1ankind. Whichever theory we take, the laws of the materialworld are not affected. From aeon to aeon, from kalpa to kalpa

"Narayan manifests himself in an ever-evolving humanity which growsin experience by a series of expansions and contractions towards itsdestined self-realisation in God. That evolution is not denied by theHindu theory of yugas. Each age in the Hindu system has its ownline of moral and spiritual evolution and the decline of dharma or2 9 -

THE ADVENT

esta lished law ofconduct from the Satya to Kaliyuga is not in reality; a deterioration but a detrition of the outward forms and props of

spirituality in order to prepare a deeper spiritual intensity withinthe heart. In each Kaliyuga mankind gains something in essentialspirituality. Whether we take the modern scientific or the ancientHindu standpoint the progress of humanity is a fact. The wheel ofBrahma rotates for ever but it does not tum in the same place; itsrotations carry it forward.

The animal is distinguished from man by its enslavement tothe body and the vital impulses. Asandyd mrtyu, Hunger who isDeath, evolved the material world from of old, and it is the physicalhunger and desire and the vital sensations and primay emotionsconnected with the prdna that seek to feed upon the world in the beastand in the savage man who approximates to the condition of the beast.Out of this animal state according to European Science, man risesworking out the tiger and the ape by intellectual and moral develop­ment in the social condition. If the beast has to be worked out, it isobvious that the body and the prana must be conquered, and as thatconquest is more or less complete, the man is more or less evolved.The progress of mankind has been placed by many predorninatinglyin the development of the human intellect, and intellectual develop-­ment is no doubt essential to self-conquest. The animal and the savageare bound by the body because the ideas of the animal or the ideasof the savage are mostly limited to those sensations and associationswhich are connected with the body. The development of intellectenables a man to find the deeper self within and partially replace whatour philosophy calls the dehdtmaka buddhi, the sum of ideas and sensa­tions which make us think of the body as ourself, by another set ofideas which reach beyond the body, and, existing for their own delightand substituting intellectual and moral satisfaction as the chief objectsof life, master, if they cannot entirely silence, the clamour of the lower!'.ensual desires. That animal ignorance which is engrossed with thecares and the pleasures of the body and the vital impulses, emotionsand sensations is tdmasic, the result of the predominance of the thirdprinciple of nature which leads to ignorance and inertia. That is thestate of the animal.and the lower forms of humanity which are calledin the Purana the first or tamasic creation. This animal ignorance

.- .

.~

YOGA AND HUMAN EVOLUTION

•the development of the intellect tends to dispel and it assu.nes

itherefore an all important place in human evolution.But it is not only through the intellect that man rises. If the

clarified intellect is not supported by purified emotions the intellecttends to be dominated once more by the body and to put itself at itsservice and the lordship of the body over the whole man becomesmore dangerous than in the natural state because the innocence ofthe natural state is lost. The power of knowledge is placed at the dis- ---.posal of senses sattwa serves tamas, the god in us becomes the slaveof the brute. The disservice which scientific Materialism is uninten­tionally -doing the world is to encourage a return to this condition;the suddenly awakened masses of men unaccustomed to deal intellec-tually with ideas, able to grasp the broad attractive innovations offree thought but unable to appreciate its delicate reservations, vergetowards that reeling back into the beast, that relapse into barbarismwhich was the condition of the Roman Empire at a high stage ofmaterial civilisation and intellectual culture and which a distinguishedBritish statesman declared the other day to be the condition to whichall Europe approached. The development of the emotions is thereforethe first condition of a sound human evolution. Unless the feelingstend away from the body and the love of others takes increasinglythe place of the brute love of self, there can be no progress upwards.The organisation of human society tends to develop this altruisticelement in man which makes for life and battles with and conquersasandyd mrtyu, It is therefore not the struggle for life, or at leastnot the struggle for our own life, but the struggle for the life of otherswhich is the most important term in evolution,-for our children,for our family, for our class, for our community, for our race andnation, for humanity. An ever-enlarging self takes the place of theold narrow self which is confined to our' individual mind and bodyand it i~ this moral growth which society helps and organises.

So far there is little essential difference between our own idealsof human progress and those of the West except in this vital pointthat the West believes this evolution to be a development of matterand the satisfaction of the reason, the reflective and observing intellect,to be the highest term of our progress. Here it is that our religionparts company with Science. It declares the evolution to be a conquest

t2 THE ADVENT

01: matter by the recovery of the deeper emotional and intellectualself which was involved in the body and overclouded by the desiresof the prdna. In the language of the Upanishads the manahkosa

. and buddhikosa are more than the prdnakosa and annakosa and itis to them that man rises in his evolution. Religion farther seeks ahigher term for our evolution than the purified emotions or theclarified activity of the observing and reflecting intellect. The highestterm of evolution is the spirit. in which knowledge, love and action,the threefold dharma of humanity, find their fulfilment and end. Thisis the atman in the dnandakosa, and it is by communion and identityof this individual self with the universal self which is God-that manwill become entirely pure, entirely strong, entirely wise and entirelyblissful, and the evolution will be fulfilled. The conquest of the bodyand the vital self by the purification of the emotions and the clarifica­tion of the intellect was the principal work of the past. The purifica­tion has been done by morality and religion, the clarification by scienceand philosophy, art, literature and social and political-life being thechiefmedia in which these uplifting forces have worked. The conquestof the emotions and the intellect by the spirit is the work of thefuture. Yoga is the means by which that conquest becomes possible.

In Yoga the whole past progress of humanity, a progress whichit holds on a very uncertain lease, is rapidly summed up, confirmedand made an inalienable possession. The body is conquered, notimperfectly as by the ordinary civilized man, but entirely. The vitalpart is purified and made the instrument of the higher emotional and .intellectual self in its relations with the outer world. The ideas whichgo outward are replaced by the ideas which move within, the baser _qualities are worked out of the system and replaced by those which are ­higher, the lower emotions are crowded out by the nobler. Fipallyall ideas and emotions are stilled and by the perfect awakening of theintuitive reason which places mind in communion with. spirit thewhole man is ultimately placed at the service of the Infinite. All

: false self merges into the true Self. Man acquires likeness, unionor identification with God. This is mukti, the state in which humanitythoroughly realises the freedom and immortality which are its eternalgoal.

SRI AUROBINDO

II

JI

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

CHAPTER III

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

(VIII)

The Age of Reason

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myselfI seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shoreand diverting myself in now and then finding a smootherpebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the greatocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

-NEWTON

"If I have seen farther (than other men), it is because Ihave stood upon the shoulders of giants."

-NEWTON

". '.THE illustrious discoverer of the universal law of gravitation.- .- and a cpntender with Leibnitz of being the discoverer of the

Integral Calculus, Newton rose into the scientific skies of the seven­teenth century as a star of the greatest magnitude. He inaugurateda new age, and set the final seal on the pattern and fundamentalprocess of science, which was to dominate Western thought forat least a hundred years to come. His vision, his achievement, andhis influence have been probably the most powerful basic factorsin the shaping of the modern times.

Newton reminds me of two other intellectual giants-e--one, whopreceded him by about two hundred years and was even greater

13

THE ADVENT

am~ more universal in genius than he, and the other, who followedhim a hundred years later and was not so great as a scientist as he.'The first was Leonardo da Vinci, and the second, Goethe. The spiri­tual vision which inspired Newton's empirical and mathematicalmethod of scientific investigation was first exemplified in Leonardo'sNaturalism. His was also an empirico-mathematical method, but itwas not the crude, materialistic empiricism of the eighteenth andthe nineteenth Century, nor was the mathematical law which he dis­covered in Nature the mechanical law of a brute necessity guidingthe operations of a blind Nature. He saw, clearly and constantly,with the vision of a spiritual seer, the self-revelation ofa living Reality,an omnipresent Being, in all that Nature creates and evolves. For himNature was not an unconscious, unintelligent force, but an illimitableuniversal dynamism instinct with God's Presence. His naturalismwas, in its essential significance, a return of the seer-vision of manfrom the Empyrean or Arcanum of the Spirit upon the world ofMatter and material energy. It was an embracing of M.atter by theSpirit and a washing away of the age-old stigma of impurity from thematerial Nature and material existence. Leonardo's pantheism wasthe finding of God in everything and every creature-yo mdm pasyatisarvatra, sarvarh ca mayipasyati, It can, therefore, be said that he em­bodied the deepest secret of the Renaissance and the ultimate destinyof the modern age. But the West saw in his naturalism nothing butthe characteristic empiricism of the modern science and the seedof the inductive and experimental method propagated by Bacon.In Newton we have not, indeed, the direct, immediate vision ofLeonardo, but a close approximation to it in the form of an intuitiveperception. "-

Goethe was more a poet and dramatist than a scientist, thoughhis scientific experiments' and findings were not inconsiderable. Buthis science was animated and irradiated by an intuitive perception

,of the beauty and harmony of the Spirit in universal Nature. He had,'to a remarkable degree, the same sense of mystery, awe and wonderat the sight of natural objects as we find later in Einstein and Plank,and, in fact, in every great scientific genius. Einstein says : "Thefairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the funda­mental emotion which stands at the cradle of the true art and true

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no IOiIgerfeel amazement is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle." And ­Goethe expresses himself in the same strain: "The highest to whichman can attain is wonder, and if the prime phenomenon makes himwonder, let him be content; nothing higher can it give him." 'Man'sloftiest expeience is that of awe; and if the phenomenon as such canawe him, let him be satisfied... " But Goethe's intuition, because itwas the intuition of a supreme poet, had something of a closer, morerevealing insight into the eternal essence of existence.

"'One, the deathless, manifestedIn the Many-this I see;lSmall is great, great small, attestedEach by its own entity.Ever changing, never-ranging,"Near and far, and far and near,"Forming now, and now transforming­I to gaze in awe am here."

"No husk is Nature, no, nor kernel;She is the All-in-One Eternal."

"In Nature there is a Knowable and an unknowable; we mustdistinguish between them, reflect upon them, and have respect forboth." This is the characteristic attitude of Goethe towards God andNature. And, as we shall see, Newton's is essentially identical. Thepreoccupation of both with natural science was the worship of theFormless in the Forms, of the Invisible in the visible and concrete.

• I must confess I am a little baffled when I find E. A. Burtt in hisotherwise penetrating analysis of Newton's scientific thought and itsmetaphysical background, failing to see the pantheistic leaven of thevery texture of Newton's mind and its sacramental approach toscience. He taunts Newton with having led the way to the mechanisa­tion of the cosmic order and reducing God to the position of an indus-

1 Italics are mine-Cf. Ekastathd saruabhiitdntardtmd rupam ruam Rratirupo--KathopanishaclI Tadejati tannaz:;ati-Ishopanishad• Taddare tadantike-Ishopanishad

THE ADVENT

trio-is mechanic slaving away at the maintenance of it. "In the New­tonian world", he writes! "following Galileo's early suggestion, allthis further teleology is unceremoniously dropped. The cosmic orderof masses in motion according to law is itself the final good. Manexists to know and applaud it; God exists to tend and preserve it.All the manifold divergent zeals and hopes of men are implicitly de­nied scope and fulfilment, if they cannot be subjected to the aim oftheoretical mechanics . . .Weare to become devotees of mathematicalscience; God, now the chief mechanic of the universe, has becomethe cosmic conservative. His aim is to maintain the status quo...

"Historically, the Newtonian attempt thus to keep God 'on dutywas of the very deepest import. It proved a veritable boomerang tohis cherished philosophy of religion, that as the result of his piousransackings the main providential function he could attribute to theDeity was this cosmic plumbery, this meticulous defence of his arbi­trarily imposed mechanical laws against the threatening encroach­ments of irregularity. Really, the notion of the divine as constantlyroaming the universe in the search for leaks to mend, or gears to re­place in the mighty machinery would have been quite laughable, didnot the pitifulness of it become earlier evident. . . " 2

This light-hearted sarcasm in which a serious student of meta­physics and science like Burtt, indulges at the expense of Newtonbetrays an insufficient hold on the fundamentals of spiritual-intuitiveexperience, and a stubborn, vestigial affiliation to the presuppositionsof modern materialistic science. I shall let Newton himself rebutBurtt's arraignments.

" ...the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being;"and from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect.He is eternal and infinite, omnipresent and omniscient; that is,-his "duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence"from infinityto infinity; he governs all things,' and knows all things that are or canlJe done. .. In him are all things contained" and moved; ...he is all

• similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to

1 & t The Metaphysical F oundations of M odern Physical Science-E. A . Burt t3 Sat-Cittapasto Yall imanlokanrJata" iJaniblib- Swetnswatare Sarvanca mayi-Gita

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

"..17

understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a mannernot at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to US."l

In his Optics, Newton speaks of God, not only as the originand continent of the universe, but as the almighty Will which controlsand guides everything in it: God, "being in all places, is more ableby his will to move the bodies within his boundless uniform senso­rium, and thereby to form and reform the parts of the universe,

. than we are by our will to move the parts of our own bodies. Andyet we are not to consider the world as the body of God, or the severalparts thereof, as the parts of God." He is a uniform being, void oforgans, members, or parts, and they are his creatures subordinateto him, and subservient to his will ...The organs of sense are not forenabling the soul to perceive the species of things in its sensorium, butonly for conveying them thither; and God has no need for such organs,he being everywhere present to the things themselves."

Newton's philosophy, rightly understood in all its implications,gives no grounds for deriving it from "his theological convictions",as Burtt does, or qualifying his conception of force as animistic. Noris there any justification for fathering his apparent "inconsistency"onto his "concept of the Deity." It is a common inability of themodern mind to get the hang of the paradoxical language of spiritualexperience or intuitive knowledge, and the subtle harmonisation ofseeming anomalies and contradictions which it compasses. Todiscover inconsistency in the expressions of intuition is only to con­fess to a constitutional deficiency of the mental reason which cannotact except by the inveterate process of analysis and aggregation. Toit light and darkness are opposite things, and stillness and mobilitycannot exist together in a force or object. Because it cannot perceivethe -indivisible whole, it fails to apprehend the harmony of the uni­versal movement. It judges the supra-rational by the standards ofthe rational, the organic whole by its knowledge of the discrete parts.• Though Newton is most known for his discovery of the Integraf

Calculus and the Law of Gravitation, his achievements in mathe-

I No esa suv ij11eyo-Ka tho panis had2 A vibhakraiica bhu telu v ibhaktamiv a li~.,hati-Gita-All th e se quotations testify to th e

uno rthodo x, un-Christ ian m et aphysical convictions of Newton, which were an unfailing source.of in spi ration to hi s scientific pur suit. He wa s emphatic in di sowning all theological dogmas.

3

THE ADVENT

matics, optics, dynamics, chemistry, alchemy, astronomy, hydro­dynamics and hydrostatics were not only considerable, but out­standing. The law of gravitation, the inviolable rhythm of attractionof mass to mass, joined earth and heaven in a happy nuptial of mobileexistence on the bosom of universal Nature. Absolute time and space,according to him, is pervaded by the Presence of God. "This mostbeautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets could only proceedfrom the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. . ." .who, "endures for ever and is everywhere present, and by existingalways and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space."

Describing the law of universal gravitation, Newton says:"Just give me the mass, the position and the motions of a system ofheavenly bodies at any given moment and 1 will calculate their futurepositions and motions by a set of rigid and unerring mathematicalcalculations 1 will calculate the tides and the motions of the waterand the earth For the earth attracts the moon and the moon attractsthe earth .. .and the force of each in turn tends to keep tltern both.in astate of perpetual resistance. Attraction and reaction-reaction andattraction . . .The great masses of the planets and the stars remainsuspended in space and retain their orbits only through this myste­rious law of universal gravitation." (Note the word mysterious.y

What a marvellous universe of unimaginable beauty is revealedby this intuitive vision-a universe, organic and harmonious, one andyet multiple, moving in impeccable rhythm in absolute space andabsolute time towards its appointed goal under the beneficent eye of .the Eternal! "The fact that the world is so beautifully designed" ,says Newton, "in accordance with such harmonious laws ...must - ~ ­presuppose the existence of a Divine Wisdom, the hand ,of a DivineCreator."

Stoicism in the West, as historians of philosophic thought assureus, was influenced and nourished by Oriental thought, and there is:am ple evidence to prove that Newton came in contact with some ofthe writings of the Stoics and got from them hints on the law ofgravitation. His advocacy of the theory of Design and. his postulateof the Divine dynamic immanence in the universe may have beengreatly conditioned by Oriental thought percolated through Stoicism.His utterances are, indeed, not only redolent of the aroma of the '

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

thought of the Upanishads and the Gita, but actually ring •like .echoes from them. At the end of the third part of his Principia, hesays : "There must be a certain most subtle spirit' which pervadesand lies hid in the most gross bodies;" by the force and action of whichthe particles of bodies attract one another at near distances, andcohere, if contiguous."

In one of the verses composed by Newton in his boyhood he _wrote:

"Earth's crown, thus at my feet I can disdain,Which heavy is, and at the best but vain.But now a crown of thorns I gladly greet;Sharp is this crown, but not so sharp as sweet;The crown of glory that I yonder seeIs full of bliss and of erernity .": '

This boyhood poem breathes the promise which was so splendidlyfulfiiled in the maturity of Newton. His superb humility, hi s nobility,hi s contemplative absorption in the Divine Reality of the universe,unfolding before hi s intuitive vision, and his ungrudging readinessto" sacrifice all earthly crowns in the interest of science are reflectedin the poem. To overlook this basic truth of Newton's life and attri­bute to him the mechanical view of the universe, as many have done,is to be wilfully blind to the true origin of science and it s ultimatede stiny.

T he undeniable theistic auspices under which modern sciencelaunched upon its great adventure did not warrant any sudden lapseinto atheistic materialism, nor the few supreme geniuses who shapedthe IWO centuries, seven teen th and eighteenth, can be held responsiblefor it. Rather did they look on with alarmed disgust at the rapid lossof faith aQd fidelity to the roots of culture which characterise the headycurrent of modern thought. Stripped of the metaphysical bearings.or Newton's natural philosophy, science became in the hands ofilis'eighteenth-century followers a godless, soulless, mechanical systemof rigorous physical observation and experiment. The horizons of

I Stikl ",ii risi1klma 1;' , Saruabhii tddhio dsaha & 3 Q uote d in L iv ing Biographies of G rea t Scientists by T homas & Thomas

2 THE ADVENT

true. knowledge shrivelled and contracted, the eye of intuition closed,the faith in the heart wilted, and only the physical mind of man andits surface reason asserted their supremacy as the sole means of thediscovery of truth and reality. Mathematics, which meant to the earlypioneers of science the dynamic rhythm of the inviolable laws ofNature directed with providential purpose, became a lifeless, abstractmethod of computation making for the development of the practicalsciences, but debarring any deeper and more flexible approach to .the hidden realities of universal existence. Torn away from its spiri­tual roots, science went drifting in the mazes of mechanical processes,and man lost himself in the mechanism of Nature, forgetting his ownGodhead and the Godhead of Nature, forgetting that

"No husk is Nature, no, nor kernel;She is the All-in-One Eternal."

-Goethe

(To be- continued)

RISHABHCHAND

•

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

THE DOCTRINE OF HONEY

THE Satapatha Brahmana has an interesting legend. Dadhyan, sonof Atharvan, was taught the madhu vidyii, Doctrine of Honey,

by Indra. After communicating the secret knowledge, Indra chargedDadhyan with complete secrecy over it with the threat that shouldhe ever reveal the knowledge to others, his head would be cut offwith the famous thunderbolt Indra-Vajra, Now, the Ashwins, thedivine/physicians, overheard this conversation and came to know thatDadhyan, son .of Atharvan, had come into possession of a preciousknowledge of Integrality. Swiftly they repaired to . the sage andentreated him to give them the secret knowledge. But he demurred:he explained that Indra had asked him not to speak of it to anotherand. had threatened to sever his head should he ever do so. Thatwas why, he said, he was afraid.

'Oh', said the Ashwins, 'we shall save you from that.''How can you save me ?''When you come to instruct us, we shall sever your head, conceal

it elsewhere and replace it with a horse's head. You will speak to usthrough the head of the horse. And Indra will indeed cut off the head-the head of the horse. Then we shall restore to you your own.'

The sage agreed, his head was severed and replaced by the headof a horse; he instructed the Ashwins through that special head ofpower. Irate Indra duly cut off the guilty head and the grateful

. Ashwins restored to Dadhyan his own. (S. Br. 14.1.1)

• What is this Knowledge which was .so much guarded by thelord of the gods and so prized by the Ashwins who heal the sick andmake full the maimed ?• The fifth section of the madhu kii7Jtj.a 1 devotes itself to an exposi-s

tion of this Knowledge which is aptly called the Doctrine of Honey,the Knowledge that holds the secret of oneness of Iife, of interdepen­dence among all forms of life, of the Truth of the One Self, of One

I T he Kd~l(ia deriv es its na me fro m thi s import ant subjec t of mad/Hi dealt with in thi ssection .

21

22 THE ADVENT

Delight that bases and holds the innumerable Many on its bosom.As Sri Kapali Sastriar notes in his profound study of the Vidyd'

"It gives fourteen illustrations to impress on us the truth that intliis Creation everything and any part of it is Honey to the wholeand the whole is Honey to every part of it; and that is because it is theHoney, the Secret Delight that abides in the whole creation and inevery part and detail of it that manifests and makes possible the world­existence intact and enjoyable, bhogya,"

This earth, says the text, is Honey for all beings and all beingsare Honey for this earth. All that inhabits the mother-Earth drawsits sustenance, its life-force from her. And the earth too is ted in athousand ways by the energies flowing from its creatures. The oneleans on the other, one draws from the other; and that is possiblebecause the Inhabitant of both is the same. He who is in this earth,the effulgent, immortal Purusha and he who is within one's own being,in the body, the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-He who is this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All. .

This is the ba sic truth of all existence, whether looked at in itsuniversal aspect or the individual. There is one Reality underlyingboth, forming the bridge between both and enabling the one to drawon the other. And the essential nature of that Reality is Bliss, Honey.This Reality reveals itself in several poises. It is experienced andrealised as the Self, the one backbone of all ex istence; it is the Immor­tal stand ing for ever unaffected by the currents of birth and death,change and decay, that criss cross the sea of life; it is again the VastExpansion, Brahman (br . to grow) of the Spirit covering every po ssibleterm of expression; it is All that is sp read out. And whichever th easpect that is approached, it reveals itself at the core ~s Bliss.

