Writings of Amitabha Chattopadhyay on Sri Aurobindo's Speech and Consciousness
My Sir "Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay " was a Sage as I discovered from his writings published in Ritam, bilingual quarterly journal devoted to life and works of
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, their ideas, thoughts and teachings and also Indian and World culture.
He was the Editor of this journal.
Source of the Journal: Uttarpara Sri Aurobindo Parishad, Sarasi Kunja, Mandirbati Ghat, 150 G.T. Road, P.O.: Uttarpara, Dt Hooghly, W.B.,Pin-712258, Phone: 033-2663 8362 (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.)
Here is my tribute to my Sir. Please read it and make comments. Please read another blog about his academic career, comments of his colleagues, students etc. here:
http://ddroydiary.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-sir-passed-away.html
With regards,
Dr. D. Dutta Roy
Editorial
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.5, No.1, pp.3-8)
The Message Divine
It would certaintly not be a figure of rhetoric to say that Sri Aurobindo was an original thinker and like all great philosophers he always referred to the germinal philosophical ideas of The Vedas and The Upanishads. He writes, “I began my yoga in 1904 without a Guru; In 1908 I received important help from a Marathi Yogi and discovered the foundations of my Sadhana; but from that time till the Mother came to India I received no spiritual help from anyone else. My Sadhana, before and afterwards was not founded upon books but upon personal experiences that crowded on me from within. But in the jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads...”1
The self-experience might help in to move forward to self-knowledge.
chetasā sarvakarmāni mayi samngasya matparah
buddhiyogamupāśritya machchittah satatam bhava.
(Gita - 18.57)
Surrender, by your mind, all the works that you have done or will be doing and after this surrender by pure and universal yoga and with complete devotion try to concentrate all your thinkings only to me and for nothing else, only to me. “The realisaton of the psychic being, its awakening and the bringing of it depend mainly on the extent to which one can develop a personal relation with the Divine, a relation of Bhakti, love, reliance, self-giving, rejection of the insistences of the separating and self-asserting mental, vital and physical ego.”2
Īśvarah sarvabhutanām hridddśe'rjuna tisthati
bhrāmayan sarvabhutāni yantrārudham mayayā.
(Gita - 18.61)
Oh Arjuna! The Lord is in the heart of all beings and he directs their movements like machine-driven captive dolls.
“To become divine in the nature would and in the symbol of humanity is the perfection for which we were created.”3
It is believed that human beings can develop their own Self-conscience and they have to put all efforts with deep concentration for it.
Sri Aurobindo says, he received the Adesh to accomplish the three missions - the three strides of Narayana -the family, the nation, and the humanity. Since his return from England and even before that he had been accomplishing the first two and yet had to fulfill the third one.
In communion with God (Yoga) Sri Aurobindo strode long with the prayer, “If thou art, then thou knowest my heart. ....1 ask only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love and to whom I pray that I may devote my life”.4 He was a Karma yogin. His aim of Sadhana was not for some imeffable goal, by self-annulment. “Let ours be the path of perfection, not of abandonment, let our aim be victory in the battle, not the escape from all conflict.”5
Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary gradualism is evident in his view on spiritual philosophy for possibilities of human progress in life. One lives constantly in ignorance and unless the mind of ignorance is replaced by mind of light one cannot follow the true path and this was the indispensable preparation before any integral transformation can take place. The search for truth is ultimate goal or the evolutionary voyage of life. For true progress and acquiring the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, or in other words, what we are truly created for, what we call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner reject from us and eliminate ·whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, slowly but steadily all the elements of our existence will be organised in a homogenious whole around our psychic being, waiting for The hour of God.
A relentless critic of rationalism Sri Aurobindo does not fail to indicate, the narrowly limited, though undeniable influence in the integral scheme of life in reality and divine spirituality. The more man deepens his in-look into himself and broadens his outlook in the world the more he realises and integralises supreme consciousness and spiritual sense of reality. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of one's consciousness within oneself. The realisation is a progressive process. It has to be remembered that man's inward journey knows no end; in other words he cannot discover his own spiritual identity without ceasing to be what he is. He is indeed faced with endless possibilities. “What is this that has happened to me? I believed that I had a mission to work for the people of my country and until that work was done, I should have thy protection. Why then am I here and on such a charge? A day passed and a second day and a third, when a voice came to me from within, 'wait and see'.”6
The psychic mind is in the process of evolution for growth and development of spiritual knowledge. There are three steps of self-achievement of soul, which are three parts of one knowledge, the three steps for self-realisation.7 The first is discovery of the soul, not the outer soul of thought and emotion and desire, but the inner soul, the psychic entity, the divine element within us. One has to enthrone the soul, the divine psychic entity in place of the ego. This first step in self-realisation persuades the individual to a self-identity separated from the world and at the same time takes him to the world, one alone in a crowd, yet not an alienated one. The inner soul, then, becomes the dominant nature and mind, life and body that is to say the total vital life becomes its instrument. The individual, from time to time, gets the true adesh from within as the direction of action and behaviour of vital being. However one must be sure of the call and of his answer to that. The ego may stand on the way to true response to the voice and “only a transient emotion leaps like an unsteady flame moved by the intensity of the Voice or its sweetness or grandeour...”8 Then there can be little surety for realisation. “I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had
come to me to put aside all activity to go into seclusion and to look. into myself, so that I might enter into closer communion with Him. I was weak and could not accept the call. My work was very clear to me and in the pride of my heart I thought that unless I was there, it would suffer or even fail and cease; therefore I would not leave it.”9
The second step of realisation is “to become aware of the eternal self in us, unborn, and the one” self, “above the body, life, mind.” That Divine Self is “above and free and unattached as the static. Self in all and dynamic too as the active Divine Being and Power ..... containing the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects.”10
“It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, ”The bonds you had not strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that sould continue. I have had an other thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work.”11
The aim of the psychic being is to form an individual being individualised, personalised around the divine centre. The psychic being organises all the experiences of external life to realise a particular attitude towards the Divine. This attitude “liberates and universalises; even if our action still proceeds in the dynamics of vital” nature, “it no longer binds or misleads once the psychic being is awakened in the light of self-knowledge.”12
At this stage of realisation, one feels the presence of the self-soul in the waking daily consciousness, its influence fills, dominates, transforms the mind and vital and their movements, even the physical.13 “Then he placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhana of the Gita. I was able not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what he demands of those who aspire to do his work....”14 Hereafter Sri Aurobindo expresses his experiences about the various aspects of the jail and
its surroundings. The Magistrate, the jailor and others. And in what forms he visualized them. It was Vasudeva whom he visualised in everybody and in every material aspect of the jail.15 To him Sanatan Hindu Dharma has not so much ‘to be believed as lived’. “That which the Gita teaches is nor a human but a divine action; nor the performance of social duties but the abandonment of all other standards of duty or conduct for a selfless performance of divine will and working through our nature. In other words, “the Gita is not a book of practical ethic but of spiritual life.”16
In his Uttarpara Speech, we get a glimpse of Sri Aurobindo's spiritual life. However he was the Sadhaka of the Divine Perfection - the Puma Yogin. The entire purpose of Yoga to Sri Aurobindo was to have the truth that the adesh he received in jail, “....it is for the Sanatan Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves that they arise.”17 Released from Alipore jail his sadhana progressed to attain Siddhi in the Puma Yoga, to bring all mankind in the same divine perfection : this is the third step of self-realisation. “.....to know the Divine Being who is once our supreme transcendent Self, the Cosmic Being, foundation of our universality, and the Divinity within, of which our psychic being, the true evolving individual in our nature, is a portion, a spark, a flame growing into the enternal Fire from which it was lit....”18 However for the Victory Day which was to come at Pondicherry we had to wait till November 24, 1926.
Coming out of jail he was at a cross road looking at the road-map to know which way to move. It appeared to him that a hush, a silence had fallen on the total environment. “But one thing I knew, that it was the Almighty Power of God which has raised that cry, the hope, so it was the same Power which had sent down that silence.”19 He realised that he was to walk alone with goal:
I walked on the high-wayed Seat of Solomon
Where Shankaracharya's tiny temple stands
Facing Infinity from Time's edge, alone
On the bare ridge ending earth’s vain romance.
Around me was a formless solitude :
All had become one strange Unnamable,
An unborn sole Reality world-nude.