Bliss, then, is the root-principle basing this manifold existence.For one who has this perception of the true nature of the universe'"-­and himself and orders his life-movements in accord with that know­:~edge, all is harmony, all is delight, all is Honey. But when we arenot aware of this commonalty of support and sustenance betweeitourselves and the" rest, we tend to regard oursel ves as separate, asentities to be protected from the life-waves that continually rush on

I Vi de c hapte r o n Vedic If/ isdom i ll the Ve d ama in tbe L igh ts Oil the Upanishads.

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD '2 3

us from 'outside', We shut ourselves from the lar~r life that engulfs •us. There is strain, friction, suffering. To gain in mind a knowledgeof this underlying oneness of all manifested life in the form of Bliss,Honey and to translate that knowledge into practical terms of one'sown life so as to arrive at a progressive realisation of the true characterof all life as Honey, as Delight, is the object of Madhu Vidya.

This is a fundamental Truth that obtains at every level of Exis­tence, in each organisation of the different principles that are manifestin the universe. Thus, proceeds the Upanishad:-

These waters are Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor these waters; and he who is in these waters, the effulgent, immor­tal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, constituted of semen, I

the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-He whois this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Agni (Fire) is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor this Agni; and he who is in this Agni, the effulgent, immortalPurusha, ana he who is within one's being, constituted of Speech,"the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-He whois this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Wind is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor this Wind; and he who is in this Wind the effulgent, immortalPurusha, and he who is within one's being, constituted of life-force, 'the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-He who isthis Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Sun is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honey tothis Sun; and he who is in this Sun the effulgent, immortal Purusha,and he who is within one's being, in the eye,' the effulgent, immortalPurusha an: indeed the same-He who is this Self, this Immortal,this - Brahman, this All. .

These Quarters are Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyto these Quarters; and he who is in these Quarters the effulgent, im­mortal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, in the ear, at the;hearing, the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-

I Corres po nd ing (in the body) to th e Water-principle2 Corres po nd ing to th e universal Agni Principle3 Co rres po nding to the universal Vayu Principle• Ce ntre of ac tiv ity fo r the Sun in the ind ivid ual bo dy

THE ADVENT

He who is this SeJf, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.This Moon is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honey to

this Moon; and he who is in this Moon, the effulgent, immortalPurusha, and he who is within one's being, in the mind, the effulgent,immortal Purusha, are indeed the same~He who is this Self, thisImmortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Lightning is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor this Lightning; and he who is in this Lightning, the effulgent,immortal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, constitutedof heat, the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-Hewho is this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Thunder is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor this Thunder; and he who is in this Thunder, the effulgent, im­mortal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, constituted ofsound and voice, the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed thesame-He who is this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Space (iikiisa ) is Honey for all beings and all beings areHoney for this Space; and he who is in this Space, the effulgent,immortal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, in the ether ofthe heart, the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed the same­He who is this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Dharma, Law, is Honey for all beings and all beingsare Honey for this Law; and he who is in this Law, the effulgent,immortal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, constituted ofthe Law of Truth, the effulgent, immortal Purusha, are indeed thesame-He who is this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Truth is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor this Truth; and he who is in this Truth, the effulgent, immortalPurusha, and he who is .within one's being, constituted of 'Truthitself, the effulgent, the immortal Purusha, are indeed the same."-He who is this Self, this Immortal, this Brahman, this. All.

This Mankind is Honey for all beings and all beings are Honeyfor this Mankind; and he who is in this Mankind, the effulgent, im­mortal Purusha, and he who is within one's being, the human person,the effulgent, the immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-He whois this Self, this 'Immortal, this Brahman, this All.

This Atman, Self, is Honey for all beings and all beings are

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 25

•Honey for this Self; and he who is in this Self, the effulgent, imrnqrtalPurusha, and he who is within one's being, the self, the effulgent,immortal Purusha, are indeed the same-He who is this Self, thisImmortal, this Brahman, this All.

And this Self, says the Upanishad, "does not merely representthe basic principle of Madhu, the Bliss that abides in the heart ofthings, but he is the Master and King of all things and beings and

. holds together-as the hub and felly hold the spokes-all beings, allgods, all worlds, all lives, all selves." (Sri Kapali Sastry)

Such is the Honey underlying all existence, the madhu, whichthe Upanishad declares to be the same as "the Madhu whose secretDadhyan revealed to the Ashwins and is the same as the creative Spirit,the Purusha who 'made the two-footed cities (bod ies), who madethe four-footed cities (bod ies) and who having become the Bird!entered into them.' And it further removes possible misconceptionsas regards the embodied souls as independent self-separate finiteenti ies which they certainly appear to be to our experience, by anaffirmation that 'This Purusha is the same as He who abides in allthe cities (bodies) and there is nothing by which he is not enveloped,nothing by which he is not concealed.' The last part of the sentenceis again significant, a reminder that this Purusha is immanent in every­thing as the secret madhu, the potent Delight that is wakeful holdingin its basic unity all forms and things and beings, the madhu that is tobe discovered in the smallest, in the biggest, in any part or wholeof this manifested existence, which to instruct the section opens.And it gives a fitting close too . For in unequivocal terms it reiteratesthe Vedantic Truth that not only the Substance of all existences, theessential Delight in the all and in detail is the Ananda, Arman,Brahman, Purusha, but all Form also is himself, his creation, a mouldof the Substance, a shape of his Being,-he is the"supreme Lord, theDivine Being, is active, many-formed he moves about, he is the divinecpunterpart of every form, his countless life-powers are set in motion:for ever. Thus closes the section with a Rik of Bharadwaja : "Toevery form he has remained the counter-form: that is his Form forus to face and see. Indra by his Maya powers- (creative conscious

I Bir d he re sy m bo lis es th e supre me Soul.

4

26 THE ADVENT

powers) moves on endowed with many forms; for yoked are histhousand steeds.'." (Sri Kapali Sastry)

And this Self, verily, is the steeds. He, verily, is tens and thou­sands" many and endless. This Brahman is without an antecedentand without a consequent, without an inside and without an outside.This Self, the all-perceiving, is Brahman.

To conclude with the words of Sri Kapali Sastriar:"This is the Madhu doctrine of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

It is significant that it comes close upon the Maitreyi Brahmana whichconcludes with famous passages often quoted in support of the loftyIdealism represented in Shankara's exposition of the Advaita doctrineof later times. It serves as a corrective to the metaphysical excessesto which the closing lines of the preceding section are often interpretedto lend support. It reconciles the Absolute Idealism to which theMaitreyi Brahmana tends with the relative Realism of World-exis­tence in which an all-embracing dualism is the dominant note.It teaches that the secret Honey, kaksyam madhu, is the sam e asthe Delight of the Purusha, the creative Spirit, the One and uncom­promising Absolute of all dualisms, the unifying principle that ba­lances, harmonizes and maintains its own variations for Self-expression.

"To realise the interdependence of things and beings, humanand others is a necessary step towards a knowledge of the secretDelight that maintains the diversity for Self-expression and thereforefor variations in form of the essential Self-delight. If it were a ques­tion of arriving at the Supreme Delight, the Ananda Brahman orAtman, the Self-delight, the doctrine of Madhu would not be neces­sary and the quoting of Riks devoted to the Ashwins would signifyless than nothing. But the Madhu doctrine teaches that the diversityin creation is the manifestation of a secret Delight, that all things, how­soever heterogeneous and warring they may appear, are held togetherby a secret harmony effected in them by the hidden creative Self­.d eligh t of the Supreme, who is the effulgent Self, the Immortal."T he Upanishad perceives the Vedic truth of Madhu and the Ashwin sand teaches here the seeking of Madhu in the manifestation of allthings and beings and not the delight that is unrelated to the CosmicExistence." (L ights on the Upanishads )

M . P . PANDIT

•

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

EDUCATION

xv

MENTAL EDUCATION-II

OF the five principal phases of mental education outlined by theMother, we have treated of the first, which is the development

of the power of concentration, the capacity for attention. Let us nowtake up the second phase, the capacities of expansion, wideness,complexity and richness.

The child has a natural curiosity to know the how and the whyof things, to 'understand what the world about him is. This healthycuriosity is the parent of all knowledge, and has to be sympatheticallyand intelligently fostered. It has, at the same time, to be directedalong the lines of the child's inborn tastes and aptitudes. For, thecliild's mind is not a blank. There are behind its apparent blanknessa whole mass of subconscious powers and capacities, impressions andsensibilities that can be systematically developed and brought toperfection. There are, besides, the germinal tendencies and specificpropensities, native to his psychic or soul nature, which are inde­pendent of all hereditary and environing conditioning, and have tobe provided with the most congenial atmosphere for an unimpededflowering. His curiosity, whetted and nourished, the child will

_ obs_rve each thing, each person, and each incident as a glowing focusof particular interest, and every moment of his life will be a momentof thrilling revelation, as if the world was unfolding its marvels tohis intent gaze. And this absorbed observation, issuing in revelation,will automatically lead to concentration, which is the one secret ofgaining knowledge. .

This action of expansive as well as intensive observation andconcentration will soon shed the clos e intensity of its limited interestand flow over to enlarging spheres of sense objects, and seek to em­

27

THE ADVENT

brace the unexplored provinces of knowledge. It will make for agradual enrichment of the mind and the growth of its powers andfaculties. "As the child progresses, you will show him how everythingcan become an interesting subject for study, provided the questionis approached in the right manner. The life of every day, of everymoment is the best of all schools: it is varied, complex, rich in un­foreseen experiences, in problems awaiting solution, in clear andstriking examples and in evident sequences. It is so easy to rousehealthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence andclarity the numberless questions they put. An interesting replybrings in its train others, and the child, his attention attracted, learnswithout effort much more than what he usually does on the schoolbench..."l

A judicious choice of books will start the student on an avidexploration of the countless countries of thoughts and ideas, andstimulate his appetite for knowledge. But he should be taught rightfrom the beginning of this period that all real knowledge lies latentwithin him, and that, if he develops his own reflective and reasoningpowers, he can arrive at original thinking and ideation. Contactwith the outer objects can be a spring-board for a dive into one's owndepths and an opportunity for a haul of unsuspected treasures.This habit of diving has to be acquired and persisted in. Butthe student must be given a timely warning against indiscriminateand excessive reading, which obscures mental perception, smothersthe creative fire, and paralyses all originality. The teacher must dis­courage this kind of over-reading, and inculcate the spirit of inde­pendence which disdains to parrot others' views and strut in borrowedfeathers. He should see to it that the student develops a will to self­reliance and a dislike of having to depend upon notes, commentaries,criticisms, and expositions; which stifle all original thinking. Thanks ­to the modern system of academic education, the student js driventoo bolt and vomit out the notes with which he is lavishly supplied byhis . teachers. This has led to an almost complete lack of originalthinking in the intellectual field today. In the arts, in literature, inspeculative thought., and even in the other pursuits of life, there is

I Sri .Aurobirulo and the Mother 011 Education

•

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

everywhere an easy tendency to imitation, to conformism, t9 anunthinking submission to prevailing fashions, and an abject readinessto be moulded by extraneous influences. Even in the quest for scienti­fic knowledge and the acquisition of worldly wisdom, the studentmust be taught to observe men and things dispassionately and withoutany distorting bias or prejudice. A love of independent observation,independent experimentation, independent thought and judgement,

. and independent self-expression has always been the proud distinc­tion of most creative thinkers and artists.

In the context of the expansion and enrichment of the mind,the Mother very pertinently speaks of the cultivation of imagination.In fact, in mental education, nothing is more important than the deve­lopment of imagination. Independent thinking and imaginationare like the two wings of a bird-they are cooperative correlates.Imagination brings in indications, ideas and visions of new configu­rations of truths, it reveals unforeseen aspects of life and the world,and ,.thought ' occupies itself with them and gives them novel forms." . . .it is imagination that develops the creative mental faculty, andit is through that that study becomes a living thing and the mindgrows in joy", says the Mother;' "Imagination is, in reality, thecapacity to project oneself out of realised things towards thingsrealisable and pull them in by the very power of projection... .It sendsout, as it were, antennae into a world that is not yet realised, andthey catch hold of something there and draw it here. Naturally

. it means an addition to earth's atmosphere, addition of things thattend towards manifestation.. . ."~ It is one of the principal facultiesthat should be developed and made serviceable. Indeed, without aproper devqlopment of imagination, man would remain tethered tohis se ns e-m ind and fail even to conceive of anything higher and nobler

t han the drab tenor of his dusky lite. "With its (of the imagination)help you.can re-create your inner and outer life. You can whollybuild your life, if you know how to use it ....As a matter of fact, it is.the most ordinary and primary way of creating and forming thiI1gs 'in the world .. .if one had not the capacity of imagination, one would

I S ri Aurobindo and the l\folhe r a ll Education:: The Y oga of Sri Aurobindo by Nolini Kanta Gupra-c-Part Eight

THE ADVENT

not make any progress. Your imagination always goes ahead of yourlife .. .. Imagination opens the way to realisation. It is very difficultto move unimaginative people. They see only what is in front oftheir noses, they feel only what is there at a given moment. Theycannot advance, they are blocked by the immediate present. .. "l SriAurobindo defines imagination as "the mind's way or one of its waysof summoning out ofBeing its infinite possibilities, even of discoveringor capturing the unknown possibilities of the Infinite.">

I have already spoken of the utter lack of encouragement to inde­pendent thinking in modern schools and colleges. There is an equallack ofencouragement, if not a positive aversion, to the faculty of ima­gination which the Mother credits with the power of creation andreconstruction. In the name of realism or positivism, and as a conse­quence of the universal sway of materialistic science, which swearsby the brute facts of life, imagination is looked down upon as an idlefancy, or a kind of languorous day-dreaming. It is held to be a peren­nial foe of the practical or pragmatic spirit, and a crippling anachro­nism in the modern world of scientific civilisation. But the pricemodern man is paying for the extravagant exaltation of realism andpragmatism is a growing atrophy of the imagination and a resultantcollapse of all higher visions and values of life. Life is losing allcontact with its roots. Alienated and sapless, but profusely deckedout, and embellished with flashy trinkets, it is steadily sliding intoinanition. The outer glamour barely hides the corroding povertywithin.

In order to promote the suppleness and comprehensiveness ofthe mind, the child has to be taught to attempt various approaches tothe same subject of study. The very awareness that the sa,me problemcan be approached from various standpoints and that its solution. canalso be more than one clear-cut formula, argues a considerable widen-"ing of the mental horizon. It will make him realise that all truths are

!only relative, so long as he searches for them by means and in termsofhis mind; and that his so-called solutions can be nothing but tenta­tive and hypothetical. This perception of the relativity of all mental

1 Th e Y oga of S ri A urobilldo--Noli ni K ant a G up ta- Par t Eig htII T he LIf e D ivine by Sci A urobi ndo

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER 3 1

truths will generate in him tolerance and humility. He will learnto attach as much importance to the view-points of others as t~ his ­own. He will come to develo a generous broadness of outlook, andnot only an attitude of ungrudging appreciation and accommodation,but a power of synthetic and harmonising thought. He will acquirethe art of envisaging a truth in many of its aspects. And yet he willone day come to realise that even his comprehensive solutions arenarrow and inconclusive, and his synthesis only a clumsy combina­tion. Baffied by the besetting relativity of all mental knowledge, hewill be driven to ask himself: "Is not there a way of getting beyondthis incorrigible relativity and reaching the whole, the integral truth ?"This questioning will rouse in him an aspiration for a "truer sourceof knowledge." His inward eye will begin to open, and he will seekthe true source of knowledge in the deeps of his being. The firststep to the discovery of truth will have thus been taken. The child'smental education should be so designed as to lead naturally to thissupreme discovery. Expansion, suppleness and richness, compassedby imagination and synthetic thought, will culminate in an unfetteredplay of intuition.

(To be continued)

RISHABHCHAND

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER

I

THERE is an inherent and self-existent law or force which governsthe being and becoming, the rest and movement of every

object and group of objects in each plane of consciousness. The lawof the collective consciousness overrides and keeps in balance theforces of the individual units in the field and so each universe withinthe total universe, jagatyam Jagat, remains a co smos, an orderedwhole. That is the reason why conflict among the units is not the normbut only a transition from one state of order to another. This is themystery of Nature which binds and keeps together all its creaturesin its various levels of manifestation. So in the plane of Matter wehave the law of gravitation holding together the various bodies andin the plane of life we have the cohesive force of what may be termedas love . .This is a realm of absolute and compelling, inevitable bondageand it is not felt as such so long as the individual unit remains withoutself-consciousness. The creatures of the subhuman kingdom-s-ani­mals, insects and plants-live in this blissful state of non-awarenessof the grim necessity and iron determinism of the scheme of things.These are the children of Nature so completely subject to the lawsof Nature and bound by them as not to realise that they are boundat all.

What Nature is in and to the so-called objective world, so isFate in and to the so-called subjective world. For sensations, vitalfeelings like desires, emotions, mental vibrations like thoughts, .ima­ginations and will-formations have their own worlds with their ownlaws as rigorous and compelling as the laws of Nature. 'There is even

.a vital substance corresponding to material substance, in which thefeelings clothe and embody themselves, move and collide and undergochanges by mutual contact and friction. Form in the plane of feelingshas not the rigidity of the material forms but a fluidity and flexibilityall its own. So w;: have a corresponding mental sub stan ce and mentalether where thoughts are formed and move. The true explanation

32

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 33

for all mental and vital affinities which go by the name of relationships •has to be sought in these hidden laws of the mental and vital levelsof consciousness-the force of Fate. The realm of Fate is as com­pletely conditioning and deterministic as the realm of Nature. Aswe have the children of Nature, so we have the children of Fate socompletely bound by Fate as to be unaware of it. So the occultistshave noted men and women inevitably meeting, parting and meeting _again, bringing good fortune or evil fortune to each other. Sometimesindeed the mental and vital fate of an individual affects his naturalbelongings and even material objects in a manner quite inexplicableaccordi~g to the laws of Nature.

As the world of Nature is a sphere, so are these inner worlds ofFate globes. And the consequence makes each movement within itterrible indeed. For each force generated at one point, after makingits way through the space of that region has ultimately to come backto the source. This phenomenon intensifies the bondage of beingscaught in them. So life in this world dominated by Nature and Fateis characterised as Samsara, a vicious cyclic movement and a vainfutile round. Human beings are very graphically pictured as personscaught in the mire who only get more and more deeply entangled init with every attempt of theirs to get out of it. Samsdra panka nir­magna. Every movement within Fate is inevitably subject to Fateand by indulging in it with whatever force and doggedness, manonly tightens the chain of his bondage.

The freedom of man's will is only an illusion. In his presentorganisation of consciousness, it is itself unenlightened about thenature of its instruments, the purpose for which they or it have beenfashioned and the goal to which they are destined. It is again com­.p lete ly blind of the vast complex field in which its effort is only apetty movement. It is itself a slave of the desire-forces operatingwithin man's consciousness, and very often it is unaware that it isq,eing used by these nether forces. Man wills only what he ardentlyhopes and yearns for and these yearnings are controlled by Fatewhose habitual march in her macadamized road is insistent and un­changing. Will has very few alternatives to cheose from and eventhe actual movement of choice in this fate-restricted field is directedby impulse.S

34 THE ADVENT

"Fate followed her foreseen immutable road.Man's hopes and longings build the journeying wheelsThat bear the body of his destinyAnd lead his blind will towards an unknown goal.His fate within him shapes his acts and rules;"

"Nature and Fate compel his free-will's choice."

II

What then is the origin of this Titanic Force of Fate which over­masters all the faculties in man including his so-called free-will ?Prakriti or instrumental nature is the field of operation of Fate.But there is a spiritual consciousness within the human being andbehind the cosmost ou-side and the laws of inner and psychologicalbeing have their origin in this spiritual level.

"Its face and form already are born in him,Its parentage is in his secret soul;"

Each man's fate is an objective representation and translation in thefaculties of the soul's need and secret choice. The inner and outerenvironment, the psychological faculties and the physical circum­stances in which man finds himself placed are precisely the exactconditions for the evolution of the soul and these are accepted andutilised by the soul within. Nature and Fate are not arbitrary forcesunrelated to the secret evolutionary intention and objective of; theworld's creation. They are the right instruments and the necessary-­conditions for that very evolution. "It is not the soul which feels:l1u m iliation and defeat but the ego." The complaint of the totalitariantyranny of fate emerges from the ego or the desire-soul in man andnot from his sou·1. Not only the general lines of the workings ofFate and Nature but all the particular and minute details of its opera­ting design, its face and form, have their origin in the soul. The expe­riences which are interpreted by the su rface ego as pleasure and

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 35

pain, success and defeat, fulfilment and frustration are all assimilated .by the soul. Essentially, each experience contributes a certain qualityof vibration which is spiritual in character and this spiritual qualityis the permanent and useful core of the experience. All the attendantvibrations of excitement in the mental, vital and physical levelsof every experience are, though for the egoistic individual enormouslyimportant and even all-engrossing, only transient movements withoutany value for the individual. The problem of Fate, as are all theproblems of life, is the problem of the ego. The soul has now acceptedto be b~>und and so the so-called tyranny of Nature and Fate.

"Here Matter seems to mould the body's lifeAnd the soul follows where its nature drives".

This great truth is realised by man in seasons of calm weather whenthe tempestuous action of the restless mind, the battling vital and theturbulent senses gets temporarily suspended either by a process ofwearing out or by the intervention of the Grace from above. In theluminous intervals of vision, the intolerable wrestle with the egostops and the noisy years of feverish pursuits and mad endeavoursin the bazaar of the mind and the senses seem moments in the beingof the eternal silence of the spiritual consciousness. The odium andpain of bondage cease to trouble and lose all the edge of hurt whenbondage is freely accepted.