Topless and fathomless, for ever still20
Man is here, in the world to fulfil himself. His body, life and mind, his history, and his present environment provide him with all that he needs to fulfil himself by exceeding himself.
Amitava Chattopadhyay
Reference:
1. Sri Aurobindo. On Himself. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1995. p. 68 2. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. The Psychic Being. Selections.
Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1997. p. 119.
3. Sri Aurobindo. The Hour of God. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1997, p. 40.
4. Sri Aurobindo. "Uttarpara Speech." Rtam, Vol. I, No.1, May 2002.
p. 18.
5. The Hour of God. p. 20.
6. Uttarpara Speech. p. 13.
7. The Psychic Being. pp. 101-102.
8. The Hour of God. p. 5.
9. Uttarpara Speech. p. 13.
10. The Psychic Being. p. 102.
11. Uttarpara Speech. pp. 13-14.
12. The Psychic Being. p. 101.
13. Ibid. pp. 102-103.
14. Uttarpara Speech. p. 14.
15. Ibid. pp. 14-15.
16. Sri Aurobindo. Essays on the Gita. 9th ed. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1996. p. 31.
17. Uttarpara Speech. p. 19.
18. The Psychic Being. pp. 101-102.
19. Uttarpara Speech. p. 12.
20. Sri Aurobindo. Collected Poems. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1994. p. 163.
Editorial
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.4, No.3, pp.4-7)
Nature of Consciousness
“Each grade of cosmic manifestation, each type of form that can house the indwelling spirit, is tushed by rebirth into a means for the individual soul, the psychic entity, to manifest more and more its concealed consciousness; each life becomes a step in a victory over Matter by a greater progression of consciousness in it which shall make eventually Matter itself a means for full manifestation of the Spirit” - said Sri Aurobindo.
The question arises, what is consciousness? In all human life-behaviour we notice its presence through manifestations. However, we cannot denote its location or place of origin in physical, or physical-vital, or in physical-mental plane. We often speak of consciousness as equivalent to mind. Mind has a physical location, as in some part of the brain. In the same vein sensations also have locations in nerve endings, and at different locations of stimulated brain. But, although, without consciousness no sensation or perception or so to speak, no mental function can be evoked.
The Kathopanisad says - The human physical body is considered as the chariot, the physical-mental as the driver and the psychical-mental as charioteer. The eyes, the ears and all senses are spoken as the steeds and the object of senses as the paths to which they move; and one yoked with self and the mind and the senses, is the enjoyer, say the Thinkers.
Consciousness, in one sense, means the mind's awareness of its own processes. Mind is that inner self which thinks, remembers, chooses, reasons, and directs movement of the body, so is consciousness the inner knowledge of this Thought and government. Nevertheless, consciousness is something more than mind; it is the
immediate knowledge which the mind has of its sensations and thoughts. Thus, in another sense, consciousness is identified with mind. But in True sense, consciousness is division of the mind-stream. Mind is the sum-total of mental processes occurring in the life-time of an individual.
According to eastern philosophy all things and events that we perceive are creations of the mind, arising from a particular state of consciousness and dissolving again if this state is transcended. All shapes and structures around us are created by a mind under the spell of maya, and it regards our tendency to attach deep significance to them as the basic human illusion. And human consciousness prays for liberation from this self-created illusion.
The Is’opanisad says – “Covered with a golden pot is the face of the Truth, Oh Sun of Truth remove it for the seeker of Truth to see it.” When the oneness of the totality of things are not recognised, then ignorance as well as particularisation arises and all phases of the defiled mind are thus developed. All phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind and have no reality on their own. Out of mind spring innumerable things, conditioned by discrimination. These things people accept as an external world. What appears to be external does not exist in reality; it is indeed mind that is seen as multiplicity; the body, and above all these are nothing but mind.
In modern particle physics the world is described as a dynamic network of events and emphasises change and transformation rather than fundamental structures and entities. S. Radhakrishnan writes -
“How do we come to think of things, rather than properties in this absolute flux? By shutting our eyes to the successive events. It is an artificial attitude that makes sections in the stream of change, and calls them things...
When we shall know the truth of things, we shall realise how absurd it is for us to worship isolated products of the
incessant series of transformations as though they were eternal and real. Life is no thing or a state of a thing, but a continuous movement or change.”