Again, this bondage need not be eternal. The soul has the powerto withdraw the sanction it has accorded for the so-called tyrannyof Fate. Indeed, when the soul has grown sufficiently by assimilatingthe experiences in a life of bondage to Fate or when it feels a push,to the Realm of Silence, it feels that 'Time must have a stop and sobegins the reverse process of suspension of all outward-going move­ments and a plunge into the Static Substratum, the path of NivrittioJ Moksha. One could thus go clean beyond all the planes where,Fate can have a play, the Kingdom of the Peace of the Spirit, AtmaSamrajya. This is indeed the well-known ascetic path of Renuncia­tion, sanctified by hoary tradition, Sannyasa Yoga. Bondage is only astate of hypnosis of the soul in Time, Moha. Liberation is but anawakening of the soul into the Timeless Beyond, Udbohdana.

THE ADVENT

III

A third and higher poise of the soul is possible because the soul. has not only the power of withdrawing from all manifestation but ithas the greater puissance of overmastering :d est in y progressively.

"But greater spirits this balance can reverseAnd make the soul the artist of its fate."

This is the art of making the spiritual Shakti dynamic on the mani­festation and therefore suspend, change or transform the workingof Nature and Fate. The quality of Aspiration of the soul in manputs him in contact with the Higher Spiritual Consciousness whosevery nature is a largeness and conscious freedom. According to thelevel of the ascent of man's consciousness into the Vast Consciousnessof the Atman above, his mastery of Fate increases in amplitude anddepth. The power of the ranges immediately above' the mentalconsciousness-the Higher thinking mind, Illumined mind and Intui­tion-is only adequate to mitigate and postpone the operation ofthe iron law. But the pow~r of the Overmind is indeed able, whenallowed to intervene into this scheme of Ignorance, to build a tempo­rary heaven of light as a luminous though precarious island in thisrealm of darkness. The great saints and Vibhutis have established forthemselves and those open to them such an oasis of retreat and blissin this world of Fate. Miracles for them have been an hourly affairand the impossible has been made possible and even inevitable bytheir intervention in life.

"This is the mystic truth our ignorance hides:Doom is a 'p assage for our inborn force,Our ordeal is the hidden spirit's choice,Ananke is our being's own decree."

Each man carries' with him a . selected portion of the mental, vitaland physical consciousness with their resistances and weaknessesand together and, simultaneous with these, deep buried within hisinmost consciousness, all the divine light, love and power to over-

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 37

come and transform these very resistances and establish a divine life _on earth. The choice of the quantum of Fate-dominated materialis precisely that of the soul and it is guided by the Divine Guestbehind the soul and His Power, the Antaryami Ishwara. This inbornforce of the Divine seated in the heart of each individual makes theouter destiny and determinism as a field for its manifestation. Fateis therefore not an externally imposed law but the spontaneouslychosen field for the soul-force to work and work upon. The greaterthe man, the greater the soul-force. And when the man is a Vibhuti,a chosen vehicle for the manifestation here of the Higher Powers,the abrogation of Fate is on a larger scale, for a longer time and ofgreater spiritual puissances. And when the Avatar comes, she unitesthe world of Fate with the World of the Divine Will and makesthe passage between the two poles of existence clearly macadamisedfor all aspiring souls, for all time. Each Avatar chooses the most diffi­cult and intense of the resistance and determinism of this world andmakes the vi't::tory over these possible for all. And the Puma Avatarchooses the most central of the resistances, the fate of Death and forcesFate to come and show its power in all its intensity and width.

"All was fulfilled the heart of SavitriFlower-sweet and adamant, passionate and cairn,Had chosen and on her strength's unbending roadForced to its issue the long cosmic curve."

The heart of the Avatar has the sweetness of the flower in its capacityfor complete and comprehensive sympathy for and empathy into thecollective consciousness of humanity and subhumanity. It combinesthis. tenderness, Kusumadapi Mridu, with the hardness of the ada­'rnant, Vajradapi kathora, in its insistence even 'after the realisationof the grimness of the ordeal and the ruthlessness of Fate and Death,t«;? face it squarely and even force it to manifest all is strength. It is"the great passion for man which makes her come and suffer all andachieve all for him. And with all the intensity of the passion is alsoan invincible peace which makes her bear all the ordeal with lovingpatience. The laws of the Inconscient which have- been dominatingthe world's history ever since its origin in Time, the long cosmic

THE ADVENT

curve, are now receiving the challenge for the first time without anypossibility of escape or evasion. She works to hasten the hour ofGod on earth and prepare the human consciousness for the GreatAdvent. With Savitri, the Mother are the Wisdom and Power touplift completely man who is wallowing deep in the mire of fate­controlled world-existence, Samsiira-pa1ika-nirmagna-samuddhara1}apandita.

REFERENCE:

Savitri, Book VII, Canto I

M. V. SEETARAMAN

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS

"Sri Aurob ind o is both a poet and speculative thinker. Thesame is true of Rabindranath Tagore, but the thought of SriAu rob indo appears to me more comprehensive and systematicthan that of Tagore. vt-s-G. H. LANGLEY (S ri Aurobindo :Indian Poet, Philosopher, Mystic". Royal India Pakistan CeylonSociety David Marlowe Ltd.,)

" .. . I have never known a philosopher so all-embracing in hi smetaphysical structure as Sri Aurobindo, none before him hadthe same vision :...I can foresee the day when the teachings which are alreadymaking headway of the greatest spirit ual voice of India, Sri

.Au robirido, will be known all over America and be a vast powerof illumination. . ." (P rof. Fredric Spiegelberg of StanfordUniversity, California, U .S .A. )

"Resurgent India has in The Life Divine a world-view worthyof its glorious past and formative of a more glorious future">

( C HANDRA SHEKHARAN)

I I am inclined to give these quotations because we in In dia have hesita tion and are slowin recogn ising greatness in our midst. 'Tagore got his pl ace in our country after he won th eNobel Prize. But great ness does not depend up o n I ts recogn ition: it is th ose who recognise itthat stand to gilin.

2 Doubt has been expressed in so m e academic quarters as to w hether T he, L If e Divine is a::'hi los~phy . After all w hat is in a nam e ? It may no t co nform to ce r ta in fixed ideas of w ha t isphilosophy and The L if eD iv ine is no t an exercise in int ell ec tual gym nastics, nor is it an attem pt atma thematicaJ.logic. D r. S. K . Mitra ) I th ink) is right w he n he says: "System building is no twhat we value in a philosopher. It is the power to kind le tho ught) to gi ve new orientation) anew outlook . . .. . MUling of the East and Wesl ill S ri .Aurobindo's Philosophy.

Besides there are p hi losophers and ph iloso p her s. So m e are professional s who live intheo ld orthodox mould and w ho m no ph ilo so phy to uches: they rema in like the lo tu s lea f in wa ter.There are others w ho are careerfsrs and have an eye on prom otion and po sition . O thers th ere arew ho are in terested in ideas-new ideas and e ven th ose who arc a ttracted by th e sty le and m eth od .O nly very few are ea rnest seekers of the Truth prepared to tread th e unknown path an d risk aUthe da ngers of an adventure. W hat such peo pl e w ri te is philosophy . The L if e Divine is such ap hilosop hy.

39

4° THE ADVENT

DAWN OF A NEW AGE

I SHOULD like to begin by giving some historical background.II: the last decade of the last century there was a profound

stirring of the spirit of India, Bharat Shakti. It was the beginningof the movement of independence. It might be difficult for a readerof The Life Divine, the great philosophic work, to imagine that itsauthor was one of the very few nationalist leaders in those stormydays of Indian politics. It was during his detention as an undertrialpolitical revolutionary in 1908 that he got the second crucial expe­rience of yoga that became the turning point of his life. In a certainsense, it was an epoch-making experience and he gave expression toit at a meeting in Uttarpara in 1909. This spiritual experience in jailturned his mind to a problem of far greater magnitude than winningthe freedom of the country. Subsequently invited several timesto lead the political movement, he politely declined the honourbecause of his single-minded devotion to the pursuit of the sp iritualproblem of man.

I give this historical background in order to bring to your mindsthe fact that The Life Divine is not an arm-chair philosophy, not amere academic product; it is the result of a very earnest and single­minded search extending over forty long years by one of the foremostintellectuals of our times. It is important to note that the author notmerely thought but lived his vision of the reality, and it is the solidwork done for many years that has enabled him to make a lastingcontribution to thought and life. It is necessary that the youngergeneration should be made aware of so varied and valuable a contri­bution because that would enable it to solve the problems of todayand of the future.

The Life Divine ushers in the dawn of a new age . We are told bymany leaders of thought that today we are living in the atomic age,in the space age, the age of Cosmonauts, the age of technical advancepar excellence and it seems at first sight natural that our age shouldbe so named because of the vast economic changes scien ce has broughtabout and is even n0W bringing about in the individual and collectivelife of man.

It has given a new concept of collective life by showing the

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS 41

possibility of ameliorating the material condition of the masses allover the world. Man has established himself as the undisputed 1<::ing .among creatures of the earth and he is expanding his physical con­sciousness to outer space claiming it as his domain. Mind has succeed­ed in mastering material energy by the knowledge of its processes.

Even with regard to mind's control over material energy, longago Sri Aurobindo laid down a fundamental principle indicatingthe nature of the new age of conquest even of Matter-conquestnot dependent always on gross physical means and processes butthe conquest of Matter by the Spirit.

The control now attained by man is that of Mind and of theLife-Force which are themselves not final realities but instrumentsof the Spirit. He writes in The Life Divine: "But there is alwaysa limit and an encumbrance, the limit of the material field in theknowledge, the encumbrance of the material machinery in the power.But here also the latest trend is highly significant of a freer future.As the outposts of scientific knowledge come more and more tobe set on the borders that divide the material from the immaterialso also the highest achievements of practical science are those whichtend to simplify and reduce to the vanishing-point the machineryby which the greatest effects are produced. \Vireless telegraphy isNature's exterior sign and pretext for a new orientation. The sensiblephysical means for the intermediate transmission of the physicalforce is removed; it is only preserved at the points of impulsion andreception. Eventually even these must disappear; for when the lawsand forces of the supraphysical are studied with the right starting­point, the means will infallibly be found for mind directly to seizeon the physical energy and speed it accurately upon its errand.There, once we bring ourselves to recognise it, lie the gates thatopen upon the enormous vistas of the future."

But. Man, the mental being, in spite of his scientific advance,is still a slave of his own nature, his blind desires, impulses, passions,ambitions, greed, ego-in short, the slave of ignorance. The advancein techniques has given rise to a tendency to incr-ease his needs, "toraise the standard of living'Ls as it is called, to ,m u lt ip ly gadgets forhi s comfort; it is slowly changing the values of'.fife by promotingthe false notion that the physical is the only reality. The exclusive6

THE ADVENT

concentration on mere material advance, it is clear, is not enough tocreate perfect men or a perfect society. Even in societies that haveachieved a very high degree of material advance there are alreadysigns of satiety, psychological malaise which manifests itself in increa­sing nervous disorders. We may ask ourselves whether this scientificadvance with its utility to life and its mastery of sense-data is leadingman towards the Truth. It is true, Science gives efficiency which is

- very essential but efficiency alone is not, or cannot be, the goalof life. To a strictly rationalistic, that is, scientific outlook Truth isunknowable.

Whar is urgently needed is not only mastery of materiai Naturebut also self-mastery. The application of scientific advance to collec­tive life has put into man's hand such a tremendous reservoir of mate­rial power that without a corresponding inner transformation of hisnature man would not be able to make a real advance in his culture. Itmeans the material advance by itself would not solve man's problemsthough the possibility of its misuse has instilled fear in his mindandthe fear makes him halt and think; but that fear would only deterhim but not bring about the necessary inner change. That is whatBilly Graham writes in Life'

"American genius has enabled us to change virtually everythingbut ourselves. It is absolutely impossible to change Societyand reverse the moral trend unless we ourselves are changedfrom inside out."

This feeling, this perception is fairly widespread among theintelligentsia everywhere and I believe that it is symptomatic of thenew psychological change that is trying to establish itself. , The mate­rial advance itself, man's .rnastery over unlimited material energy,and simultaneously om an 's inner feeling of the need for changinghis own nature are signs of the descent of a Power beyond the mindinto earth evolution. Sri Aurobindo advocates the control of Matter-that is, material energy-by the Spirit; but, in order to be ableto do that, man must rise above his present state of Consciousness,-he must rise to " the Supermind.·

I August 15, 1960

•"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS 43

In one of my lectures at the Friend's Hall at Cambridge;' Isaid: "Yours is an old seat of learning. It has the distinction ofgiving to the world great discoverers like Newton and Faraday. Ihave come to tell you that here in King's College there was anotherdistinguished discoverer Sri Aurobindo, from India, who laid barethe Supramental level of consciousness opening thereby an immenserealm of spiritual experience to man. In the words of Dr. Gokakhis work "opens up new horizons that spell new cultures uponearth."

The Life Divine meets the challenge of the agnostic and mate­rialistic 'outlook now trying to dominate the world, but, . in a pro­founder view, it satisfies the deepest need of man-his aspirationfor in tegra l perfection. While it thus satisfies the spiritual need ofmankind it is equally a characteristic contribution of India to thehuman culture of the future; for without those fundamental spiritualelements no human culture could be perfect. Sri Aurobindo's Worksmay: be said"to be the international form of Indian culture. My friendSri Chandrashekharan, the Andhra poet, says: "No other philo­sop hy or religion gives to life on earth such high significance."

Apart from the material advance there are purely psychologicalfactors also that have emerged: (I) Internationalism; (2) A universaldemand for a kind of Socialism; (3) The increasing prominencegiven to ethical values in international politics. The question iswhether these new values with the help of the scientific advancewould enable man to solve hi s problems. In fact, there is a great con­fu sion with regard to the nature of the problem before man. It issu pposed by some that a certain plan or programme, carried out bysocial, political and other outer means, would solve the problem.

_ About that Sri Aurobindo says: "The advocates of actionthink that by human intellect and energy making an always new rush,everything can be put right; the present state of the world after a~evelopment of the intellect and a stupendous output of energyfor which there is no historical parallel is a signal proof of' theemptiness of the illusion under which they labour. Yoga takes thestand that it is only by a change of consciousness that the true basis

I November 19 55

44 THE ADVENT

of life can be discovered; from within outward is indeed the rule."lOthers think that a certain "thought" or 'ism' propagated by

sincere persons, through the agency of speech, travel, radio, press,books., even Padayatras-would bring about the necessary inner andouter change. It is true, a system of thought, the ideal of service,some programme of social or economic change etc., are great powers

_ for effecting a change in life. But the most important thing, veryoften forgotten, is that there is no mere outer problem. The problemis inner, the problem is man and his ignorance.

The next question is : is . it possible to attain perfection with thefaculties which man possesses at present? Sri Aurobindo shows thatman must ascend to the Supermind,-the Truth-Consciousness(above the Mind), if he is to attain perfection.

The general tendency is to regard such questions relating tothe fundamentals as insoluble and if solutions are offered they aredubbed Utopian. This wrong attitude prevents a proper approachand retards the solutions of important problems. An" illustra,tionmight make the point clear.

If Mahatma Gandhi had consulted the statesmen and politicalleaders of his time to advise him about his contemplated resort toSatyagraha to secure independence for India, what do you thinkwould have been their reaction ? With one voice they would havedeclared him crazy and advised him against any such Utopianmethod that would surely invite failure, if not political disaster.Granting that India does not owe its freedom entirely to Satyagraha,still it is clear that the Mahatma did right in trying his novel experi­ment for which he consulted only his own conscience: the World hasa new weapon for setting right some of its political wrongs. What isor seems impossible at one time becomes possible after sometime.The sciences of medicine, physics, etc., 'have achieved manythings that were once considered impossible. Sri Aurobindo writesiJl his epic Savitri:

The high gods look on man and watch and chooseToday's impossibles for the future's base."

I 0" Yoga, Tome 1, p . 162.

2 Sooisri, Book III ) Canto 4 . p. 308.

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS 45

In considering the solution offered by a great work like The LifeDivine one has to keep the mind open, admit untried possibilities •and undertake even the risk of experimenting in new directions.In this regard I am glad to find that Vinoba Bhave, though followinga particular line of thought and action, has kept his mind open to otherquite disparate kinds of possibilities. He is trying to live up to theideal of "the world as one family"-"Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam">«and he has been preaching the same in his "Padayatra"-"pilgrimageon foot" . After years of experience of Padayatra he accepts thepossibility of spreading the ' idea without resorting to any outermeans. By attaining to a certain spiritual poise it is possible, he be­lieves, to spread the ideas and work out its results in life sitting atone place. It would be like the launching of a ballistic missile from apreviously prepared base directing it to the target.

The Life Divine propounds the possibility-indeed, the inevita­bility-of evolution of man from Mind to Supermind. OmnipresentReality is the basis of the universe-its fundamental substance. ThisOmnipresnt Reality is active in the universe in three positions or, say,it is triple in its movement: the Individual, the Universe and theTranscendental. In all the three it is identical. The universe is themovement of evolution from an apparent Inconscience to a greaterand greater degree of consciousness : this is a process in the oppositedirection to involution in which there was the gradual descent cover­ing the original Reality, creating a world at every downward step.The process of evolution has proceeded from Matter to Life, fromLife to Mind. Man, the mental being, is transitional because he hasyet to ascend to a higher Consciousness beyond Mind. This is thegreat spiritual Odyssey that man has now to undertake consciously.If material science lays open before man a wide-practically unlimited-field of adventure, research and experience in the outer interstellarspace, the supramental is not without its own attractive elements.T.,he LIfe Divine is a call" . . to spiritual adventure, to a spiritual explora-.tion, it initiates a vision of heights of consciousness which haveindeed been glimpsed and visited but have yet to be discovered andmapped in their completeness. The highest of these peaks or elevatedplateaus of Consciousness, the supramental, lies far beyond the possi­bility of any satisfying mental scheme or map of it or any grasp of

THE ADVENT

mental seeing and description". 1 On those unexplored heightsthere lie inexhaustible treasures of Light and Power which caneffectively help mankind to solve its problems. A call is upon youngIndia to answer. The Life Divine is not a poetical dream, an abstractweaving of mere intellect; it is a discovery that makes available a newsource of Knowledge and Power to man.

That this assertion is not a speculation unrelated to the so­called "hard realities" of life may be seen from a statement of SriAurobindo himself:

"This (his retirement from outer activity) did not mean, asmost people supposed, that he had retired into some height 'of spiri­tual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in life.It could not mean that, for the very principle of his yoga is not onlyto realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness,but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of thisspiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the spirit andgive it a spiritual meaning. In ills retirement Sri Aurobindo kept aclose watch on all that was happening in the world and in India andactively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritualforce and silent spiritual action; for, it is part of the experience ofthose who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces andactivities of the Mind and Life and body in Matter, there are otherforces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above;there is also a spiritual dynamic Power which can be possessed bythose who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness, though all donot care to possess or, possessing, to use it, and this Power is greaterthan any other and more effective. It was this force which SriAurobindo used at first only in a limited field of personal work, butafterwards in a constant action upon the world force~."

In his Savitri he wrote :

This world is a beginning and a baseWhere Life and Mind erect their structured dreams: ,An unborn Power must build reality."

Supermind brings to birth that unborn Power. Is it only Power ?It is much more~ listen to the voice of the maternal Divine Love :

.1 The L ife Divine , p. 8 [7. :l B ook I C anto 4 .

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS 47

"0 beloved children, sorrowful and ignorant, and thou, 0rebellious and violent Nature, open your hearts, tranquillise 'you rforce, it is the omnipotence of Love that is coming to you... "1 •

In spite of the glib talk of there being no difference betweenthe cultures of the East and the West it cannot be denied that thevalues dominating Western culture have created problems for new _India. Old values are already broken up and one need not regret itif they had no contribution to make to human progress. But youngmen uprooted, psychologically, from their own culture are takingto the 'glamorous outer values of the powerful Western culturein their bewilderment. The civilisation of gadgets, with its aimlessspeed, senseless competition, fragmented living, commercialisationof culture, rising standard of living with no prospect of where itwill stop, undermining of moral and spiritual values-all that posesa problem. There is a crisis in the cultural life of free India. It isfor young Irtdia to decide. In a wider sense the choice is for humanitytoday.

As for India, return to the past is not only undesirable but im­possible. Sterile repetition is not life; nor is slavish imitation of the\Vest the solution. Does free India want to tread the same path ofIndustrialisation in the same way? Our need today is growth­growth form within. The problem is how to assimilate the dynamicvalues of life-social, economic and political-prominently imposingthemselves upon humanity, and yet to preserve the spiritual forcescreated by our culture; or, in other words: Is Indian spiritualitycapable of assimilating the elements of Western culture and givinghumanity a .new synthesis that might point the way out of the presentcrisis ?

It is spirituality that can give us guidance in the present crisisbut there. are some leaders who regard this as not possible-thought~ey have no knowledge of what spirituality is and they dub ito'escapism' .

This word 'escapism' is sometimes used to question and rundown the value of spiritual life. Escpe from what? Life presents

I Prayers and .\led i ta t iolls of the .'vfolher : June 9, 1914, p. 131.

THE ADVENT

so many problems and there is no one method of solving them. If,for instance, J. C. Bose retires into his laboratory to solve scientificproblems and does not participate in a political demonstration or inaojail-going programme, is he an escapist? If Tagore continues hisliterary activities and does not ply the charkha or go to prison, canhe be called an escapist?

Ramdas, the great saint of Maharashtra, was a great patriotand wanted to remove the Mogul yoke. But he did not take to poli­tical orgnisation as his own work-he only prepared the ground andShivaji orgnised the political activity. Was Ramdas an escapist?

Ramakrishna after a long and arduous life of Tapasya gives outto the world that the sincere practice of every religion leads to thesame experience-can he be called an escapist? Does he not serv ethe highest need of mankind by giving to it a great truth ? If a cultureworth the name of "Human Culture" is to arise some day in future itcan only be on the basis of the truth announced by Ramakrishna.

And what about his being a living example of the attainment ofprofound knowledge by other more direct methods of inner culturethan those that are in vogue ? Sometimes, it is forgotten that rushinginto action itself may be attempt at escape !

. (believe no one can escape-even if one wants to-e-becauseNature will be always with oneself. What is called "escapism" maybe the shift ing of the point of interest of the individual. It may bealso exclusive concentration on a particular subject of interest. Someof our leaders seem to think that there is only one method by whichproblems can be faced or solved. But that would be an arbitrarylimitation-for there can be many methods. One may have to waitfor conditions to be fulfilled to try his method. In fact, 0.0 true prog­ress or gain by the individual in any field can remain personal., it isalways for all. As 'to methods, those who are one-tracked in theirminds may be reminded of the line of the poet : "More things are

I wrought by prayer than this world dreams of"; even prayer qlObe- a method.

Some quotations from Sri Aurobindo's letters and other writingswould be helpful La dispelling the notion that the attainment of thehigher consciousness is something abstract and without any dynamicconsequence.

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS

( I)

49

"I must remind you that I have been an intellectual myself andno stranger to doubts-both the Mother and myself have had one sideof the mind as positive and as insistent on practical results and moreso than any Russell can be. We could never have been contentedwith the shining ideas and phrases which a Rolland or another takesfor gold coin ofTruth... 1 think I can say that I have been testing day ­and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientisthis theory or hi s method on the physical plane." (18-8-1932)1

"When I concentrate, I work upon others, upon the world, uponthe play of forces. " (19- 12- 1934)"

"The invisible Force producing tangible results both inwardand outward is the whole meaning of the yogic consciousness....Whowould be satisfied with such a meaningless hallucination and callit power? If we had not had thousands of experiences showing thatthe Power within could alter the mind, develop its powers, add newones, bringing in new ranges of knowledge, master the vital move­ments, ... control the conditions and functionings of the body, work asa concrete dynamic Force on other forces, modify events, etc., etc.,we would not speak of it as we do.?"

" C on crete ? What do you mean by concrete? Spiritual forcehas its own concreteness; it can take a form (like a stream, for instance)of which one is aware and can send it quite concretely on whatevexobject one chooses.""

i L if e 0/ Sri .Anrobindo, p . 28 I.

S ibid .3 O n Yoga, T ome I, p. 237 ­• i bid., p. 239.

7

50 THE ADVENT

(5)

"I have always said that the spiritual force I have been puttingon human affairs such as the War is not the supramental but the Over­mind force, and that when it acts in the material world is so inextri­cably mixed up in the tangle of the lower world forces that its results,however strong or however adequate to the immediate object, mustnecessarily be partial."!

(6)

"I have often used the Force alone without any human instru­ment or outer means... " (24-1-1936)2

"Certainly, my force is not limited to the Ashram and its cqndi­tions. As you know it is being largely used for helping the rightdevelopment of the war and of change in the human world. It isalso used for individual purposes outside the scope of the Ashramand the practice of yoga; but that, ofcourse, is silently done and mainlyby a spiritual action." (13-3-1944)'1

Ramakrishna gave birth to the nco-spirituality in India by free­ing it from all external forms and stressing "experience" as the acidtest. On the basis of this experience-call it realisation-he declaredthe unity of all religions. Sri Aurobindo gives the link between thepast and the future and asks humanity to build its life 9n the basisof the Omnipresent Reality, to him Life and God are absolutely corn­patible, earth is worthy of the divine manifestation. Separation ofthe human spirit from the Divine is the cause of the prevailing humanignorance which is a transitory or passing phase in cosmic unfold­~ent-the growth of the human soul towards the Truth. He assuresus that the Universe and the Reality are not static, but dynamic and

I Life 0/ Sri Aurobipdo, p. 296.: ibid., p . 29 7_3 ibid. , p. 297.

"THE LIFE DIVINE" : SOME ASPECTS 51

that evolution is the process of unfoldment of the Divine thilt isinvolved in the Inconscient. "The animal is the living laboratoryin which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself maywell be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with. whoseconscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman, the god.Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God ?".l

I Tire Life Di vine, p, 5.

REVIEW

Sanatana Dhaz-ma By Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha. Publishers:- Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chaupatty, Bombay. Pages 210. Price:

Rs. 2.50

T H I S cogent treatise on Sanatana Dharma is an importantadditionto the growing literature on Hinduism. The author, late

Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha, brings to the study of the subjecthis profound learning and spiritual insight, and presents the salientfeatures of Hindu Dharma with force and conviction. His lucidexpositions which are interspersed with anecdotes and quotationsfrom ancient texts give a .historic survey of Indian civilisation fromthe earliest times to the present day, and a succinct portrayal of. themany-faceted splendours of her ancient culture in diverse fields ofart, literature, science, economics, politics, sociology, religion, philo­sophy, spirituality. He speaks of India's rich heritage, the high water­mark of her past efforts and victorious achievements, the renaissancethat has come upon her after a brief period of decline and the promiseof her more luminous future.

Quite naturally, the author dwells at length on spirituality whichhas always been the basis of Indian culture, the leading motive anddetermining power of her civilisation. In fact, the chief characteristicfeature of Hinduism which distinguishes it from all other religionsand creeds is its keynote of spirituality and the infusion -of spiritualelement into every activity of human interest from the most trivialto the most sublime.

It is true that this emphasis on spirituality has given '1"ise at acertain stage of India's long evolution to the development of someschools of exaggerated asceticism and illusionism, which made asharp, unbridgeable opposition between the temporal and the Eternaland took a negative "and pessimistic view of terrestrial life. But it isa grave error to think or disparage, as some critics do, that Hinduismis an other-worldly religion, life-chilling, ascetic, stagnant, opposed

52

REVIEW 53

to all reforms and progress. Nothing is farther from the truth. Hipdu- •ism is second to none in its right appreciation of the outer life of man.It has always recognised the four primary interests of mankind,kama, artha, dharma, moksa. The liberation, moksa, the highestideal set before man, however, is the culmination of a series of gradedefforts, through satisfaction and fulfilment of the first three mundaneobjectives and not, for the majority of men at any rate, a single preci- •pitous climb. The ancient Hindu civilisation clearly saw the complex­ity of life and man's nature and realised that there could not be inthe nature of things a single trenchant rule or guide for all men, forall time', Man at first and for long lives a vital, mental .life in thephysical body, his soul gains experience through successive birthsand deaths until, arriving at a stage of fitness or preparedness, theindividual awakes to the necessity of spiritual life and liberation.Sanatana Dharma visualised this law of graduality based on indi­vidual's capacity, adhikdra, and individual's temperament, swabhiiva,and .established the system of four grades or classes of society, catur­uar na , and four successive stages of human life, caturdsrama,providing a broad frame-work for the growth of the individual.

The author's vigorous defence of Hindu social laws and customsbrings us to the interesting section of the book, for in this sectionhe brings us in touch with modern scientific researches in mathe­matics, physiography, sociology, eugenics etc., and to their findingswhich bear corroboration of truths of many ancient sdstric injunctions.For instance, the customary fasting enjoined by sdstras during theperiod of an eclipse finds corroboration in the experiment of Dr.Thornton in the following words of the author :

-e

"It seems that, after decades of research and investigations inthe field of physiography, Dr. Thornton came to the conclusionthat .when an eclipse is on, especially a solar eclipse, the delicatenerves of the gastric region in the body of even the strongest,man or animal got affected, and it was therefore desirable" tofast during an eclipse. Little children in India know it and we alldo that."

A further example is 011 the therapeutical value of betel leaf

54 THE ADVENT

and the practice obtaining among the Indian ladies to take off thestem, the tip and the lines across of the leaf. The author tells us ofDr. Henderson's discovery of four different chemical constituentsfound in this edible leaf. The stem, we are told, contains a poisonwhich interferes with the growth of oxi-haemoglobin and is rightlyavoided; the tip contains a very undesirable element (what the scien-

. tists call the 'aphrodisiac' of the third degree) which over-stimulatessexual power leading to harm; the lines across the leaf are said to con­tain a poison of a morphic nature which is injurious to the brain.The rest of the leaf is beneficial as ordinary tonic for the digestivesystem of married people leading a sexual life. "So", says the author,"I got light as to the principles on which the betel leaf was used inIndia, and also on Sanatana Dharma which prohibits the use of thebetel leaf by sannyasis, brahmacharis and vidhavas." .

Then there is the instrument called oscillagraph, an inventionof Dr. Abraham, which, we are told, is employed to determine certaincrucial questions of heredity. By means of this instrument. theman's, woman's and child's blood are examined to know whether ­the child is the child of the particular parents. The author citesinstances of a man's honour or a woman's fidelity vindicated by theresults of this instrument the same being accepted by the law courts.We are also told that by analysing a single drop of blood Dr. Abrahamis able to tell to what country, to what nationality, to. what race andto what community the owner of that belongs, what his physicaland mental characteristics are, and even the colour of his hair, ofhis eye-brows etc.

Here is an interesting description of the instrument itself :

"The Oscillascope has two pendula at the ends. When there isa couple of opposite sexes willing to marry, agreeing in otherrespects, satisfied with each other in other matters .and onlyhaving a little doubt about the physical side, from the point ofview of the offspring, they go to Dr. Abraham and each of themgives a drop of blood. The man's blood is put into one pendulumand compressed into a capsule shape and the woman's blood is putinto the other pendulum and compressed. When the apparatusis set moving, the two pendula move towards each other. O f

REVIEW 55

the millions of cases tested, everyone has invariably giveI1 one •of the three results. In one case, the pendula come together,stick together and don't move off again; and if you want to

move them off again, you must either break the apparatus Orremove the blood capsules. In the second case the two pendulacome together but repel each other and go off to their originalcorners and stay there. The third case shows that the pendula ,meet together, move off and meet again and this oscillation goeson alternately."

The conclusions of the foregoing experiments are given.as under:

"In the first case where the pendula meet together and stayintertwined inextricably, the instrument shows that the offspringwill have signs of mental weakness and that if the process ofsuch marriage is continued for generations, the result will be

. cliffererlt stages of mental weakness, reaching finally to the worstforms of insanity, idiocy, imbecility and the like. Secondly,where pendula meet and repel each other and stay apart, theinstrument indicates physical deterioration in the child until atlast, if the process is repeated, it will lead to impotency in themale and barrenness in the female. Thirdly, where the oscillationgoes on continuously, the result is that the mental and physicalcharacteristics of the child will be of envious type. An analysisshows that persons wishing to marry, whose blood is tested thisway and who come under the first category are connected by blood,i.e., are related to each other; if they fall under the secondclassification, they are persons belonging to different commu-

• nities; and if under the third, they are not blood relations but-' st ill belong to the same community."

What the modern science proves today through the oscillascope,says the author, has been laid down long long ago by the marriagelaws of Sanatana Dharma which prohibit oiuarna marriage and enjoinssavaT7J.a marriage only, and even in the latter case marriage is pro­hibited in the same gotra .

There is no doubt that the intrinsic and intuitive truths of many

THE ADVENT

cultural and social forms of Hindu Dharma stand vindicated in thelight of modern scientific investigations, but Hinduism cannotobviously rest solely or blindly on its past achievements. As SriAurobindo says :

"We have to look on our cultural ideas and our social forms andsee where they have lost their ancient spirit or real significance.Many of them are now a fiction and no longer in accordancewith the ideas they assume or with the facts of life. Others evenif good in themselves or else beneficent in their own time, areno longer sufficient for our growth. All these must either betransformed or discarded and truer ideas and better formulationsmust be found in their place. The new turn we must give themwill not always be a return upon their old significance. The newdynamic truths we have to discover need not be parked withinthe limited truth of a past ideal. On our past and present idealswe have to turn the searchlight of the spirit and 'see whetherthey have not to be surpassed or enlarged or brought into conso­nance with new wider ideals ...If faith in ourselves and fidelityto the spirit of our culture are the first requisites of a continuedand vigorous life, a recognition of greater possibilities is a conni­tion not less indispensable. There cannot be a healthy andvictorious survival if we make of the past a fetish instead of aninspiring impulse." (Foundations of Indian Culture)

One word more before we close; it is stated in the introductionas well as in the blurb that Sri Aurobindo had asked the Swamij i,the author, to organise a World Reconstruction Association. Obvious­ly, there is a misunderstanding som ewhere, for Sri Aurobindo, weare sure, never gave suggestions or directions to the Swamiji or to

anyone connected with his peetah to establish such a Sangha. Sri,Au rob in do 's thinking on these questions and the methods of solvingthem were totally different.

KEsHAVAMURTI

· The .Adoen.t

....

The ADVENTNovember, 1964

CONTENTS

EDITORfAL

YOGA AND HYPNOTISM

SRI AUROBINDO

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA

UPANISIlAD

SPACE AND TIME

LIFE DIVINE: SOME AsPECTS

TIm TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER

SPIRITUAL CAUSERIE

REvIEW

-Nolini Kanta Gupta

-Sri Aurobindo

-Po Nagaraja Rao

-Rishabhchand

-M. P. Pandit

-Keshavamurti

-A. B. Purani

-Rishabhchand

-M. V. Seetaraman

-Prabuddha

-Keshavamurti

Page

5

9

1520

24

3°38

42

475460

Edited by NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

Published by: P. CoUNOUMA

SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM, PONDICHERRY-2

Printed by: AMIYO RANJAN GANGUp

at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry-s-z

PRINTED IN INDIA

Earth cannot long resist the man whomHeaven has chosen:

Gods with him walk; his chariot is led;his arm is assisted.

SRI AUROBINDO

Vol. XXL No. 4 November, 1964•

;q~'-IENT 'The Divine gives itself to those who give themselveswithout reserve and in all their parts to the Divine.For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss,the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge,the sea. of Ananda. Sri Aurobindo,

EDITORIALS·

THE MOTHER'S COMMENTARY

ON

DHAMMAPADA

THE BHIKKHU

• It is good to control one's eye, good to control one's ear, goodto control one's nose, good to control one's tongue. (I)

It is good to control one's body, good to control one's speech,good to control one's mind; it isgood to have ,control every- •where. The Bhikkhu who has control everywhere is freedfrom all sorrows. (2)

* Based on the Mother's Talks.

5

6 THE ADVENT

One who has control over his hands, who has control over his, feet, who has control over his speech is the best among the

self- ontrolled; he is concentrated in the Spirit, whollyself-absorbed, lone and happy, he is indeed a Bhikkhu. (3)

The Bhikkhu who has his mouth controlled, who speaks aftertaking thought, who is not pretentious, who moves to thegoal and is on the path, possesses a sweet utterance. (4)

The Bhikkhu delights in the Path, he adheres to the Path, hecontemplates on the Path, he follows the Path, he 1U'Perfalls away from the Path. (5)

Do not despise your own gain, do not covet others' gain. Ifone desires others' gain, one never attains consolation. (6)

If one gains a little and does not despise the little gain thatis one's own, the gods praise him; for he lives a pure life .and is ever vigilant. (7)

One who has no attachment for any name and form and doesnot grieve at their disappearance, him they call a Bhikkhu.

(8)

One who moves as a friend, who is happy in Buddha's Laws,attains that happy seat of existence where all contingenciescease. (9)

o Bhikkhu, bailout your boat, thus it will become lighter.Even so, cast out your attachments and taints arid youwill attain Nirvana. (10) '

Cut out the fiue", conquer the other five. 2 Concentrate onthe five others". The Bhikkhu who is thus freed in a fivefoldway is said to have crossed the ocean waters. (II)

1 Ego, doubt, outward ceremonies, greed, ill-will .• Craving for the world of form, craving for the world of the formless, pride, mental

restlessness, ignorance.• Faith, energy, concentration, attentiveness, meditation, intelligence.

EDITORIALS

o Bhikkhu, -take to meditation, let there be no delusion, let notyour mind wander in objects of desire. Do not be lured'and swallow the redhot ball of iron and then get scorchedand lament, "Oh, I suffer I" (1;2)

One without knowledge can have no meditation and withoutmeditation one can have no knowledge. One who hasboth knowledge and meditation, can reach Nirvana. (13)

The Bhikkhu who has entered the house of emptiness, whose• mind is quieted, who clearly distinguishes the Divine

Law attains superhuman delight. (14)

Each time he concentrates on the appearance and disappear­ance of the contingents, he enjoys the happiness and delightof lhose who have attained immortality. (LS)

Such are the very first things for the Bhikkhu who has attainedthe right knowledge: control over the senses, content­ment, self-discipline according to the Code; choosingone among friends who leads constantly a pure life forthe good of all. (16)

Be hospitable and courteous and self-contented. So shall youend your suffering. (17)

A flowering plant sheds its witheredflowers, even so, 0 Bhikkhu,shedyour attachments, your likes and dislikes. (18)

Quiet. in body, quiet in speech, quiet in mind, deep in concen­tration, all world's desires ended, the Bhikkhu attainsperfect Peace. (19)

Move the self by the self, establish the self by tke self. Guardedby the self, always mindful, the Bhikkhu dwells inFelicity. (20)

7

8 TIm ADVENT

The self is the master of the self. The self is the refuge of the. self. Discipline your self, even as a dealer disciplines

a horse of breed. (21)

Full of happiness and delight in the pursuit of the Buddha'sdiscipline, the Bhikkhu attains the state of perfect peace,the Felicity that is cessation from all contingents. (22)

The young Bhikkhu who yokes himself to the Buddha­discipline illumines the world even like the moon freedfrom the clouds. (23)

ONE advice given here is that one should be always benevolent.It should not be taken like any other advice such as is given

usually. It says here an interesting, indeed, a very interesting thing.I comment, "Be always benevolent and you will be free fromsuffering, always contented and happy, you will radiate- your quiethappiness".

It is to be particularly noticed that all the digestive functionsare extremely sensitive to an attitude that is critical, bitter, full ofill-will, to a sour judgment. Just that only is sufficient to disturbthe functioning of your digestion. And it is a vicious circle, themore the digestive function is disturbed, the more you becomemalevolent, critical, dissatisfied with life and things and people.So you do not come out of it. And there is only one cure, to come outdeliberately, out of this attitude, to refuse absolutely to accept it andto impose upon oneself, through constant self-con rol, the con­scious attitude of all-comprehending benevolence. Just try and youwill see that you are keeping well much better.

NOLINI KANTA GUPTA

•

YOGA AND HYPNOTISM

WHEN the mind is entirely passive, then the force of Nature whichworks in the whole of animate and inanimate creation, has

free play; for it is in reality this force which works in man as well asin the sun and star. There is no doubt of this truth whether in Hindu­ism or in Science. This is the thing called Nature, the sum of cosmicforce and energy, which alone Science recognises as the source ofall work and activity. This also is the Prakriti of the Hindus to whichunder different names Sankhya and Vedanta agree in assigning asimilar position and function in ihe Universe. But the immediatequestion is whether this force can act in man independently of man'sindividual will and initiative. Must it a ways act through his volitionor has it li power of independent operation ? The first real proofwhich Science has had of the power of action independent of volitionis in the phenomena of hypnotism. Unfortunately the nature ofhypnotism has not been properly understood. It is supposed that by!5utting the subject to sleep the hypnotist is able in some mysteriousand unexplained way to substitute his will for the subject's. In acertain sense all the subject's activities in the hypnotic state are theresults of his own volition, but that volition is not spontaneous, it isused as a slave by the operator working through the medium ofsugges­tion. Whatever the hypnotist suggests that the subject shall think,act or feel, he thinks, acts or feels, and whatever the hypnotist suggeststhat the svbject shall become, he becomes. What is it that gives the

. operator this stupendous power? Why should the mere fact of aman passing into this sleep-condition suspend the ordinary reactionsof mind and body and substitute others at the mere word of the manwho has said to him, "Sleep" ? It is sometimes supposed that it is

•the superior will of the hypnotist which overcomes the will of theother and makes it a slave. There are two strong objections to thisview. It does not appear to be true that it is the weak and distractedwill that is most easily hypnotised; on the contrary the strong con­centrated mind forms a good subject. Secondly, if it were the opera-

9 -

10 THE ADVENT

tor's will using the will of the subject, then the results produced must' be such as the latter could himself bring about, since the capacitiesof the instrument cannot be exceeded by the power working throughthe instrument. Even ifwe suppose that the invading will brings withit its own force still the results produced must not exceed the sumof its capacity plus the capacity of the instrument. If they commonlydo so, we must suppose that it is neither the will of the operatornor the will of the subject nor the sum of these two wills that is active,but some other and more potent force. This is precisely what we seein hypnotic performance.

What ~s this force that enables and compels a weak man' to be­come so rigid that strong arms cannot bend him ? that reverses theoperations of the senses and abrogates pain ? that changes thefixed character of a man in the shortest periods ? that is able to deve­lop power where there was no power, moral strength where therewas weakness, health where there was disease? that in its highermanifestations can exceed the barriers of space and time and producethat far-sight, far-hearing and far-thinking which shows mind tobe an untrammelled agent or medium pervading the world and notlimited to the body which it informs or seems to inform. The Euro­pean scientist experimentng with hypnotism is handling forceswhich he cannot understand, stumbling on truths of which he cannotgive a true account. His feet are faltering on the threshold of Yoga.It is held by some thinkers, and not unreasonably if we considerthese phenomena, that mind is all and contains all. It is not the bodywhich determines the operations of the mind, it is the mind whichdetermines the laws of the body. It is the ordinary law of the bodythat if it is struck, pierced or roughly pressed it feels pain. This lawis created by the mind which associates pain with these contacts, andif the mind changes its dharma and is able to associate with thesecontacts not pain but insensibility or pleasure, then they will bringabout those results of insensibility or pleasure and no other. Thepain .and pleasure are not the result of the contact, neither is their'seat in the body; they are the result of association and their seat isin the mind. Vinegar is sour, sugar sweet, but to the hypnotised mindvinegar can be sweet: sugar sour. The sourness or sweetness is notin the vinegar or sugar, but in the mind. The heart also is the subject

YOGA AND HYPNOTISM II

of the mind. My emotions are like my physical feelings, the resultof association, and my character is the result of accumulated"past experiences with their resultant associations and reactions crys­tallising into habits of mind and heart summed up in the word,character. These things like all the rest that are made of the stuffof associations are not permanent or binding but fluid and mutable.Anityalz saruasamskdrah, If my friend blames me, I am grievedjthat is an association and not binding. The grief is not the result ofthe blame but of an association in the mind. I can change the associa­tion so far that blame will cause me no grief, praise no elation. I canentirely stop the reactions of joy and grief by the same. force thatcreated them. They are habits of mind, nothing more. In the sameway though with more difficulty I can stop the reactions of physicalpain and pleasure so that nothing will hurt my body. If I am acoward today, I can be a hero tomorrow. The cowardice was merelythe habit of associating certain things with pain and grief and ofshrinking from the pain and grief; this shrinking and the physicalsensations in the vital or nervous man which accompany it are calledfear, and they can be dismissed by the action of the mind whichcreated them. All these are propositions which European Science iseven now unwilling to admit, yet it is being proved more and more bythe phenomena of hypnotism that these effects can be temporarily atleast produced by one man upon another; and it has even beenproved that disease can be permanently cured or character permanent­ly changed by the action of one mind upon another. The rest willbe established in time by the development of hypnotism.