The philosophical idea of the universe is that the universe is an interconnected whole in which no part is any more fundamental than the other, so that the properties of anyone part are determined by those of all others. In that sense, one might say that every part contains the others and, indeed, a vision of mutual embodiment seems to be characteristic of the mystical experience of nature. Said Sri Aurobindo – “Nothing of the supramental sense is really finite; it is founded on a feeling of all in each and of each in all.”
Consciousness is not regarded as synonymous to mind. It might be considered as the prime element of mental functions. Consciousness may be considered as essentially synonymous to ‘awareness’. It is not simply something that is either or not there, but is a matter of degree.
In a broader sense mind has certain material location. For all perceptions, like vision, audition, smell, feelings or so, whatever in general, we term as mental functioning, has its material location in brain or nerve endings. The material objects, by their movements, thus evoke consciousness. Conversely, consciousness by the -action of its will can influence the (apparently physically determined) motion of material objects. These are the passive and active aspects of mind-body problem. It appears that we have, not in mind, but in consciousness a non-material thing, that is as well, evoked by material world. It appears that consciousness confer some selection advantage to those who actually possess it. There must indeed be some mode of behaviour which is characteristic of consciousness (even though not always evidenced by consciousness), which are sensitive to our common-sense intuitions. These are the passive roles of consciousness.
Consciousness must have some active roles in our behaviour. We, conscious beings are sometimes troubled by questions about self. We can answer to those probings. It is hard to imagine that an unconscious automation should waste its time with such matters. Conscious beings, do seem to act in some funny way from time to time, they are thereby, behaving in a way that is different from the way that they would if not conscious.
The fully consciousness thinking that can be rationalised as entirely logical can again (often) be formalised as something mathematical, but this is at an entirely different level. We are manipulating entire thoughts. This thought manipulation has a rational and mathematical character. The judgement-forming is the hallmark of consciousness.
Conscious contemplation can sometimes enable one to ascertain the truth of a statement. This ability to divine (or ‘intuit’) truth from falsity (and beauty from ugliness!) in appropriate circumstances, is another hallmark of consciousness.
Consciousness is largely related to all types of thinking, especially, to inspiration and insight. The aesthetic criteria, which is the hallmark of consciousness, are enormously valuable in our forming judgements regarding inspiration and insight. The intervention of the sense of beauty playing its part as an indispensable means of finding the truth in any discovery. Hadamard said “We have reached the double conclusion : that invention is choice; that this choice is imperatively governed by the sense of scientific beauty”.
Such is the nature of physical-mental consciousness which is the manifestation of the eternal, infinite, ineffable divine consciousness which is the ultimate essence of all manifested existence.
- Amitabha Chattopadhyay
Editorial
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.2, No.3, pp.3-9)
November 24 : A day of Divine Boon
Not only to the devotees of Sri Aurobindo but to the human civilization, as well, November 24, 1926 should be marked as a day of an equal importance to that of August 15, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, and May 30, the day of his Uttarpara Speech. On 15th August (1872) a ‘Divine Life’ comes on earth to show the earthly lives the way to Divinity. The earlier part of his life he devoted to the struggle of national freedom to come out of the alien rule. On seventy fifth birthday of Sri Aurobindo, India earns her national freedom, ‘making for her.............the beginning of a new age.’ It is not just a coincidence. Sri Aurobindo says, “it is naturally gratifying for me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my step in work with which I began life the beginning of its “full fruition”.”1
What was his life mission? “It is this, by whatever means I must have the direct vision of God,.........the Hindu religion declares that the way lies in one’s own body, in one’s own mind.”2
The Uttarpara Speech (May 30, 1909) indicates, though in seed form, Sri Aurobindo's spiritual philosophy that he evolved. ‘Man has to become the divine superman and a perfect vessel of Godhead.’ “To be the superman is to live the divine life, to be a god: for the gods are the powers of God. Be a power of God in humanity”3 According to Sri Aurobindo's integral evolutionary gradualism man is the latest but certainly not the last evolute of nature; the spirit in him has not yet been fully realised by him. According to Sri Aurobindo man is supramental (atimanasa) being in the making.4
Sri Aurobindo was clear about his goal in yoga-
sadhana. Man in his ascent on the path of mental evolution to higher consciousness has to climb respectively the mental steps, of higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind and overmind. Sri Aurobindo writes, “Above physical mind and deeper within physical sensation, there is what we may call the intelligence of the life-mind, dynamic, vital, nervous, more open, though still obscurely, to the physic, capable of a first soul-formation, though only of an obscurer life-soul.....”5 In between mind and supermind are there grades in the series; there are successive elevations which we may call planes of the total mental consciousness.
The uppermost elevation between physical mind and supermind is ‘overmind’. Sri Aurobindo emphasized the link between overmind and supermind. In the Life Divine Sri Aurobindo has described, in detail, the overmind plane, overmind consciousness and overmind gods.” The overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms.6 Sri Aurobindo thinks, man's position in the divine scheme of evolutionary gradualism is ambiguous; he can neither reject altogether the inframental ‘push’ of matter and life nor the supermental ‘pull’ of (overmind) and supermind. Caught in between the forces of nature and the spirit, man is evolving, moves towards a divinely specified goal.
The inframental push of nature from below is called ascent and the supermental pull of spirit is called descent. The mental equilibrium even in presence of opposing forces, is dynamic; however the dynamism is unsteady, which may be attributed to the spiritual urge for moving forward. In this fight against the lower nature man's final victory is said to be assured by the Divine. “In the inner reality of things a change of consciousness has always the major fact, the evolution has always had a spiritual significance.”7
When he went to Pondicherry (1910) Sri Aurobindo was clear about the mission as well as the path of his yogasadhana. By 1920, he realised that unlike terrestrial
evolution the spiritual evolution has no end in the process, it progresses indefinitely. On reaching the highest elevation in Divine consciousness by ascending progression the individual starts to descend down ‘so that after reaching the highest level God will through him help others to reach supermind with less effort.’ “The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind, and the Ananda these are the spirit’s five levels. The highest one rises on this ascent the nearer he comes the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life”8 This is the basic theme of Sri Aurobindo’s yogasadhana and this is the basic principle of his philosophy of integral evolutionary gradualism.
Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana for ascent to supermental level started, as referred by himself in Uttarpara Speech, during his jail life (1909). In a letter to Barin in 1920 Sri Aurobindo describes this stage as “preliminary and preparatory.” His intense tapasya to yoga continued after he settled in Pondicherry. He writes these years (1910-1920) he had been trying to follow the path as laid down to him by God (cf. “Then he placed the Gita in my hands”, Uttarpara Speech). and it was not completed till then. “If we cannot rise above that is, to the supermental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world and the problems it raises remains unsolved.”
“This is not easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that god will through me give to others the siddhi of the supermind with less effort.”9
From the trends of evening talks by Sri Aurobindo
just after August 15, 1926 it was gradually becoming clear to the disciples round him, that the descent of Higher Consciousness, promised by him, was drawing nearer and nearer to them. Then at last the great day, the day for which all had been waiting for so many long years arrived on 24 November, 1926 - the Siddhi Day of Sri Aurobindo, the day of Victory for mankind.
Siddhi is accomplishment of the aims of self-discipline by yoga. But the supermental self-discipline is not the same as that of spiritual accomplishment. In spiritual accomplishment the psychic being will undoubtedly, rise above to a certain extent but the physical, vital and mental activities continue to exist in the same standing as it had been. However in supermental siddhi the total consciousness along with physical, vital and mental being would get transformed into a totally different existence. It is “to know the Divine Being who is at once our supreme transcendent self, the Cosmic Being, foundation of our universality, and the Divinity within of which our psychic being, the true evolving individual in our nature, is a portion, a spark, a flame growing into the eternal fire from which it was lit and of which it is the witness ever living within us and the conscious instrument' of its light and power and joy and beauty.”10 We have to know our true self lying deep within our apparent self of terrestrial existence. Unless we know our true self, the true knowledge of ‘who am l’ and ‘what for am I’ remain unknown. True knowledge alone takes its deep within our self-consciousness and breaks the boundaries between our inner self and the ignorant material self and the boundaries between individual self and the universal self; it enables us to realize the cosmic spirit the higher supermental consciousness.