The difference between Yoga and hypnotism is that whathypnotism. does for a man through the agency of another and in the

. sleeping state, Yoga does for him by his own agency and in thewaking state. The hypnotic sleep is necessary in order to prevent theactivity.of the subject's mind full of old ideas and associations, frominterfering with the operator. In the waking state he would naturally"refuse to experience sweetness in vinegar or sourness in sugar or tobelieve that he can change from disease to health; cowardice to hero­ism by a mere act of faith; his establihed associations would rebelviolently against such contradictions of unive~ experience. Theforce which transcends matter would be hampered by the obstruction

12 TIlE ADVENT

of ignorance and attachment to universal error. The hypnotic sleepdoes-not make the mind a tabula rasa but it renders it passive to every­thing but the touch of the operator. Yoga similarly teaches thepassivity of the mind so that the will may act unhampered by the sans­karas or old associations. It is these sanskaras, the habits formed byexperience in the body, heart or mind, that form the laws of ourpsychology. The associations of the mind are the stuff of which our

. life is made. They are more persistent in the body than in the mindand therefore harder to alter. They are more persistent in the racethan in the individual; the conquest of the body and mind by theindividual ,is comparatively easy and can be done in the sp ace of asingle life, but the same conquest by the race involves the develop­ment of ages. It is conceivable, however, that the practice of Yogaby a great number of men and persistence in the practice by theirdescendants might bring about profound changes in human psycho­logy and, by stamping these changes into body and brain throughheredity, evolve a superior race which would endure andby the Jawof the survival of the fittest eliminate the weaker kinds of humanity.Just as the rudimentary mind of the animal has been evolved intothe fine instrument of the human being so the rudiments of higherforce and faculty in the present race might evolve into the perfectbuddhi of the Yogin.

Yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah, According as is a man's fixed andcomplete belief, that he is,-not immediately always but sooner orlater, by the law that makes the psychical tend inevitably to expressitself in the material. The will is the agent by which all these changesare made and old sanskaras are replaced by new, and the will cannotact without faith. The question then arises whether mind is the ulti­mate force or there is another which communicates with die .outside world through the mind. Is the mind the agent orsimply the instrument? If the mind be all, then it .is onlyanimals that can have the power to evolve; but this does notaccord with the laws of the world as we know them. The tree evolves,'the clod evolves, everything evolves. Even in animals it is evidentthat mind is not all ~n the sense of being the ultimate expression ofexistence or the ulrimate force in Nature. It seems to be all onlybecause that which is all expresses itself in the mind and passes every-

YOGA AND HYPNOTISM

thing through it for the sake of manifestation. That which we callmind is a medium which pervades the world. Otherwise we coultl not "have that instantaneous and electrical action of mind upon mind ofwhich human experience is full and of which the new phenomena ofhypnotism, telepathy etc. are only fresh proofs. There must becontact, there must be interpenetration if we are to account for thesephenomena on any reasonable theory. Mind therefore is held by the.Hindus to be a species of subtle matter in which ideas are waves orripples, and it is not limited by the physical body which it uses as aninstrument. There is an ulterior force which works through thissubtle medium called mind. All animal species develops. accordingto the modern theory, under the subtle influence of the environment.The environment supplies a need and those who satisfy the needdevelop a new species which survives because it is more fit. Thisis not the result of any intellectual perception of the need nor of aresolve to develop the necessary changes, but of a desire, oftenthough noe always a mute, inarticulate and unthought desire. Thatdesire attracts a force which satisfies it. What is that force? The ten­dency of the physical desire to manifest in the material change is oneterm in the equation; the force which develops the change in responseto the desire is another. We have will beyond mind which dictatesthe change, we have force beyond mind which effects it. Accordingto Hindu philosophy the will is the Jiva, the Purusha, the self in theAnandakosha acting through Vijnana, universal or transcendentalmind; this is what we call spirit. The force is Prakriti or Shakti, thefemale principle in Nature which is at the root of all action. Behindboth is the single Self of the universe which contains both Jiva andPrakriti, spirit and material energy. Yoga puts these ultimate exis-

. tences within us in touch with each other and by stilling the activityof the sanskaras or associations in mind and body enable them to actswiftly,.victoriously, and as the world calls it, miraculously. Inreality there is no such thing as miracle; there are only laws and pro­cesses which ate not yet understood. • •

Yoga is therefore no dream, no illusion or mystics. It is knownthat we can alter the associations of mind and body temporarily andthat the mind can alter the conditions of the body partially. Yogaasserts that these things can be done permanently and completely.

14 THE ADVENT

For the body conquest of disease, pain and material obstructions, forthe mind aberration from bondage to past experience and the heavierIimitations of space and time, for the heart victory over sin and griefand fear, for the spirit unclouded bliss, strength and illumination, thisis the gospel on Yoga, is the goal to which Hinduism points humanity.

SRI AUROBINDO

SRI AUROBINDO

SRI Aurobindo stands out as one of the greatest of our con-temporary Indian philosophers. Out of the fullness of his

spiritual experience, in solitude, for over three decades, he haspoured forth in verse and prose an imposing metaphysical systemembodying a grand ideal, and has outlined the way to attain it. Hismystical experience has revealed to him the secret of human existence,the sig1lificance of human life and the goal of man.

Sri Aurobindo's rich experience is explained to us in terms ofhuman reason and logical thought. The exposition is the work ofa commanding intellect, with a massive and astounding scholarship,that regales the most astute mind and, on occasion, baffles the bestof us. In the process of the exposition, he recaptures the dynamismand integral approach to Reality found in the Upanishads and theGita. His exposition is marked by arguments well sustained, closelyreasoned and forcefully expounded. He is, in his own words, "ametaphysician doubled with a Yogi". Our national poet Tagore in1'928 exclaimed on seeing Sri Aurobindo, "You have the Word andwe are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through yourvoice to the world".

At the end of Sri Aurobindo's memorable trial, ChittaranjanDas concluded his address to the jury with these prophetic words,"Long after this controversy is hushed in silence, long after this tur­moil, this agitation ceases, long after he is dead and gone, he willbe looked ~pon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism

. and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his wordswill be efhoed and re-echoed not only in India, but across distant seasand Iands."

These words have come true today. The triple sources of his'philosophical systems are the scriptures, his intense spiritual expe­rience, and human reasoning which explains it". We get the bestexposition of his system in his LifeDivine, Synthesis ofYoga, Savitri(the epic poem), Essays on the Gita, his translation and notes ofIsdodsyopanisad, and his volumes of Letters.

15

16 THE ADVENT

We have several accounts of his system from Eastern and 'West~rn writers. There are a few learned journals that discussin their pages the different aspects of his philosophy and the natureof the spiritual discipline he outlined and practised. Pondicherry,the place where Sri Aurobindo lived from 4th April, 1910 to 5thDecember, 1950, is a spiritual centre for many to pursue the disciplineof Sri Aurobindo's Yoga.

The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo is called the Integral Yogaor Puma Yoga. It is a pattern of monism, but not the same as that ofSankara. Ultimate Reality is not a homogeneous Pure-Consciousnessthat admits of no determination. Reality is rich and all embracing.It is Consciousness-Force, Truth and Bliss. It has three aspects:(I) The pure transcendent aspect, (2) the dynamic aspecf and(3) the manifestation aspect. All three represent the Divine indifferent poises, i.e., the static, the dynamic and the manifestatedaspects.

Sankara's monism does not accord reality to the world of mani­festation. There is the distinction between the phenomenal andnoumenal states. The phenomenal is the bridge we have to crossin order to realise Brahman. By negating the world of Samsara,man realises his true nature of Brahman. In the history of differentschools of Vedanta we find the one or the other aspect of Realityexplained in a significant manner.

According to Sri Aurobindo, Reality is an Infinite. The logic ofSri Aurobindo's Infinite is not based on the principle of exclusionof the finite. It is as an all-inclusive, rich Infinite. Intellectually,it is difficult to comprehend the nature of Reality that is Infinite.

The human intellect is fragmentary in its functioning and it isbound down by several limitations. "The intellect can only catchfragmentary representations of the Truth and not the entire thingitself". It cannot give us an integral experience. The natu~e of thehuman intellect as well as its conclusions are not absolutely certain.'There is variation in degree, relative to the things it studies. It canonly give us mediate knowledge and not immediate experience. Thefinal and the only means for the realisation of the Infinite is directexperience. The resulting philosophy, in terms of logic, is the faithfultranscription of the direct experience. Logic by itself is a very blunt

SRI AUROBINDO 17

Instrumenr. "It is all blade and no handle". It is futile to seek torealise or comprehend the Infinite in terms of Reason. Reason is .earth-bound and it cannot illumine the Spiritual.

Sri Aurobindo has built a unique system of logic round hf;concept of the Infinite. He writes, "The logic of the Infinite! is themagic of the finite"; ''When we have passed beyond all knowings, weshall have knowledge". The use of reason removes our initial scep­ticism, but in the end all speculative philosophical systems that solely "rely on mere intellect end on an agnostic note. That is the finding ofSri Aurobindo.

He. outlines four necessary factors for spiritual realisation.They are: (I) faith in Scriptures; (2) faith in the initiation of theGuru; (3) Utsiiha or the earnestness for spiritual realisation and(4) time. The ultimate Reality is seeped dynamically in all and isnot immutable. The dynamic Reality has of itself seeped into allthe grades of existence. It is found dormant in Matter, Life and inthe Mind.•They are divine manifestations.

Tn man, the degree of limitations with which the divine exis­tence is felt is great. He has a free will; he can will his ideas. He canlook before and after. Man has not merely to realise the life divinein-a Transcendent Absolute and merge his individuality in It. Mokshais not the flight into the Transcendent from the snares of the unrealmanifestations. It is not the setting aside of all that is other thanBrahman by negating it. It is not the partial affirmation of theTranscendent. Moksha, according to Sri Aurobindo, is an 'integral,positive affirmation of all'. It is the mighty attempt to divinise all.It does not exclude any aspect of Reality. Its logic is the logic ofcomprehensive inclusion and not one of negation.

Sri Aufobindo affirms out of the strength of his mystic experiencethat· the 'contraries' found in Reality are really complementaries.The different poises of the Absolute are complementary to oneanother and are not exclusive of one another. In a celebrated sentenceill The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo sets forth the ideal; "To knpw;possess and be the divine being in an animal, egoistic consciousness,to convert our twilit or obscure physical mentality into the plenarysupramental illumination, to build peace and a self-existent Blisswhere there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions besieged by2

'UtE ADVENT

physical and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom irr, a wosld which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to

discover and realise the immortal life in a body subjected to death andconstant mutation-this is offered to us as the manifestation of Godin matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution."

The mind of man or his reason is a limited instrument. It isgroping its way and so it cannot give us the knowledge of ultimate

"T ruth. Consciously, man must surrender his will to the Supermindwhich Sri Aurobindo variously calls the Real idea. "It is a power ofConscious-Force expressive of real being, born out of real being, andpartaking of its nature, and neither a child of void nor a weaver offictions. It is Conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable formsof Its own imperishable and immutable substance."

The Supermind is not the personal God of the theist. It is DivineWill. Its descent alone can transform human existence into divineglory. Man has to stand aside and willingly make room for thedescent of the Supermind. The self-emptying must be done beforethe Divine filling takes place. The Supermind is a divine level ofconsciousness. It alone can impose a complete and radical re­integration of human personality. It goes without saying that thisattainment is not an easy task. There are conditions to be fulfilledfor this transformation from the human to the divine. It requiresintense spiritual Sadhana. The concept of the Supermind is centralto Sri Aurobindo's philosophy.

The ideal of Sri Aurobindo is not the narrow goal of individualliberation. It aims at total transformation. It is the most powerfulchallenge to mdyd-udda from a contemporary philosopher. SriAurobindo describes the beings who are divine as gnostic beings. Hepleads for a total transformaion of man. Sri Aurobindo's -Yoga is themost comprehensive one. It is a call to unreservedly surrenderourobstinate and recalcitrant wills to the Supermind. "It grips thethought, feeling and will of man and, forging them into an organicunity round the soul-centre, lifts them all into the embrace of theDivine. It is a Iife-transforming Yoga, purporting to fulfill the Time­Spirit by realising the ideal of human unity and divine perfection ofhuman life."

The philosophy of Sri Aurobindo represents a great synthesis

SRI AUROBINDO 19.'t>fthe best in the East and the West. It reconciles the praurtti miirgaand the niurtti miirga into an integral Yoga.

His literary output goes into dozens of volumes. They representa rich variety and a refreshing originality. In India's fight for free­dom Sri Aurobindo was the first to awaken the masses in'Bengalthrough the fiery columns of hi s Bande Mataram and Karmayogin.Politics and Idealism are combined in these. Sri Aurobindo madeclear to the world the role of India and what she stands for in the­comity of nations. His work on the 'Foundations of Indian Culture'is a classic on the subject. He gives the finest counsel to all reformersin these.worlds ; " All that we do or create must be consistent with theabiding spirit of India, but framed to fit into a greater liarmonisedrhythm and plastic to the call of a more luminous future ....Therecannot be a healthy and victorious survival if we make of the past afetish, instead of an inspiring impulse."

P. NAGARA]A RAo

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

CHAPTER IV

PAINTING

From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

WE have studied the revolution brought about in science andphilosophy from the Renaissance to the time of Newton. We

propose now to make a brief and rapid survey of the revolution in thefine arts-painting, sculpture, music and literature-so that we mayarrive at a fairly accurate understanding of the general trends ofmodern culture and civilisation, and something also of the-forces that,emerging from the welter of the present, tend towards the creationof the future.

A detached study of the basic cultural trends has one greatadvantage that it does not split the ages into discrete compartmencs,but recognises the historical process as a single, indivisible stream,throwing up various manifestations of its potentialities, some of whichmay appear as continuous and some as disparate and even 'contradic­tory, but all of which are essentially linked together by a subtlerelation of inner unity and harmonious development. Our percep­tion of discrepancies and contradictions is due to our inability tograsp the historical process in its totality.

The Renaissance was contained in seed form and had evenbegun sprouting in its vital elements in the latter part of the MiddleAges. It was not a complete break away from its parent, but a revo­lutionary escape from its crumbling structure of decay towards thefreshness, buoyancy, and exuberant vigour of a renewed life an-dyouthful vitality. >It repudiated not authority, but perverted andpalsied authority, and it stressed liberty which, however, oftentended to overshoot itself and lapse into licence. It rejected theauthority of Aristotle and the Scholastics only to replace it by the

20

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE 21

authority of Plato and other ancient Greek and Roman masters, and _betrayed in its method of working much of the characteristics of theSchool Men. And yet it broke fresh ground, and opened new vistasof progress and perfection. Progress is a continuity from the. old tothe new, marked by a shedding off of what has outlived its timeand utility and only dodders in its sanctimonious decrepitude, and 'the taking in of new ideals and forces that create the future. There­are always steps of transition even in what appears as an abrupt inno­vation or a wholesale rejection of the past.

The art of painting touched the highest peak of perfection inthe High Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, Mona Lisa,and Virgin of the Rocks, Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Cha­pel, and Raphael's Madonnas are some of the achievements in West­ern painting that have never been excelled in any of the succeedingages. The secret of their art, and the real difference between theirart and that of the Mediaeval Times was a superb combination of agenuine religious feeling, unfettered by any dogmatic orthodoxy,with a scientific naturalism, which was the distinctive feature of thespirit of Renaissance Modernism. The religious feeling is more paganthan Christian, in that it was unorthodox and unconventional, and,more pantheistic than theistic in the strict Christian sense. Theirpaintings were religious in theme, but intuitive in inspiration andconception. They were psychological, and not only outwardly realis­tic. Particularly, in Leonardo's paintings, it is not Nature as oursenses see that he portrays, but Nature is made a symbol to expresssomething which was visible to the inner eye of the painter. Though

• his Mona Lisa is a portrait of the wife of a contemporary Neopolitan,it is not a WIotographic picture. It is a portrait of universal woman­hood, "a perpetual life sweeping together ten thousand experiences,"as an art critic has said.

Here, too, we find that this symbolic and scientifically psycho­logical naturalism did not spring, like Minerva -from the head ofJ~piter, full-fledged and mature, out of the heads of the artists of' theHigh Renaissance. It had its origin in the latter pa.rt of the Mediae­val Ages. Even Leonardo's technique of chiaroscuro, which hedeveloped to a remarkable extent, was anticipated by Masaccio,whose work also breathes a spirit of universalism and is marked by a

22 THE ADVENT

unity of action. Fra Lippo Lippi also gave a psychological treatmentto his pictures, and "seems to have been the first to have made theface the mirror of the soul." His most accomplished pupil, Botti­celli, further developed the method of psychological analysis, and wasmainly concerned in his drawings with the spiritual beauty of thehuman soul. All this proves that the Renaissance had really begun

- in the closing part of the Mediaeval Ages, and was only a revolu­tionary advance from the out-worn and effete ways of its theology­ridden, conformist parent. But it carried with it not only the bloodof its parent in its veins, but much of its creative talent and funda­mental powers in its nature and character.

Michelangelo (1475-1564), a contemporary of Leonardo, was atowering figure of his times, both as a painter and a sculptor. I havealready referred to his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.His "Last Judgment" behind the altar of the Chapel is considered tobe his most brilliant performance. He had little to do with the outeraspects of Nature, but took as his subject the tragic dignity and nobi­lity of human nature. He represents the ideal of the Greek dramatists,an ideal which had a special appeal to the mind of RenaissanceHumanism. Though he took Christian legends as his subject, histreatment of them was pagan. He was inspired by a vision of theuniversal tragedy of which man is a noble victim.

Next to Michelangelo, it is Raphael (1483-1520) who deservesmention. He represents a most striking humanistic tendency of theage, its direct appeal to the heart of man, not so much by the gloryand sublimity of thought or deep and subtle emotion as by the simplebeauty of human life and its normal interests. He presents, therefore,a contrast to the tragic pathos of Michelangelo's artistic creations,and was acclaimed as a very popular artist of the times. But .h e,-too,later, came under the influence of Leonardo's psychological andanatomical methods, and his Madonnas and his portrait of BaldassareCastiglione owe much to Leonardo's genius. .

• The palm of popularity then passed on to the Venetian School ofpainting, and the' Venetian painters registered some of the notableachievements of Renaissance art. Titian (1477-1576) and Tintoretto(1518-1594) showed in their distinguished and mature creations tracesof the Byzantine technique, and revelled in the splendours of physical

SRI AUROBINDO AND THE NEW AGE

Nature and the pomp and glamour of the luxurious Venetians. They.took little interest in the psychological and religious preoccupationsof the Florentine school. Their success is due to the secular and non­religious themes of their paintings and the introduction of oil colour,Though they had mastered some of the techniques of the Florentinemasters, they preferred to cater to the tastes of the voluptuousVenetians. The Venetian school evinces a definite drift towards the­materialistic predilections of Humanism.

It is interesting to note that Renaissance painting passed througha cross-current of various Humanistic tendencies and is representedby the -Fiorentine, Venetian, Flemish, German Schools- etc.; aridthough it could not entirely shake off the traces of the Florentineinfluence, it turned more and more towards the secular and mate­rialistic interests of life. All the schools developed in their nativeendowments, and contributed something distinctive to the Renais­sance art. The forces of the past, present, and future were interactingto produce'what we know as the Modern Art. The break with reli­gion and spiritul values, and the gradual progress towards rationalisticmaterialism, which we have already seen in the other spheres ofthe creations of Renaissance Humanism, are also the dominantfeature of Renaissance painting. The idealistic, intuitive, spiritually­responsive past, grown dim and clouded in its perceptions anddecrepit in body, recedes into the background, and the young, vigo­rous present, flushed with victory, and waving the standard of revolt,marches towards the conquest of the material world. The Spiritfades out of the mind of man, so that it may more powerfully,because invisibly inspire him to woo and win, and eventually spiri­tualise Matter. The discovery and revelation of the Spirit in Matteris the mission of the human soul on earth.

(To be continued)RISHABHCHANQ

"READ IN G S IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

IT was at the court of Janaka.• Monarch of Videha, Janaka was a model man who had coveredhimself with glory both in the material as well as the spiritual realms.He was a sage in his own right having arrived at great heights ofBrahmic realisation and yet ever avid for fresh gains of the ,Know­ledge of the Infinite. He was known for the felicity with which hepresided over the destinies of his kingdom in all pomp and regalia,keeping himself all the while steeped in the depths of the Self andradiating the light of the soul in the affairs of the State. Legend hasit that once when his attendants rushed to him to announce that thepalace was on fire, he refused to leave the work on hand saying"even if the whole of Mithila were on fire nothing of meIs burnt".He was revered and loved. Rishis, scholars, minstrels all flocked toto his court, eager to participate, to drink at the fountain of his wisdomin his assemblies which were famous in those days. It was at one ofsuch gatherings on the occasion of a great Yajna conducted by theking that learned brahmanas from states far and wide had gathered.'Eager to know which of them was the foremost among the knowersand inculcators of Brahman, Janaka announced that he who was mostestablished in the knowledge of Brahman could claim the specialprize of the day-a thousand radiant cows with their horns studdedeach with ten pieces of gold.

Who would come forward? None of the brahman s dared tostake a claim. Yajnavalkya, the celebrated teacher, was present;Casually he turned to his disciple and addressed him: "Samasravadear, drive home these cattle".

Samasravas drove the cattle home..The whole assembly of brahmanas was in consternation. "How

dare he style hiniself as the most Brahman-knowing of us ?" theyasked in anger. Aswala, the high priest in the court of Janaka, chal-

1 Ill. I

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 25

lenged Yajnavalkya : "Yajnavalkya, you are the most Brahman-wiseamong us, aren't you ?" • •

"We bow to the Brahman-wise, all that we want is the cowsonly" replied Yajnavalkya. .

Aswala the priest then decided to subject him to severe question-ing.