November 24, Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi does not mean as if only he himself and a handful of disciples were receiving the blessings of the supreme in one little corner of the earth. The significance is far greater than that. It was certain that a Higher Consciousness had descended on earth since then. 24th (November 1926) was the descent of Krishna
into the physical. Krishna is not the supermental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards the Ananda.”11
There arose a wide consenting Voice :
“Oh Strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry,
One shall descend and break the iron Law,
Change Nature's doom by the lone spirit's power.
A limitless Mind that can contain the world,
A sweet and violent heart of ardent calms
Moved by the passions of the gods shall come.
All mights and greatnesses shall join in her;
Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,
Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair.
And in her body as on his homing tree
Immortal Love shall beat his glorious wings.”
(Savitri : Book III, Canto IV)
Reference:
1. Sri Aurobindo : On Himself, Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1995, p. 404.
2. Ibid A.B. Purani. The Life of Sri Aurobindo, 4th ed. Pondicherry:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1995 p. 82.
3. Sri Aurobindo : The Hour of God, Pondichery: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1993 p.l0.
4. Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine, p. 295-98 (Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL) Vol. 18.
5. Ibid, p. 640.
6. Ibid, p. 283.
7. Ibid, p. 843-45 (SABCL, Vol. 19)
8. Ibid.
9. A letter of Sri Aurobindo to Barin : Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Vol. XIV, No.3, 1962.
10. Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine, pp. 630-631 (SABCL, Vo!. 18)
11. Sri Aurobindo : On Himself, p. 136.
Amitava Chatterjee
* * *
Gratefully we acknowledge the receipt of the permission of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry for reproducing two extracts from Savitri and The Life Divine along with their translations by Nalinida and Sri Anirvan respectively.
We remain thankful to Uttarpara-Kotrung Municipality, M/s. Jenson and Nicholson (India) Ltd., and Prof. D. L. Sarkar for the financial assistance towards the publication of this issue of Rtam.
This issue of Rtam contains three articles in English and three in Bengali.
An Introduction to The Synthesis of Yoga by Dr. Ananda Reddy, serves its purpose cogently. To many of us The Synthesis of Yoga continues to be a difficult study. Dr. Reddy's deep understanding of the subject and its facile and masterful exposition within the short span of the article should be immensely rewarding to all of us.
Dr. Dilip Kumar Roy, a reputed scholar and Professor of Philosophy (Rtd.), has written in this issue of Rtam on Sri Aurobindo's Philosophic Expression of Yoga. For this we have been waiting eagerly for quite some time. Inspite of his heavy pre-occupations and indifferent health Dr. Roy has made Rtam enriched through his scholarly contribution. We remain grateful to him for this act of kindness and hope for more to come from him. We pray to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for his recovery and good health.
24 November is a Day of great spiritual significance to man. It was on this day in 1926 that Sri Krishna The Overmind Consciousness descended in Sri Aurobindo. This divine event has been recorded by some of the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as witnessed by them. Dr. Supriyo Bhattacharya dwells on this subject in his article The Descent of Sri Krishna on 24 November focussing a new light on the subject. The theme came to him as a sudden
and new revealation. The article as such must be an enlightening and delightful reading. We are especially thankful to him for this article for the 24 November issue of Rtam.
In some of the earlier issues of Rtam we had the privilege of publishing a number of articles in English by Dr. Usharanjan Chakraborty. On our request Dr. Chakraborty has written in Bengali for this issue of Rtam. The article sriarabinda o srigitar aloye atimanab abirbhav chintan (Musings on The advent of the Superman in the Light of Sri Aurobindo and Sri Gita) is written in a very attractive and lucid language, which we believe will be appreciated by all.
Our beloved Nirodda, a phenomenon blessed by the Master and the Mother has just stepped into his one hundred and first birthday on 17 November 2003. The article by Prof. Pinaki Chakraborty niradbaran: esana o praiti (Nirodbaran : Quests and Impulsions) is being published in this issue of Rtam as our worshipful tribute to him on the occasion of his glorious centenary. The article, an appreciation of Nirodbaran's poetic genius includes some new material with the kind consent of the poet. bharatiya biplabbader jnanaguru sriarabinda (Sri Aurobindo the Master of Indian Revolutionary Ideology) by well reputed scholar and Professor Shyamlesh Das (Rtd.) deals with the origins and development of revolutionary thoughts and ideology in India with Sri Aurobindo as its intellectual as well as spiritual master. We remain thankful to Prof. Das for the kind and ready interest he has taken in Rtam in response to our approach to him. Our expectations from him does not end indeed with this one alone.