"Yajnavalkya," he asked "all this is pervaded by Death; all issubject to Death. By what means is the Yajamana, Sacrificer, liberatedbeyond the reach of Death? Yajnavalkya is quick with his answer.Inheritor of the Vedic tradition that he is, it comes naturally to himto see "the solution of the problem of life in the institution of Yajna,Sacrifice, which the Vedic forefathers had built up as the one meansof linking up mortal life with the immortal. No doubt by the timeof the Upanishads the real significance of the Yajna was alreadygetting obscured to sight behind the growing paraphernalia of ritual.That is why Yajnavalkya does not stop saying that by sacrifice onecrosses o'O'er Death. He is concerned to underline the inner truthof the ceremony and draw attention to the conditions under whichalone the Yajna could be effective for the purpose in view. Now, asis well known, the Yajna is carried on with the help of priests, differ­ent kinds of mantras and particular offerings of wealth etc. That theouter ceremony is only the supporting and expressive symbol of aninner proceeding which forms the real life and soul ofthe performanceis indicated by the names chosen for these constituents of the sacri­fice. As Shri Kapali Sastriar points out in his Rigveda Bhashya :

"The Ritviks (officiating priests) carry out the sacrificialfunction in the right place at the right time and help the

• Yajmana (the individual living soul with personality engagedin the sacrifice) throughout from the beginning to the endof she sacrifice. The meaning of its component parts is aptsignifying, as it does, the Sacrificers (Ya~tiiral; means wor­shippers also) who worship, yaj, in due season, rtu. There'are four orders or groups of these rtviks in the somayiiga(worship) viz.: hotr, adhvaryu and brqhma....The hotdrecites the riks. The summoning of the Gods by means ofthe riks is accomplished by him. Hence the hotii is the same

26 THE ADVENT

as Summoner, ahvata. By uttering the riks which manifestth~ Divine Word, he brings to proximity the Presence of the

. Gods. The import is clear in the inner sacrifice. Such a hotd. (summoner) is no human priest, but a Divine Priest. The

Brahmanas consider the Divine Being Himself to be the realpriest, purohita, placed in front. The yajiiikas speak of thethree worlds, Earth, Sky and Heaven, as the supporters infront, and Agni, Vayu and Aditya as the Purohitas (Priests)placed in front ....That is why Agni is lauded as the 'DivineRitvik, Hota in the front', in the first rik of the Rig Veda ofwhich Madhuchhandas is the seer. And it is this Agni whois sung hundreds of times in the Veda as the Messenger ofthe Gods, the Immortal in the mortals."The second is the adhvaryu taking his stand on the Yajurveda.He sees to the performance of theyajiia by means of the yajus,leads the other rtviks in accordance with the manual of yajiiaand it is on him, the active and chief functionary, that the' entire .performance of sacrifice rests ....Though the word adhvarahas come to mean sacrifice, yajiia, yet in the Veda followingthe meaning of its component parts-adhvanam rati, givesthe path-adhvara is described as journey or pilgrimage.And the diligent adhvaryu is he who desires and takes tosuch an adhvara journey. Among all the Gods in the form ofrtviks it is whe who carries out all the action in thejourney-signified by the term adhvara."The last is Brahma. He is the Witness of the entire sacrificialceremony, gives his sanction for the commencement of theritual, gives the word of assent, Om (0 Yes) at the apprppriatemoment and place, moves not from his seat and always silent .he guards the sacrifice, to the very end of its ceremony, againstevery sin of omission or commission, of deficiency or excessof mantra and action in the ritual. Such, in brief, is thefunction of the Ritvik Brahma. The inner sense is obvious;the symbolic meaning is unveiled and clear. He is the Godof the Mantras and in the Veda the Mantra is known asBrahma. Hence- the causal material of all metrical mantra ispra1Java, known by the syllable Om, the word of assent. That

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 27

manifests the original word which is the source of all mantra.So it is Brahmanaspati, the deity presiding over the Mantrasof all Deities, which depend upon the aforesaid pranaoa, :that sanctions in supreme silence the inner yajiia of the'yajamiina by a single syllable, at the beginning, at the end,all throughout".

A Yajna, says Yajnavalkya, in which the sacrificer is consciousof these inner significances, the true roles of the participants, is thesure means to cross beyond the reach of Death. He declares that theliberation is attained through the hotti, the priest (Ritvik), who in­tones the Word of call through viik, the inspired speech of the Sum­moner, through Agni the ancient priest of call. For the viik is the realhotr, summoner; the viik itself is Agni, not only in principle, tattwa,but also in its impulsion; and Agni is the time-honoured hotd, theinvoker supreme. When this identity between the hotd, viik andAgni is realised and made a living . knowledge in the performanceof the Yajna, then is attained liberation, absolute liberation.

Aswala proceeds to ask another question: "Yajnavalkya, all thisis pervaded by Day and Night, all subject to Day and Night; by whatineans is the Yajamana liberated beyond the reach ofDay and Night?"How to get beyond Time, the swallower of all, the solar time measuredby Day and Night? Yajnavalkya replies that is done through theadhvaryu, the Ritwik who conducts the Yajna, through the eye thatsees and holds all in its vision, through Aditya, the Sun-God whopresides over the procession of moments and events; for the seeingeye is the adhvaryu who performs; the eye functions because of thesource of. light that presides over it, the Aditya; and this Aditya isthus the real adhvaryu who makes possible the successful conductof the sacrifice. When this identity between the adhvaryu, the eye,and the Aditya is realised and made a living knowledge in the per-

.formance of the Yajna, then is attained liberation, absolute liberation.What about lunar time? asks Aswala, "Yajnavalkya, all this is

pervaded by the bright-half and the dark, all is subject to the bright­half and the dark; by what means is the Yajaraana liberated beyondthe reach of the bright-half and the dark ?" Through the Udgatriwho chants the melodies that enspell the gods in their rhythms,

28 THE ADVENT

through prii1J.fZ the life-force, through viiy.l the Air, says Yajnavalkya.For it is the life-force, prdna, that is the propelling power in the chantthe real udgatr of the Yajna; and this life-force is again derived fromthe cosmic Vayu, Air; and Vayu it is who is thus the basic strengthof the udgatr, When this identity between the udgatr, the priina,and the Vayu is realised and made a living knowledge in the perfor­mance of the Yajna, then is attained liberation, absolute liberation.

Aswala has another query: "Yajnavalkya, this mid-world is asif without a support. By what support then does the Yajamanaattain to the world of Swar ?"

Yajnavalkya carries the context of the sacrifice still furthe'r. Hereplies: "Through Brahma, the Ritwik who assents, through the forceof his mind which receives the supreme direction; through the moonwhose healing rays pour the balm of the Spirit." For the pure mindit is that is the real Brahma who receives and gives the password toproceed; and this mind is presided over by the Moon with which ithas a corresponding relation; and thus the Moon is in effect theBrahma. When this identity between the Brahma, the donor of theassent, the mind which receives and transmits the Word, and theMoon who presides over both is realised and made a living know­ledge in the performance of the Yajna, then is attained the liberation;absolute liberation.

Thus far about liberation. Aswala then turns to the subject ofacquirements through sacrifice. For it was understood that thehymns used at different periods of the ritual, the various offeringsmade at different junctures, all these operated in different directionsto evoke different results, secular and spiritual, all to the enrichmentof the seeker. It is not necessary for our purpose to go into the fulldetails of the dialogue on this subject. Suffice it to say that Yajna­valkya points out that there are three kinds of Riks, chanted by theHotri, those that precede the actual sacrifice; those that accompanyits performance and those that are for purposes of eulogy; these three .go to -win the worlds of the living for the sacrificer. There are alsothree kinds of hymns of eulogy sung by the Udgatri,-introductory,accompanying and the benedictory-which correspond to the threebreaths in the body--prii1J.fZ (in-breath), apdna (out-breath) andvyiina (diffused breath)-and win for the sacrificer the three worlds

READINGS IN THE BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD 29.

• of the earth, the atmosphere and the heaven. Similarly, he refersto three kinds of offerings : those that flame up in their brightnessof force, those that reverberate, those that sink down, winningrespectively the shining world of the gods, the looming worldof the manes and the lower world of men. By which gOGS is thesacrifice protected ? By the pristine Mind that is close to infiniteand a veritable form of the cosmic godhead; by meditating on thistruth of the infinity and divinity of the Mind at work in the sacrificeone gains the world infinite.

M, P. PANDIT

SPACE AND TIME

THE young mind was in quandary. On the one hand, grandfatherwas never tired of telling that "God exists always and every­

where"; the science teacher on the other hand was no less emphaticthat "two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time".Who was in the wrong? Grandfather ? Impossible; how couldsuch a dear thing as grandfather be ever in the wrong? Not thescience teacher either; for did he not make the experiment .beforeyour eyes, not once but many times until you nodded your head tosay that you understood everything? Fortunately, help came froman unsuspected source. The class children were taken to a movie.It was Bhakta Dhruva. The story unfolds; Dhruva is all alone insemi-darkness, in a thick forest. He is surrounded by wild beasts.Thoroughly frightened, you grip the edge of the seat and vicariouslysuffering with Dhruva's plight your heart goes out in an anguishedprayer to God to manifest then and there and save the child beforethe ferocious beasts decide to eat him up. There is a blinding flashon the silent screen (talkies had not made their debut), and theresplendent figure of Lord Narayana descends from above beforethe calm, serene-faced lad. There is a thunderous applause andwiping of tears and in the self-same moment your confidence is re­stored both in the grandfather and the science teacher ! God doesexist and He lives somewhere if not everywhere, at any rate, nearenough to hear your prayers. Here was a problem neatly solved forthe juvenile mind, but it was the beginning of a more serious one­the problem of Space and Time.

Space and Time are the most pervasive features of our normalexperience. Probably because of this, our notions of them are alltoo facile. Space is commonly regarded as something that is' aroundus and above us and Time as something that flows on for ever. Need­less to say that this js an idealisation and an over-simplification of thereal structure of Space and Time.

For ordinary understanding, Space is defined as an extensionin which material objects stand or move; it is also the distance between

3°

SpACE AND TIME

.• objects. Time too like Space, is an extension, but an extension ot:

events; it is the measure ofduration which holds a succession of t:ventsof all kinds. Space is a static extension for it holds objects and thingsin a fixed order, whereas Time holds and contains succession of eventsand movements and is therefore a mobile extension. For a binocularvision Space is an extension in three dimensions-east-west, south­north, up-down. When an object is very far from observer's sight andthe binocular vision does not convey the idea of distance, Space isperceived as two-dimensional. Time has, however, only one dimen­sion, i.e. length.

These definitions, satisfactory as far as they go, are quite inade­quate to meet the demands of a scientific, philosophic or a meta­pysical enquiry. A number of questions arise. Are Space andTime independent of each other or are they related ? Are they finiteor are they infinite ? Are Space and Time purely subjective, orunreal, or partly so ? Or have they an objective reality? How areSpace and Time related to the Absolute, or the supreme Spirit orth; Atman ? And finally what is the true nature of Time which, inthe words of Sri Aurobindo, "presents itself to human effort as anenemy or a friend, as a resistance, a medium or an instrument ?"

There is no denying the fact that the advancement of physicalsciences has greatly contributed to the sum of human happiness. Itis easy to foresee that this development will not only be maintainedbut even stepped up; new heights will be scaled and vaster dimen­sions encompassed. There is no limit to progress. But in so far asany branch of physical science or a purely material philosophy basedon it glorifies Mind o(Matter exclusively, it is unlikely that science orphilosophy will arrive at the true truth of things. Its highest or nob­lest efforts'are but glimmers, sometimes brilliant, but glimmers none-

. theless. The reason for this is obvious; Mind is not the last term;beyond. Mind is an Omnipresent Reality against which scienceknocks at every turn, in every instance, but as long as it is unwilling'or unable to reckon with this Reality science keeps postulating onetheory after another to explain what has remained unexplained.Ifit was either yesterday, it is Space-Time today, and probably itwill be something else tomorrow. .

This is so with the concepts of Space and Time. There has

THE ADVENT

been an illustrious line of scientists, mathematicians, philosophersand metaphysicians from the earliest times who have treated! thissubject exhaustively but it cannot be confidently said that with theutmost stretching of the logical intellect they have finally arrived atthe truth of Space and Time. And yet more than 3000 years ago theUpanishad has declared the profound truth: "Brahman is thestable and mobile, the internal and the external, all that is near and allthat is far whether spiritually or in the extension of Time and Space".This profound truth is reaffirmed in our own times by Sri Aurobindo:

There is the unmanifest and there is the manifestation, buta manifestation of the Real must itself be real; there is theTimeless and there is the process of things in Time, butnothing can appear in Time unless it has a basis in the Time­less Reality.... Space is the self-conceptive extension of the oneBeing; it is the one spiritual Existence displaying the fieldof movement of its Consciousness-Force in its own self asSpace.

Before pursuing the subject further from the spiritual pointof view, it is useful to review briefly a few representative theories,with special reference to Newton's and Einstein's conceptions ofSpace and Time.

Whatever may have been the philosophical attitudes of the Baby­lonians and Egyptians towards Space and Time they were certainlyin possession of systematic methods of measuring them. The Greeks,true to their type, were more interested in the 'why' than in the'how' of things, and their mathematical study which gave the worldEuclidean geometry brought with prominence the concepts ofSpace and Time. In Aristotle's view, the total space of the universeis finite, though it is infinitely divisible. Space is connected withbodies; there is no space where there are no bodies. The universeconsists of earth, sun and the stars-a finite number of bodies.Beyond the sphere of stars there i~ no space; therefore the space ofthe universe is finite,

Corning to later times, it is recorded that Nicholas of Cusa wasthe first modern to discuss the nature of Space and Time. H e heldthat Space and Time originated in the mind of man and represented

SPACE AND TIME 33

realities inferior to the mind. Giordono Bruno thought that all motion"was relative (which Einstein later established) and denied absoluteSpace and Time. Leibnitz believed that Space and Time existedonly relative to objects and not in their own right. These thinkersthus reduced Space and Time to conceptive and perceptive space andtime; physical space and time had no real existence and absolutespace was out of the question.' •

According to Kant Space and Time have no real existence oftheir own. They are not empirical concepts, i.e. derived from ouroutward experience. They are a priori representations, Space servingfor the representation of external perception and Time serving for therepresentation of internal perception. In other words, Space andTime are not objectively real; they are only a subjective appearanceunder which a reality which is itself non-spatial and non-temporalis apprehended by outer senses.

In opposition to these theories Newton assumed that Space andTime were neither dependent on the consciousness nor was onerelated to the other. Space and Time each existed in its own right.According to his theory, Space is an independent reality, spread outin all directions from moment to moment simultaneously and existingeven before the material universe first appeared and ostensiblycontinuing even after the dissolution of the universe. Time is alsoa fundamental reality; it is measured by events such as the successiveswings of a pendulum or the movement ofsun, moon or other heavenlybodies. "Events occupy time very much like body occupies space".Time in its own nature is independent of events.

1 Sir James Jeans classifies Space (also Time) Into four categories: 1. Conceptual Spaceis the space atab stract geometry; it exists in the mind of man creating it. It may be Euclidean

..or ~on-Euclidcan, three-dimensional or multi-dimensional; 2. Perceptual Space is the spaceof a conscious being who is experiencing or recording sensation. We feel an object and our senseof touch su~gests that it is of certain shape and size, we see a collection of objects and our visionsuggests that these objects stand in certain relation to one another. We feel that we can reconcile\hese and all other suggestions of our senses by imagingining all objects arranged in a 3-f411dordered aggregate which we then call Space. 3. Physical Sp ace is the space of physics anti astro­nomy. Conceptual Space and Perceptual Space are both private spaces, the oncbeing private to athinker and the other to a percipient. Science however finds that the pattern of events in the outerworld is consistent with and can be employed by the supposition thilt material objects are perma­nently located in and move about in a public place which is the .same for all observers. 4.Absolute Space is a particular type of physical space which Newton introduced to form thebasis of his system of mechanics.

3

34 'tHE ADVENT

Newton also postulated the theory of absolute Space and Time."All objects can be placed in absolute space which remains alwayssimilar and immovable and all events can be assigned a positionuniquely and objectively in an ever-flowing stream of absolute time".But the assumption of absolute space implies the existence of somefixed points of reference from which to measure the motion. Can

-these positions be found in'the universe ?

Suppose a man travels a distance of ten miles in a motor caralong the road, say between two fixed points located on theground. In the time it takes the car to cover the distance,' theearth Carrying the car along with it may have carried thetraveller through space 100 miles to the east by its dailyrotation round its axis, and may have moved 10000 miles in itsyearly orbit round the sun, while the sun, dragging the earthalong with i~ may have moved 100000 miles nearer to thenearest star and 1000ooo miles farther away from a -d istan tnebula. All these motions which are equally true and realare however relative to some other moving body. A fixedposition in space cannot therefore be located for measurementof absolute motion.

It was not that Newton was unaware of the above difficulty, buthe presumed that the remotest parts of the universe were occupiedby vast masses which might provide fixed points of reference fromwhich to measure motion while themselves providing standards ofabsolute rest. In order to save the theory of absolute Space laterscientists introduced the concept of Ether, a hypothetical substance,all-pervading and immobile, which could provide the fixed pointsin space. However, attempts to establish the existence of ezherhave proved largely negative.

With the advent of the theory of Relativity notable changes inthe concept of Space and Time have taken place. Firstly, the New­tonian concepts of absolute Space and Time are discarded, also thehypothetical ether on which so much hopes had been placed. Thisdoes not mean that .the idea of absolute Space has been abandoned;only the term "absolute" takes on a meaning different to that assignedto it by Newton. According to the Relativity theory, Space and

•SPACE AND TIME , 35

'Time are not absolute and independent terms. Space is relative to.Time, Time is relative to Space; both Space and Time are relative tothe position of the observer or his instrument. Two events whichappear simultaneous to one observer may appear successive toanother observer moving differently in Space. .

If we could travel in an airplane with a speed comparablewith that of light, our length in the direction of motion asmeasured by an observer on the earth would appear to becontracted, our mass would seem greater, and our time scaleslower than usual. But we ourselves should be unconscious ofthese changes. Our foot rule might have shrunk, but as we andall our surroundings would have shrunk also, we should notperceive the change. Our pound weight might have g reatermass but so should we. Our clock might go slower but theatoms of our brains would move more slowly also and again

.we should not know. But such motion is only relative, theobserver on the earth is moving relatively to us at the samerate as we are to him. Hence we should find on measuringthat his scales of length, mass and time are not absolute quan­tity. Their true physical values are what the measurementsindicate. The fact that they are not the same to everybodyshows that they can only be defined relatively to one speci­fied observer.

The implication of this is that you cannot really say at what speeda thing is moving; all you can say is how much faster a thing is movingthan something else. "There is no difference whatever between notmoving at" all and moving steadily at say a million miles an hour

• as'long as everything is moving with you at the same speed. If theearth is dashing through space at twelve miles a second it makes nodifference to anything on the earth as long as it meets nothing from'outside the earth."

Thus, according to the theory of Relativity" each observer hashis own Space and Time in which he places events, but the spacesand times of different observers do not vary m.random; they varyaccording to precise equations which depend upon the relative uni­form motion of the observers in space. Further, "although different

'tHE ADVENT

,ob serv ers inhabit different spaces and times they all inhabit the sameSpace-time". By Space-time is meant a fusion of the three-dimen­sional space with the one dimensional time resulting in 4-dimensionalcontinuum or distance which is called 'interval'. Different observersdisagree as to the space separating two events and as to the timeseparating two events, but they. all 'get the same value for the intervalseparating two events. This is the four-dimensional distance of twoevents which is the absolute characteristic of them. It is not Spaceand time taken separately but space-time which is absolute; inother words, the 4-dimensional continuum is one in which it is impos­sible to separate Space from Time in any absolute manner. They areso completely interlocked together and so perfectly merged into onethat the laws of nature make no distinction between them just as onthe cricket field length and breadth are so perfectly merged into onethat the flying cricket ball makes no distinction between them,

\treating the field merely as an area in which length and breadth havelost all meaning. •

The Relativity theory further states that the space in which welive is not governed by the laws of Euclidean geometry. It conformsmore to the spherical geometry of Riemanns. Thus the universe iscurved and finite, not in the sense that the universe has boundaries-it does not stop short anywhere-but in the sense that the surfaceof a sphere closes on itself and is unbounded. "A traveller on theearth's surface who started out at a particular location and travelledin a straight line would ultimately return to his starting-point, simi­larly if he travelled long enough with a ray of light around the uni­verse he would perhaps return to his starting-point. Space,boundless to Newton, now seems to be finite, curved by the presenceof scattered matter."!

1 We may refer in passing to the views of a few more thinkers on the subject of Space an dTime. The list is, of course, by no me ans exhaus tive . Descart es and Spin oza di~agree withN~wton's emphasis on the ab soluteness of Space and T ime and th e rec eptacle theory derived fr omit . Newton's Space and Time are et ern al exi stents and would remain even if emptied of allobjects and happenings. aut Descartes' Space cannot be empty Sp ace. H e contends that Spaceis essentially an attribute of matter and the es sence of Time is dur ation. In Spinoza's view m atteris not an independent substance; it is a m odifica . f Space, Space itself 'being an attribute, notof matter as contended by Descartes, but of an inf'mite substance or exten sion which people callGod. Bergson disparages the concept of static Space and holds th at T ime is the fundamental,ultimately real creative principle which is absolutely free from spatiality. To cite one more

•SPACE AND TIME

•37

We shall now turn our attention to the concept of Space ansiTime in the light of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the ./Viother.At once the subject assumes considerable practical importance:For whatever can be said in favour of physical sciences and of theirachievements in diverse fields of thought and action, most of themsuffer from one fundamental drawback-their unwillingness to postu­late the existence of an Omnipresent Reality which is the basis or thepivotal point of all relativities. This fallacy vitiates their reasoningand their approach and incapacitates them from the very outset inarriving at an integral Truth of things, with the result the materialsciences and their philosophies are full of fumblings and shortcomingsand the truths they arrive at are only partial and fragmentary. Thisis not saying that there have been no spiritual philosophies in the West.Barrow, for instance, affirms that the efficient cause of all things isGod. One of the important attributes of geometrical magnitude isthat they occupy Space. "What is Space" Barrow asks, and hisanswer is-refreshing: "It is impious to regard Space as real existenceindependent of God. If we discover the proper relations betweenSpace and God we can truthfully ascribe a real existence of Space.God can create worlds beyond this world hence God must extendbeyond matter, and it is just this super-abundance of the Divine Pre­sence and Power that we mean by Space. Time is not a metaphysicallyindependent entity. There is an infinite and everlasting God whoseexistence beyond the world involves Space and whose continued lifebefore the creation of things in motion involves Time. It is justbecause they are caught up in the interchangeable divine nature thatSpace and Time possess that clarity and fixity which make it possiblewith the exactness by their aid sensible magnitudes and motions".