Human Unity - Need for
Social Integration
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.5, No.3, pp.11-18)
Source: Uttarpara Sri Aurobindo Parishad, Sarasi Kunja, Mandirbati Ghat, 150 G.T. Road, P.O.: Uttarpara, Dt Hooghly, W.B.,Pin-712258, Phone: 033-2663 8362 (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.)
Chaos and confusion, tension and strife, hatred and disbelief are almost part of life of the human society of today. All of us cry hoarse for secularism, democracy and integration. The frequent and rather overuse turn these words as mere cliches and possibly more. Nonetheless by implication however they denote our commitments to certain values conducive to universal peace and harmony.
Integration is a global concept. It is not the mere aggregate of different parts. It implies the interactions and interdependence of the different parts to achieve a common purpose. In mathematical terminology, it calculates the total effect of change by changing the quantities / qualities of parts. In integration the identity of each element is not lost, nonetheless the vital characteristics of any do not interface with the totality of change - a new force emerges out of the older ones.
Integration : moral and operative
As human civilization has, on the one hand, progressed from cave dwelling to the present age, the cloud of disintegration on the other has cast its shadow on all spheres of society and individual beings. With growing dissensions all attempts towards unity in human society have appeared as elusive as ever because of the lack of ideological spirit. The integration aimed at hitherto has rested on an almost entirely physical and vital, that is to say, on geographical, military, political and religious basis. It does not spread its root in the minds of men and thus has been uprooted time and again by all types of onslaughts.
A newly born child today has no ethnic, religious or so to say, any humanly divisive identity, but tomorrow will start his christening for cutting to size him suitable for the pre-determined models. Extensive studies have confirmed
that like all children in all societies religious and ethnic identities of Indian children emerge in early childhood and crystallise in early adolescence (Singh, 1985).
The advocacy for moral integration is there in all philosophies, in all religions, and in all political theories. Human beings are not born labelled in caste, creed or religion nor even bounded by state or nation boundaries. They belong to human fraternity and having no beginning or end in themselves. Physical Science teaches us about transformation and continuation of energy. It suggests that the various energies like heat, light, electricity, magnetism and all others are nothing but so many manifestations of expressions of the cosmic energy. The different energies transform and retransform again and again, moves on from stage to stage in the wheel of transformation. The wheel of cosmic energy is rotating from the beginningless past and will continue through the endless eternity and there is no rest. Nothing is lost in this universe. Everything will remain in its primordial conditions and in course of time a new form may emerge. The origin and growth of all human beings are explained by modern science in the same manner through the process of evolution. Human beings in their vital forms have not been just created out of nothing by some supernatural being. The life of today existed from the beginningless past in germinal form in some animals and vegetables and some even in water. After death, which means denunciation of the body human beings continue to exist in newer and newer forms. Thus the diversities between man and man are only the apparent expressions of the all-pervading but latent integrating force. The realization of this will lead to the feeling of oneness with all, and spiritual integration. It becomes manifest as a general disposition to-engage in consistent lines of activity for its own sake, not for any other instrumental worth. “Man has to get back from his lower apparent existence, imperfect and mortal, to his essential nature of immorality and perfection. ....therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures to see all in the self and the self
in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, atmanpamyena sarvatra and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living” (Sri Aurobindo - Essays on Gita)
In concurrence with that objective, how to account for disharmony? How can there be any jealousy or hatred? How can there be conflict between nations, between nationalities, between religious and ethnic groups or of any interpersonal in nature? There should be nothing but peace, not only in our hearts but among all men and women of the whole world - nay, in all living creatures.
The history of human civilization bears testimony to human endeavour for integration, to substitute conflict by cooperation. Unfortunately and unknowingly of the leaders, the attempts have been made at the surface level. To check the divisive forces newer and newer measures are to be adopted, which by themselves at times germinate the seeds of more discord. Procrustean mould of a social ideal has have to be cast and force the free being to suit the transient demand of time. In operative integration the unity remains in operation as a result of accumulation of certain gains to the participating members. The gains may be material or even psychological in terms of certain beliefs, ideals, values or commitment. The advocates of this type of integration prescribe and specify what benefit would accrue to the follower. The actions would be Kamya Karmas duties of imperfect or contingent obligation: one is not obliged to perform them if one has no desire to have the fruits thereof. Certain duties indeed, are made obligatory, but they are contingent in the sense that their performances depend upon certain specific things happening and if those things happened, the relevant actions have to be, performed, naimittika karmas (Bhattacharya, 1983). As is evident, this process is situation and time bound and thus short-lived.