. Aqd he succinctly sums up "Space and Time are nothing but theomnipresent and the eternal duration of God."

(To be continued)KEsHAVAMUR'n

view on the subject, Prof. Alexander maintains that Space-time is tlle primordial reality, thesim ples t and the most fundamental stuff from which all things have progressively evolved in anas cending o rder. Thus Space-time gave rise to life, consciousness and Deity. Whilst to manythinkers Space and Time are the creations of mind, to Alexander mi~d is the creation of Space­time.

LIFE DIVINE: SOME ASPECTS

(Conid.)

II

TH E Life Divine presents so many avenues of new approaches toproblems of man's individual and collective life that it is not

possible to deal with all of them in a single exposition. I choose threesuch: (I) the physical body in the scheme of supramental perfec­!;ion; (2) the place of material, economic organisation and ethics inthe collective life of man from the point of view of The Life Divine;(3) the origin of Ignorance.

One question which might be considered here is the place ofthe physical body in the scheme of Supramental transformation.The movement of ascent from Mind to Supermind and the descentfrom Supermind to the mental, vital and physical consciousnessbrings about the transformation of nature. For example, Mindwould function as the Mind of Light, not as at present, a mind subjectto half-light and half-darkness. The question is how would it affectthe laws of the body ? Is it possible to transform the gross -and seem­ingly undivine body into a divine body ? Or is there a divine use ofthe body as there is of mind and life? Or, metaphysically, if theSpirit has assumed form, a material form, what is the place of Formin the ultimate fulfilment? Though the Upanishad has not hesitatedto state that "Matter is Brahman", the seeker of spiritual life, eventhe religious man, finds the body a great obstacle and a bondagefrom which he seeks escape through ascetic rejection and even morti­fication. Man finds that life manifesting in Matter is compelled toaccept grossness and subjection to pain and death, and that Mindin Matter becomes limited, dull and blind. In fact, one finds thatMatter, Life and Mind, each one of them, is trying to overpowerthe other two in life. -

Matter may be said to be the fundamental element of our e;rth;it is ignorance incarnate on whose dark background Mind ilnd Lifeseem to arise. Matter seems only form-without consciousness, awork of brute inconscient energy. The second thing about the work:'ing of Matter is its subjection -to mechanical laws. It opposes Lifeand Mind by its sheer inertia and thus renders the conquest of igno­rance by them difficult, if not impossible. The third characteristicis that the process of division reaches its culmination in Matter which

38

LIFE DIVINE: SOME ASPECTS 39

• imposes the law of struggle, dissatisfaction, pain and death on thebeing.

According to Sri Aurobindo the Omnipresent Reality is the basic .truth of the cosmos. The question then comes up : how does matterarise in the One Omnipresent Reality? Now, what we calf Matteris really Energy and the question would be : why does Energy takethe form of Matter ? Is it the sense-organism of the individual mindthat gives the impression of Matter? No. It is the Universal Mindthat is the creator of Matter. "Matter is substance of one conscious­being phenomenally divided within itself by the action of a universalMind."! '

"Material substance is the form in which Mind acting throughsense contacts the conscious Being of which it is itself a movementof knowledge."2 Are not, then, inconscience, inertia, division anddeath the original and eternal laws of Matter? Sri Aurobindo says:no, Matter is the creation -of Cosmic Mind and for that an extremefragmentation of the Infinite was needed as the starting-point of subs­tance. Hence, however, one may go on dividing the atom there willalways be an infintesimal particle left, one would never arriveat a void. Subtler and subtler states of Matter exist. Ether as anintangible, "almost spiritual support of Matter exists" but its presenceis not detectable. "Matter is Sachchidananda represented to hisown mental experience as a formal basis of objective knowledge,action and delight of existence.'"

But to our normal experience substance is real in proportion toits solid resistance, to the durability of form. The more subtle thesubstance the less material the form. If we look at the process ofevolution from Matter to Spirit we find "An ascending series of

• substance'[; when the substance is less bound to the form it is moresub tle and flexible. "Drawing away from durability of form we drawtowards, eternity of essence". 4

So when the consciousness rises from Mind to Supermind the'series of substance from gross material to the subtle spiritual wou'1dalso undergo a corresponding transformation. If rhe Mind and Lifeunderwent a change there is no reason to suppose that the body which

1 The Life D iuin e, Ch. XXIV p. 217 . s ibid ., p. 220.

a ibid., p . 219. • ibid., Ch. XXVI 26. p . 233~

THE ADVENT

- is seemingly undivine and gross would remain unchanged. In fact, <­

the present limits of the body are not permanent. They are not "the'sole possible rhythm of cosmic Nature". Body can be transfigured.In. the words of Sri Aurobindo, "Earh-mother too may reveal to usher godfiead'";'

Even without any radical spiritual change we find athletes andp.,hysical culturists achieving remarkable results by sheer training-feats of endurance and strength that verge on the miraculous.Moreover, under various kind of psychological strains the humanbody shows ranges of extraordinary capacities.

Science has sounded some potentialities of Matter and it is atruism to say that man's body is living Matter. The powers of man'sphysical body and senses, in their gross functioning, are very limited;the sense of sight and hearing has a very poor range. But thesevery senses are capable of far greater ranges of action because theyhave their subtle forms and powers. Still more remarkable are thehardly tapped powers of Mind. When some of the powers of theSpirit are awakened in man or when man's nature undergoes atransformation by the descent of the Supramental Consciousness,then not only would unknown spiritual powers become active butthe very physical consciousness of man would undergo such a changethat a far greater degree of immunity from diseases would be attainedleading to the conquest of death.

The schools of Yoga in India mention five states of substance,each corresponding to a degree of our being: the material, anna­maya; 2. the vital priinamaya; 3. the mental, manomaya; 4. theideal, vijiiiinamaya the spiritual or beatific, dnandamaya, To eachof the grades of the Soul there corresponds a grade of substance;the soul dwells in each simultaneously, there is no isolation. Tiley .are called Koshas or sheaths. Though we are normally consciousof only the physical body, it is possible to open oneself to other bo­dies; the psychic and occult phenomena we come across in life aredue to them. Six nervous centres of life in the physical body, cor-"responding to six centres of vital and mental factlties in the subtle,have been discovered by the yogis and they have found out physicalexercises by which. these, now closed, centres could be opened up,

1 The Life Divine, p. 234.

,.LIFE DIVINE: SOME ASPECTS 41

A. B. P URAN I

• and man can enter into the higher spiritual life." Our substance doe~

not end with he physical body".'"The conquest of physical limitations by the power of supramen-'

tal substance is possible."The verse of Swetashwatara Upanishad (II 12.) shows-tha t the

idea of a divine body was familiar to the seers in the past.I. "When the fivefold quality of yoga has been produced.,

2. Arising from earth, water, fire, air, and space, 3. No sickness, noold age, no death has he, 4. Who has obtained a body made out of thefire of yoga. "*

, Th e L.feDivine , Ch. XXVI, p. 239 .* A few quotations from Sri Aurobindo's lett ers shed light on the question of p hysical

transformation :I. "There can be no immortality of the body without Supramentalisation; the potentiality

is there in the yogic force and yogis can live for 200 or 300 years or more, but there can be noreal principle of it without the Supramental."

" Even Sci ence believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and itsreasonings arc perfectly sound. There is no reason why the Supramental force should not do it.F OQIls on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these fonns are too rigid to growexpressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reasonwhy they should not last." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 333)

2 . "Death is there because the being in the body is not yet developed enough to go ongrowing in the sam e body without the need of change and the body itself is not sufficiently con­Kious. If the mind and vital and body it self were more conscious and plastic, death would not benecessary." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p . 333)

3. "Immunity from death by anything but one's own will to leave the body, immunity fromillness, are things that can be achieved only by a complete change of consciousness which eachman has to develop in himself,-there can be no automatic immunity without that achievement."

(011 Yoga II, Tome 2, p . 334 )4. "It (death) ha s no separate exi stence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay

in the body. And that principle is there already-it is part of the physical nature. At the sametime it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and deathis not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole ofthe material natureis the most difficult thing of all-at any rate, in such a way as to ann ul the decay princip le ."

• (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p. 334).5. " I mmor tality is one of the possible re sults ofsupramentalisation, but it is not an obligatory

result and it does not mean that there will be an eternal or indefinite prolongation of life as it is .That is what m any people think it will be , that they will remain what they are with all theirhuman desires an d the only difference will be that they will satisfy them endlessly; hut such animmonality would not be worth having and it would not be long before people are tired of it.

"To live in the Divine and to have the divine Consciousness is itself immortality and tq, be 'bleto divinise the body also and make it a fit instrument for d ivine works and divine life would beit s material expression only." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p, 337)

6. " T he scien ti st s now hold that it is (theoreti cal ly at least)possible to discover physical meansby which death can be overcome, but that would mean only a p rOlongation of t he present con­sciousness in the present body. Unless there is a change of consciousness and change of function..ings it would be a very small gain." (On Yoga II, Tome 2, p , 338)

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

EDUCATION

xv

MENTAL EDUCATION-III

AFTER a rather elaborate treatment of the first phase of mentaleducation, we can now take up the third and the fourth,

which are allied to each other. The third phase is, in the words ofthe Moher, "organisation of ideas around a central idea or a higherideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life."And the fourth is, "thought control, rejection of undesirable-thoughtsso that one may, in the end, think only what one wants and when onewants."

Organisation of ideas presupposes a central or dominant idea,which becomes the focal point and directing principle of one's life ­Very few of us have ever thought of or tried to discover what is thereal goal of our life and the sole and central aim of our endeavours.We are content to follow the common herd, the ruling trend or thegeneral tenor of our society. Today, because science had made theworld physically one, we slavishly imitate the fashions and voguescurrent in the countries, which we consider advanced on account oftheir material prosperity and scientific achievements. We are 'other­directed', and not 'inner-directed', as David Riesman says in hiswell-known book, The Lonely Crowd. This other-directedness is thevery negation of the basic principle of democracy, in which eachindividual is expected to grow and develop freely by the pursuit of hisnatural bent and idiosincracy, unhampered by any repressive social ­restrictions or compulsive impositions. But the individual, all overthe world, in democratric countries as well as in countries which areavowedly socialistic, is fast becoming a social and political robot. It isthis disastrous sacrifice of the specific individuality of man to the

42

,

THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER

•43

interests and passing vagaries of society even in countries, devotedin theory to democracy, which gives a sort of irresistible moralappealto Communism or Socialism. Democratic Socialism, which is flaun-'ted as the best form of government from the standpoint of the wel­fare of the general mass of mankind, is nothing but camouflagedSocialism or Statism. It is only by orienting education to 'inner­directedness' and encouraging the child to think for himself, discoverand develop his innate aptitudes and capacities, and erect a synthesisof his thoughts and ideas round his distinctive individuality that theworld can be saved from the dire consequences of materialisticCommunism. .

But what the Mother teaches is something much more than amere 'inner-directed' education. She wants each child, as his minddevelops the capacity for general ideas, to seek certitude in his know­ledge and an order and harmony in all his thoughts and ideas. Other­wise, his mind would become a clutter of chaotic ideas and errantthoughts. She wants the child's mind to discover the central senseand purpose of human life, and organise and synthesise all his ideasand thoughts round that central purpose. And what should be this cen­tral purpose? Here the Mother transcends by far all current idea­listic notions. It is not humanitarian or social service, none of theaccredited ideals of scientific Humanism, that she holds up beforethe budding mind of the child as the goal of his life. She would havehis mind hitch its wagon, not to any physical star, but to the mostluminous Sun ofwhich our suns and stars are but pale reflections, tatjyotisiim jyotih, the supreme creative and preservative Light, Savitri,Pushan. The child's central idea must first fix itself upon somethingthat is bfyond the customary smallness of normal human life. It

• must soar beyond the here, the present, the immediate, and thetangible of earthly existence, and, surpassing time and space, em­brace zhe vast, the eternal, the imponderable. The higher the aimthe more numerous and complex will be the thoughts and ideas to be

• organised round the central, governing idea or ideal. All the normal,habitual welter in the mind must give place to an order, a harmony,All contradictories must dissolve by the alchemy of the central ideainto coordinated complementaries, and the mindyinstead of remaininga public place of disparate and contending thoughts and fancies,

44 THE ADVENT

:;ailing into it from the universal mind of ignorance, must become an 'organic entity, directing life in the faultless rhythm of a higher andsurer knowledge. This mental order should be evolved, not by theindiscrminate exclusion of all views and standpoints that contradictthose we cherish, but by a large, englobing synthesis of them all.

This ordering and synthesis in the speculative, reflective mindhas to be supplemented by the development and discipline of anotherfaculty of our mind, which the Mother calls the formative or cons­tructive faculty. It is a pity that this important subject has hardlyever been systematically studied in connection with the education ofthe child. So long as we remain satisfied with the cultivation -of thespeculative mind, the ordering and synthesis, explained above, willsuffice. But speculation in itself is something theoretical, abstract,and subjective. It has no hold on life. It cannot translate its know­ledge into the concrete terms of life. We know well enough that thebrilliant speculative philosophy of the great German philosophersproduced little result in German life. Its idealism lived in the clouds,and seldom took root in the soil of our earth. It is for this reason thatthe other faculty of the mind, the creative or formative, should becarefully cultivated and controlled, so that the central aim remainsnot only an inspiring ideal in the mind, but gets realised in life:"Control over this formative faculty of the mind," says the Mother"is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can saythat without it no mental mastery is possible." 1 But there is the needof the greatest caution and vigilance in the exercise of this formativefaculty. The speculative mind may, with more or less impunity, admitall thoughts and ideas to see whether they lend themselves to thesynthesis already arrived at and render it more rich and complex.But the formative mind has always to pick and choose. It 'has to )Jecircumspect, critical and selective. It should accord admission onlyto those ideas which "agree with the general trend of the central ideaforming the basis of the mental synthesis." It cannot afford to playthe host to all; for the risks of indiscriminate choice are sometimes'likely to be disastrous. It should observe every thought, every idea,seeking admission into it, and hold it up in the light of the central

1 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education.

,THE TEACHINGS OF THE MOTHER 45

,,idea. If it is found to conform to the general pattern of the synthesis,and appears to further and enrich the realisation of the central idea,it should be accepted, otherwise it should be summarily rejected.This process of observation, discrimination, and selection is an es­sential exercise in mental purification, and will lead to a completecontrol over our thought and action. We must remember that thefunction of the mind is not only abstract and theoretical thinking,but organisation and action in life.

In order to illustrate the working of the formative mind and theunpleasant consequences its wrong working may produce, let mequote"a few interesting lines from one of the class-talks of.the Mother."A person following the Buddhist discipline came to me once andsaid that he had made an experiment; he had formed a being withhis thought, he had created something like a Mahatma. He knew andit is a proved fact that these mental formations after a time begin tohave a personal life, independently of the author,-although theymay be connected with him, yet they are quite independent, in thesense that they have a will of their own. But now he was facing aformidable difficulty. He said: 'Do you know I have formed myMahatma so well that he has become a personality quite independentof me and comes all the whileto trouble me? He comes, scolds mefor this and that, advises me in this matter and that and wants tocontrol my life altogether. I am unable to get rid of him. I find itextremely difficult and do not know how to go about it. As I say myMahatma has become extremely troublesome. He does not leaveme to be at rest. He interferes in all my activities, prevents me fromdoing my work and yet I know it is my own creation and I am unableto do away with it.' He explained to me how he tried to get rid ofthe thing. I then told him it was because he did not know the trick.I showed him the process and the next morning he came happy andbeaming, saying : 'it has left.' He could not cut the connection; even

•then cutting the connection is not sufficient, for the being wouldcontinue to live apart and independent. What is needed is to re­absorb what one created, to swallow what was ' put out."!

It is now abundantly clear how much power, both for good and

1 The Y oga of Sri Aurobindo, Part Eight, by Nolini kanta Gupta.

THE ADVENT

vil, our thought possesses and how cautious we should be in our useof it. Yadrsi bhiivanii yasya siddhirbhavati tddrii, which means, as onethinks so one becomes. Only those thougthts should be formed oradmitted which can definitely contribute to the accomplishmentof our fixed purpose or central aim. Our life cannot be organisedand lived in an .integrated and harmonious way without a completeeontrol of our thoughts.

RISHABHCHAND

,

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER

, LOVE is a glory from eternity's spheres.' It is the force whichhas entered into the sphere of our sorrow from the supernal

regions of Ananda with the great mission of not only bringing togetherthe multitudinous, disparate and divided centres of consciousnessbut unite them all with their sublime Origin, the One SupremeConsciousness. It envelopes and interpenetrates all the organisationsof consciousness waiting for its hour of manifestation and open dis­play and deployment. The inmost psychic being in each humanbeing is the natural and perfect recipient and transmitting agent ofthis Love. But the other members in the house of the human perso­nality art: not so pure in their response to the touch of the divinemessenger. Indeed the senses and the lower vital often mistranslateit as lust with its possesiveness, abrogation of the individuality anddignity of the person in relationship and exploitation for temporary"self-gratification and satisfaction of cravings and appetities-quali­ties which are exactly at the other pole of the divine origin. Thehigher vital and the true emotional beings register a better note freefrom vulgarity and so we find the affections in relationships like thosebetween husband and wife, mother and child, brothers and sistersand friends. There is an increasing attempt at self-denial and findinghappiness inthe happiness of the other person in relationship and inextraordinary moments the self is in complete suspension or laya.

• But all these responses of the surface personality, however intense,do not come anywhere near the outbursts of the inner or deeper being-the inner mental and the inner vital. The aching joys and dizzyraptures of these experiences are so unique that the name of LOVIl is

• exclusively associated with them and the poets and bards of this-worldhave glorified its transports in many a song and poem. This is Roman­tic Love usually experienced in the relationship between man andwoman but not necessarily limited to that for it can be felt in themembers of the same sex or in relationship with Nature or in the

47

I'

THE ADVENT

adoration of the Hero, Master or Guru. This is a passionate seeking.for the Infinite in the Finite so that the outer personality of thebeloved is a symbol or manifesting instrument of All-Beauty and All­Love, The inner heart sweeps the mind and the outer person so com­pletely that the lover is often 'thoughtless'. In rare cases the mindpours into the deeper heart and shares all its fine frenzies. A wideningcf consciousness which culminates in the complete identificationwith the beloved is the normal characteristic of this love. A newkind of knowledge develops-knowledge by becoming and beingthe other person, the knowledge by identity as different from theknowledge by indirect or so-called direct contact of the surface. Butthe most serious weakness of this love is that it is not the total responseof the whole being of the personality. Its heights and depths areachieved by the exclusion of all faculties other than the deeper heartand of all personalities other than the beloved. This love is a tyrantand to make it the end of one's seeking is to miss the inclusive great­ness and the transcendent height of Love. The violence of RomanticLove has to be chastened and subdued for it to give place to a HigherLove. Some achieve it by listening to the 'still sad music of huma­nity'. Others realise it by the Platonic method of ascending in theladder of Love. In the words of Diotima as reported by Socrates inPlato's Symposium: "This is the right way of approaching or beinginitiated into the mysteries of love, to begin with examples of beautyin this world, and using them as steps to ascend continually withthat absolute beauty as one's aim, from one instance of physicalbeauty to two and from two to all, then from physical beauty to moralbeauty, and from moral beauty to the beauty of knowledge, until fromknowledge of various kinds one arrives at the supreme knowledgewhose sole object is that absolute beauty, and knows at last what ,absolute beauty is. This above all others, my dear Socrates, is theregion where a man's life should be spent, in the contemplation ofabsolute beauty. Once you have seen that, you will not value it interms of gold or rich clothing or of the beauty of boys and youngmen, the sight of whom at present throws you and many people likeyou into such an ecstasy that, provided that you could always enjoythe sight and company of your darlings, you would be content togo without food and drink, if that were possible, and to pass your

..

""

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 49

whole time with them in the contemplation of their beauty.• Whatmay we suppose to be the felicity of the man who sees absolute.beauty in its essence, pure and unalloyed, who, instead of a beautytainted by human flesh and colour and a mass of perishable rubbish,is able to apprehend divine beauty where it exists apart and alone?Do you think that it will be a poor life that a man leads who hashis gaze fixed in that direction, who contemplates absolute beaut)"with the appropriate faculty and is in constant union with it ? Doyou not see that in that region alone where he sees beauty withthe faculty capable of seeing it, will he able be to bring forth notmere reflected images of goodness but true goodness, because hewill be in contact not with a reflection but with the truth ? Andhaving brought forth and nurtured true goodhess he will have theprivilege of being beloved of God, and becoming, if ever a man can,immortal himself." The Platonic Lover at the end of his journeylives under the full blaze of Eternal Beauty and Eternal Goodness.But personality and the universe are not only transcended butrejected and their very rejection is a necessary prelude to the tran­scendence. There is the other way of the great Christian traditionof transcending Romantic Love outlined in the poetry of Dante inh'is Divine Comedy. The personality of the Beloved Beatrice guidesthe evolution all through till she points to the Supreme vision ofAll-Beauty and All-Love. And after this beatific vision the greatlover embraces all in a divine charity and sees the movements of thisuniverse as the manifestation of the Grace of the All-Loving Lord.In this way personality remains all through the way till the end ofthe journey assisting in the growth of the inner consciousness ofthe seeker, to become ripe for the divine vision. But this inner'ripeness is all that is aimed at or aspired for. The mind, heartand body undergo here as in the Platonic way whatever incidentalchange or purification possible or necessary for this end. Bothdeclare that these mortal faculties can never become adequate vesselsfor the complete expression or experience of the full plenitude ofLove supreme. Thus the wise philosopher is teady to welcomedeath when it comes and the true devotee of the Lord looks upondeath as the hour of liberation from the finite, brittle vessel into theacceptance of the heavenly jar of enduring quality. But Savitri,4

/;' .

5° THE ADVENT

nhe Mother comes to fulfil the aspiration of these mortal instruments, to embody the Divine Love and she does this by accepting all theseways of Love but purifying them even from the outset of their limita­tions and impurities. The intensity of romantic love, the ascendingamplitude and impersonality of Platonic love, the spiritual andtranscendent personal grace of Christian love are fused by a divinealchemy and used for the transformation of the earthly tenement toshape it into a fit tabernacle of the Lord.

II

The meeting and union of Satyavan and Savitri blend all thequalities of romantic, platonic and christian lovers:

"And he saw like one waking into a dreamSome timeless beauty and reality,The moon-gold sweetness of heaven's earth-born' child."

We have here the liberation from the thraldom of the cerebral wakingawareness into the visionary gleam, vividness and opening of un­known modes of being of dream, when the Infinite and the Eternalare seen objectively embodied in the beloved. The mystery of theAvatar with her blending of humanity and divinity becomes a sus­tained realisation. To love is to know by identity and therefore withthe authentic undeniable certitude of direct exerience, Pratyaksha.So this avatar is seen by the Eye of pure and absolute love, prema,as She really is-a fusion of the highest Bliss or Ananda and Chai­tanya (Moon) and Satya or the supreme Truth-consciousness (gold).Anandamayi Chaitanyamayi Satyamayi Parame. All these awe-:inspiring Values of the higher hemisphere of being, Parardha, haveembodied in a form full of Grace and so to contact Her is to experiencenot indeed the augustness or majesty in an overwhelming sweep bur.to taste the delectable intimacy of nearness and harmony, sweetness.Grace has wrought the miracle of bringing these eternal veritiesclose to the human consciousness and manifesting them in their mostauspicious mode, Kalyana, sweetness. Each faculty in man feels asense of absolute fufilment and joy, sweetness, in dwelling on this

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER .. 51.constant embodiment of Grace, Rupam Kalyanatamam. The divine ,"origin in the Upper Hemisphere, heaven, is patent in every gestureand overture but they seem to be so much naturalised here and nowthat they belong even to this earth of ours, earth-born. The .super­nal splendours are residing in Her frame with such abundance,spontaneity and naturalness that there is no feeling of a self-con­scious adult possession of these but a child-like prodigal diffusion.·She seems to be only a joyous and free focal centre, a point of sup­port or transmitting medium of the Supreme Lord, a child.

This divine Lady has fallen in love with the human soul, herown counterpart and consort. For Satyavan is 'the godhead growingin human lives/ And in he body of earth-beings' forms, / He is thesoul of man climbing to God / In Nature's surge out of earth'signorance.' He is a 'ray out of the rapturous infinite' and no wonderthat the full Orb of Light loves her own emanation. So her chariothastens with all imaginable speed for fulfilling her ardent aspirationof living for and loving Satyavan. Passing through region andregion spacious in the sun and cities like chrysolites in the wideblaze and yellow rivers pacing lion-maned, She comes to the bordersgleaming with the grove's delight. A life of love and for love is themost concentrated and absorbing of experiences and in the wakeof it and near the beloved all the memories of the past get obliteratedor recede into the background. Nay, all other relationships get theirfufilment in love and so the memories of the circumstances withtheir contexts and contents are forgotten.

"The past receded and the future neared:".'ftll <he familiar scenes of the life in the city of Madra like the whitecarved pillars, the cool dim alcoves, the thoughtful noontides,brooding solemn trance or the slow moonrise gliding in front of~ight slip from the tablets of memory. Even the experiences i~

human relationships among equals and friends or subordinatesand hero-worshippers are forgotten :

"Left far behind were now the faces known,The happy silken babble on laughter's lips

THE ADVENT

And the close-clinging clasp of intimate handsAnd adoration's light in cherished eyesOffered to the one sovereign of their life."

III

And so Savitri reaches the home of her beloved, her true home,which is in every respect a conrast to her father's house :

«Nature's primeval loneliness was here :Here only was the voice of bird and ,beast,­The ascetic's exile in the dim-souled hugeInhuman forest far from cheerful soundOf man's blithe converge and his crowded days."

Those who accompany Savitri take her through a brooding pathw:ith the shadow of enormous trunks to the rough-hewn homestead.They give her to the great blind king, Satyavan's father who isnow 'a regal pillar of fallen mightiness' and to the 'stately care-wornwoman once a queen', Satyavan's mother. In spite of the austerityand poverty of the circumstances of their life, they form together afamily of mutual love of the purest kind. The mother "hoped no­thing for herself from life, / But all things only hoped for her onechild / Calling on that single head from partial Fate, / All joy ofearth, all heaven's beatitude". But their love is accompanied witha complete ignorance and oblivion of the threatening dark futurethat Satyavan is doomed to die in one year. Those accompanyingSavitri know because of the prediction of Narada the terrible ordealof Savitri and so they part from her with 'pain-fraught: burdenedheasrs'.

"Driven by the singularity of her fate,Helpless against the choice of Savitri's heartThey left her to her rapture and her doomIn the tremendous forest's savage charge."

'The joy of union' in her experience of love coexists with 'the ordeal

SAVITRI, THE MOTHER 53

of the foreknowledge of death and the heart's grief'. Love hagiven her the great courage of accepting the life with the beloved.even when the beloved is doomed to premature death.

"All put behind her that was once her life,All welcomed that henceforth was his and hers,She abode with Satyavan in the wild woods :Priceless she deemed her joy so close to death;Apart with love she lived for love alone."

Love has now become the very centre and circumference of herlife.

This is not certainly the life of involvement in the usual intoxica­ting and paralysing passion ofvital love nor is it an emotional entangle­ment which depletes all the higher energies and aspirations. It illnot the love of the mortal caught in the meshes of time and the webof-circu m stance, a helpless leaf swayed by the tempest of passion.

"As if self-poised above the march of days,Her immobile spirit watched the haste of Time,A statue of passion and of invincible force,An absolutism of sweet imperious will,A tranquillity and a violence of the godsIndomitable and immutable."

The poise of the inner purusha and the higher Arman with theirabsolute silence is at the background as active as the intense violenceof the 'daemon' of love. Romantic Love has been included and

• trsnscended in a higher poise of Platonic impersonality and Christiansuperpersonality. Here is the divine alchemy of "Force one withunimaginable rest."

REFERENCE

Sauitri, Book VII, Canto I.

M. V. SEETAUMAN

"

SPIRITUAL CAUSERIE

AsTROLOGY

A KIND friend has sent me a book on Occultism. Douglas Hunt,the author of his recent work;' has read much, travelled a

good deal-both by body and mind-and obviously has had wideexperience of men and things. Having been a teacher for ' nearlythree decades, he knows how to make his subject interesting. Hisapproach and his presentation of the several aspects of the themeare those of an open mind aware of both the strong points and theweak of the logical intellect and the physical reason. He arrives atno conclusions but leaves each reader to come to his own on thebases of the data he has assembled in these pages. The' variety oftopics covered in the discussion is as large as it is interesting. I wasparticularly attracted by what he has to say on astrology.

One may ask, indeed, what has astrology got to do with occul­tism. It is a regular science proceeding on verifiable data; it is basedon astronomy and mathematics and is laid out with scientific precision.Like most sciences, it deals with the how of things though not withthe why. All the same, there are certain features of astrology that donot lend themselves to systematisation e.g. the extent to which theplanets affect human affairs, the actual method of their action, andlastly-though not strictly within its field-the means adopted inthe ancient traditions to modify if not to change the workings ofthe planets; they are occult, 'hidden' to the physical eye.

In the first place, is there any proof that astronomical factorshave any influence on terrestrial phenomena ? Mr. Hur..t makesr.eference to Prof. Piccardi, Director of the Institute of Physics andChemistry at Florence, who conducted experiments to ascertain"chemical reactions under exactly similar conditions of time, heat,outside temperature etc. and has discovered to his surprise that these

1 Exploring the Occult. (Pan Book)

$4

SPIRITUAL CAUSERIE 55

• reactions varied according to the date and place at which they weremade. From this he deduced not only that they were influenced bythe relative positions of the earth and the celestial bodies, but thaithe position of the earth must have an influence on our health, ourtemperament, our thoughts, and our actions, not only individuallybut collectively."

The author then goes on to mention the studies of Dr. RudolfTomaschek, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University ofMunich, and his analysis of the character of the relation that isperceived to exist between astronomical facts and terrestrial events."The- correlation of astronomical facts with terrestrial events is thedomain of astrology, be they of physical, chemical, physiological orpsychological nature. The truth of such correlations can be demons­trated by statistical methods : that is, the correlations between thepositions and aspects of the planets and angles with terrestrial events.Their factual character is beyond doubt."

I s that relation causal or casual? Men like Dr. Tung hold thatthe 'stars ' do not cause events but are synchronistic with them. Butsynchronicity does not mean coincidence. Explains Dr. Tomaschek :"According to this view, the totality of events is regarded as an

<interwoven unity which operates and is operated upon as a whole,so that no single event can be regarded as the cause and anotheras the effect, but each is correlated with the other. In other words,simultaneous events correspond to one another. Accordingly thecele st ial bodies would have to be regarded as the hands of a singleclock which indicate the total cosmic situation in which our Earth,with everything in it, is involved."

Giving his own analysis of the problem, Prof. Tomaschek consi­ders three possible explanations which are summed up by the author:

"( I) That the celestial bodies actually operate upon terrestrialevents, (2) That the celestial bodies precipitate events which are ripefor manifestation. (3) That the celestial bodies symbolise organic

• cosmic forces which are qualitative functions of time and. space.This last theory seems to make the greatest appeal to the professor.' I t presupposes an animated universe, a spiritual coherence of thewh ole cosmos....This is an attitude which comes very close to theviews of modern natural science.' "

THE ADVENT

To put it in our own words, the universe is one Whole. It is an ­organism and there is a natural relation and interaction among all its

" constituent members at all levels. Each planet for instance, exerts itsinfluence upon others. Let us not forget, by the way, that the planet isin a position to radiate its influence because it embodies certain cosmicforces or energies; it may not to be alive in the same way as ourplanet is, but it does represent a formulation or particular forceswhich have their own part to play in the cosmos. Our earth beinga member in this family of the solar system, is naturally subject tothe influences of the other member planets, even as they are opento the influence of or influences from the earth. And this planetaryinfluence acts not only upon the earth in a general way but also inan individual way on all that lives on earth, and there too not onlyphysically but also psychically. The influence exercised by any planetis determined, among other things, by the position it occupies at agiven moment, vis a vis the rest. The position of the planets at thismoment has its own effect on all that comes into being at chis pointin time. As 'pointed out by Jung, "Whatever is born or done at thismoment of time has the qualities of this moment of time."

The author cites the results of an investigation carried on by adoctor which revealed a definite relation between the season ofbirth and the illness of his patients: "To my astonishment, a clearpattern emerged. All my pet asthamatics and bronchial patientswere Sagittarians, born between November 23rd and Decemberzoth. ...The ones I never saw were Arians, Taurians or Scorpios...I haven't traded my stethoscope for horoscopes but I do now insistthat new patients give me their birthdays."

And of course everyone knows that mental patients are mostviolent at the full moon, that crises in illnesses reach their Pt:ak •point on the new-moon days.

The influence of the planetary positions, then, is a f~ct. SriAurobindo observes that there is undoubtedly a constant action ofthe Universal energies upon the individual energies and the planetary"action could well be one or the first nodus of this active relation. Thequestion is whether it is determinant or only a sign of determination?Certainly they are not the cause of all that all that happens here onearth. "The stars incline, they do not compel." The position of the

SPIRITUAL CAUSERIE 57

stars indicates the trend in the working of the cosmic forces at thetime of the birth of the subject, the time when a destiny is laimchedin life on earth; this conjunction of the forces gives a particulardirection to the energies that are released at that moment. and thesubsequent developments normally tend to follow this impetus. Isay normally, because all is not determined by this factor. In factdestiny itself is a fluid proposition which is forming and modifyingitself at every moment as a result of the working of forces in theuniverse. There are two factors that go into its making. One, theimpetus of the past energies, karma, or daiua, cumulative effect ofprevious outputs of energies; the second is human effort, purusakdra,Destiny is what emerges as a result of the confluence of the two.It is possible to offset daiva up to a certain point by will, by effortwhich can erect a new karma to dissipate and displace the old. It isonly if the particular karma is irreversible, utkata karma, that it hasto be gone through, unless there is a super-human interventionfrom Abbve-to that I shall turn later. To come back to the pointof astrology, its advantage, say is advocates, is that it gives a fore­knowledge of what is likely to happen on the basis of definite plane­tary data. So forewarned, it is possible if one takes appropriate steps

"to avert, at least obviate the effects that are indicated. Mr. Huntobserves: "If we know exactly to what actions or situations our'stars,-planes actually-incline us, we are forewarned, and thusforearmed. Man has a considerable degree of free will, and manyoccultists have noticed that as a man becomes more highly evolved,so his planets affect him less and less. Nevertheless our horoscopescan quite c1earlys how our strengths and our weaknesses-and toknow these is half the battle."

I said that it is possible to change one's destiny. How is thatdone, it may be asked. Well, the first truth about destiny to whichSri Aurobindo and the Mother have drawn repeated attention is thatdestiny is not something unitary. It is a graded formation Iike . allfundamental things in creation. There are many layers of destiny,many sources of destiny, in fact many destinies·themselves. Man ismade up of so many personalities, so many. beings we may say,each with its own destiny and field. The body.has its destiny, thevital has anoher, the mental has its own and so on. What results

58 THE ADVENT

;.n the interaction of all these destinies in force, is the operative .Destiny. That which is most dominant gains the upper hand. And

'what dominates depends upon the level of consciousness that onenormally lives in, the particular plane of being from which oneusually 'fu nctions, whether it is the physical, vital or mental etc.This is not merely so in the long-run. Even from moment to momentcne can see the truth of this fact. As the Mother emphasises, if Iremain at the summit of my consciousness-the highest height Ihave attained-it is always the best that will happen in all circums­tances.

It is possible by shifting one's fulcrum in life from one level ofconsciousness to another, to bring to bear the workings of a newdestiny on the old. This invariably happens when one turns to spiri­tual life. For then one turns in a new direction, a new dimensionis added to the field, a newer Force of the Spirit begins to act and thelines of old destiny loose their sharpnesses. Not only regarding one'sown destiny, but another's as well. I know of at least one-authenticcase when a certain death was averted by the Japa of the potentmrtyuiijaya mantra by an adept in the mantric lore. By means ofmantra-sakti, by mearts of one's own tapasyd; intensified soul-power, itis possible to release forces which can interrupt the workings of destinyin another and forge a new one for him. The individual relates him­self to a higher will, a Will that transcends the realm of humankarma and in proportion to its assumption of the control of his life,the hold of the lower destiny is replaced by the higher working.That is why we see that horoscopes and astrological readings whichprove so accurate in cases of some persons fail to do so when theyturn to spiritual life.

And then there is another great factor which can set"at nought .karma of any kind, prdrabdha or utakata, And that is the Grace ofthe Divine. The Grace whether it acts directly or through the personof one's Guru, comes from the highest plane, beyond the karmicdomain, and it is irresistible. It can completely set aside, cancel the!karma and negative all astrological predictions. I cannot forget howa couple of years ago an astrologer-friend had warned me that Iwas in for a serious.illness about a particular date. 'A death-like expe­rience', he repeated, every time he saw me, though he was kind

SPRlTUAL CAUSERm 59

enough to assure that I would scrape though. I told it to the Mother. --.She looked and laughed; all my clouds melted away. The date cameand went and I did not have even my usual flu. Later, the Motherasked me with a smile, significantly, if the date had passed !1 Icould multiply so many instances in my personal knowledge whendeath was strongly forecast, the crises actually arrived, but the cala­mities were averted by the merciful intervention of the Mother whowas appealed to. The Mother's Grace, is to my knowledge and expe­rience, the surest dissolvent of our karma, the greatest single deter­minant of what shall be in the world of today.

PRABUDDHA

1 In fairness to the astrologer-friend I must record that a number of hi s other predictions,especi ally on the literary and the financial aide, have come remarkably true ,

REVIEW

The Man-Lion (Sri Narasimha ) by B. N. Ayyangar. Publishers:Sri Lakshminarasimha Bhakta Mandali, Bangalore.

IN his Preface to this small but thought-provoking book, Man Lion,Swami Adidevananda writes of its author, late Sri B. N. Ayyangar,

as a man of unusual gifts and rare scholarship. A self-taughr andself-made man, Shri Ayyangar rose from an humble position of aclerk to that of an Assistant Commissioner by sheer merit and assi­duity. Well-versed in English, Sanskrit and Bengali he had personalacquaintance of savants like Isvarchandra Vidyasagar, Dr. RajendralalMitra and others who, during this gentleman's visit to the North,received him with evident warmth and affection, and the formereven placed his personal palanquin at the disposal of the visitorfor being taken round important institutions of Calcutta.

"Man-lion" now published as a monograph is a chapter from theauthor's scholarly treatise "Essays on Indo-Aryan Mythology".published by him in two parts in the beginning of the present century.The theme of the book, as its title indicates, has to do with the Avatarof Lord Vishnu as Nrisimha incarnated for the purpose of destroyingthe demon Hiranyakashipu and the menace of evil and terror he perso­nified. Such conscious descent of Godhead and his active inter­vention in the affairs of humanity at a critical or crucial stage of itsevolutionary progression is what constitutes an Avatar and is vouch­safed to humanity by Lord Krishna, himself a full-fledged Avatar,in the familiar verses of the Bhagavad-Gita: "Whensoever thereis the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, thenI loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good,for - the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right ­I am born from age_to age." But we will make a grievous mistake ifwe fail to understand aright the precise nature and magnitude of thecrisis whch culminates in the advent of the Avatar, or merely readinto the word Dharma an ethical or a moral ideal of a particularperiod or race, or if we merely attempt at equating the Avatarhood

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• with some richly-endowed capacity of a rare individual whose birtll , ',and deeds of an exceptional merit and consequence leave a stamp ofhis personality in the pages of world history. The crisis which I]layoutwardly appear as a crisis of events is in effect a crisis of conscious­ness. Humanity having arrived at a particular stage of developmentmust, by gathering all its gains, leap forward to attain a new height,a new status of consciousness. And it finds this leaping forwarda roost crucial issue of its evolutionary career. There is much thatopposes the change; the very Nature that has secretly been preparingthe Soul of humanity for the momentous change seems unwilling,as it "'ere, to let the Soul take the plunge or leap across the chasm to anewer vista, a newer experience, a newer consciousness, a newerexistence. A crisis is thus reached in the Soul's ascent and need isfelt of a new Dharma, not abrogating, but exceeding, the old Dharmato which the humanity was holding on so long and which is now tobe overpassed.

• It is a crisis such as this, which is in its nature more spiritualthan ethical or moral, that creates the situation for the great Interven­tion. And the Divine intervenes, not by a long-range fiat of his omni­potence 011 by a flashing miracle, but by loosing himself into human

• birth, by manifesting his divine nature in the human nature, by takingon the burden of terrestrial nature and by bearing it show the wayout of it. His is the way to show, to lead and even to suffer; in short ;

... "to assist the human march, to hold it together in its great crises,to break the forces of the downward gravitation when they growtoo insistent, to uphold or restore the great Dharma of the God­ward law in man's nature, to prepare even, however far off, thekingdom of God, the victory of the seekers oflight and perfection,siidhundm, and the overthrow of those who fight for the conti­nuance of the evil and darkness." (Sri Aurobindo-Essays onthe Gita)

There are different and divergent versions of the Man-lionAvatar. Raghuvansha has one version; Vahni-Purana has another;Vishnu-Purana gives a third and the Bhagaoata a fourth. Perhapsit is the Bhagavata that brings more to the forefront the demonic

THE ADVENT

ru ture of Hiranyakashipu and his persecution of his son Prahladawhose firm faith and unswerving devotion to Lord Vishnu see himthrough every form of torture and humility diabolically conceivedand perpetrated by his irate father who in his magnified ego is unableto see anything except himself everywhere. 'Where is the lord ofthe universe other than myself?' he asks, and threatens to cut offhie son's head if he did not show in a trice that God existed in thatyonder pillar which he then promptly proceeds to fell with his sword.And from the very pillar Vishnu sprang forth in the form ofMan-lion and killed Hiranyakashipu.

The learned author deals with these divergent versions and thengives an account of the whole story of Man-lion with a sustainedallegorical significance. There is no doubt that the language of theVeda and of some of the Puranas are plainly symbolic full of figuresand representations of things that lie behind the veil. The pioneeringwork of Sri Aurobindo in this field has led to increasing appreciationof the two-fold meaning of the Vedic hymns and Sacrifice. In theirouter sense the hymns embody a system of rituals for propitiationof the gods to secure material gains and prosperity but in their deepersignificance these hymns are revelations of a mystic and spiritualexperience. Shri Ayyangar seems to have been seized of this truth ­and with a keen intellect he has attempted to work out an esotericformula underlying the phenomenal garb of the Man-lion story.Citing etymological references in the Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas,he adduces interesting evidence in support of his conjectures. Tomention only a few of them :

1. Hiranyakashipu is no demon at all; he is a great sacrificerand knower.

2. Prahlada is the sacrificial Soma. Soma who is the Lifeand Light of Sacrifice, is Suta, 'he who is pressed', and Sutameans also Son. The jivatman in order to obtain immortalitymust become the father of this gladdening Son Prahlada and asthat Son in the shape of Soma plant is beaten, crushed, andpressed in order to become the sacred beverage, it is riddled thathe was persecuted, but being Amrita the drink of immortality,he does not die.

3. Man-lion means the eternal immortal bodiless spiritual

•R.EVIEW

• .state of Knower mentioned in Chandogya Upanishad as being"Uttama Purusha. It is this Upanishadic name, Uttama Pu"rusha,.that has become Purushottama, one of the names of Vishnu.He is the Highest Purusha or Man, evidently because he is theAntaryamin in all Puras, towns, i.e. creatures; and Purushottamawhen expressed by another word is Nara-Simha, the Best Man,Nara-Sreshtha.The book is a laudable attempt at esoteric interpretation of

Indian mythology. It sets one thinking.

KEsHAVAMURTl

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