Integration : state units
The human aggregation in the ancient world started
from the tribe, the class and the small regional state. These units were protected in their diversity from others by a loose cultural affinity and primarily by geographical locations. Integration in these units was rather deep-rooted and ethical in nature. In the medieval period political or economic necessities at times or the psychological need for dominance and achievement at other made the fittest to extend his area of control by military conquest and colonisation. The weaker ones were subjected to operative integration in the struggle for survival. This trend no doubt is continuing at modern times, but, of course, with more sophisticated methods of conquest and subtle modes of subjugation. A marked difference is noted between the ancient and modern methods of operative integration. In the medieval period once the military conquest was assured, the conquerer (e.g. Roman empire) was not content in holding the sway together as an artificial political unity, nor did he trust solely, on the Political expediency of an efficient and bureaucratic government with contingent economic and administrative benefits which was initially acceptable to conquered peoples. But at the same time as a shrewd politician he knew that if the conquered nations had been allowed to maintain their separate identities, and once accustomed to the new efficient organization, they would have tried, in course of time, to reap the benefits as separate independent nations. It was this sense of separate nationality that was successfully effaced by medieval rulers wherever they established their own dominant influence. This was achieved not by trampling under the feet of brutal force, but in a congenial climate of give and take. The conquerer did not hesitate to accept those cultural aspects of the vanquished that were superior to that of his own; linguistic synthesis was brought in by assimilation in the rich language the tongue of the native speaker. Thus the acculturation process was more or less complete. And via it the desire for unity that started as continuance commitment for certain material gains moved towards affective one in the psychological plane. Nevertheless as the process did not have a moral base the
aculturation could not at the end lead to cultural syntheses.
At modern times the physically strong nations have tried to impose on others along with the flag, their culture, their language and all aspects of their life-style. This had been done primarily as a political necessity for domination and later with conscious psychological arrogance of extending the benefits of civilization to the 'inferior' races. It was tried everywhere with considerable thoroughness and sometimes with all ruthlessness. But the destinies of distinctive cultures could not be enclaved for long by the shackles of a homogenous culture however “enlightened” that might have been. A frustrated sense of despair and rebellion prevailed everywhere. The sovereign enforcement of new administrative and economic conditions was done with as much social change as could be achieved by education and the force of circumstances. Integration was accomplished but only as a transient device without any possibility of developing as a stable measure.
The scientific progress and technological developments of modern world have brought in peoples from different parts together with the resulting impact· of different cultures upon each other. Much easily available modes of mobility and communication explosion has made it impossible for any nation, nay for an individual, to have solitary existence. The urge for affiliation accentuated by the horrors of death and destruction of infighting groups have forced the human civilization to move towards national and international unity. Nevertheless all the action-plans, so far, have been formulated not by the ideas of the thinker but by the practical temperament of the time. It is true that the individualistic basis of society of the past has been replaced today by an emerging collectivism. The human society has taken successful strides towards the goal for unification from the League of Nations of yesteryear to the United Nations Organization of today. Neither, though, has proved very satisfactory from the political point of view, the growing insecurity, and disorder have made the existence of some international system more and
more imperative if modern civilization is not to collapse in bloodshed and chaos. So, there we find calculated stops towards integration. But in reality peoples remain integrated as long they visualise the force of unity as instrumental to the fulfilment of their partisan interests, passions and prejudices. There has yet been not long psychological preparation of a more dominant thought spelt out by the intellectuals of the age to remould the ideas of common men which would warrant us in expecting a total change in the ‘why’ and ‘what for’ of our Life. There cannot as yet be even a real external unity, far less an effective oneness.
Integration : Secularism
If we study the scriptures of different religious systems of the world, we find that from ancient times human mind has tried to trace the origin, cause and source of this phenomenal world. Various answers have been given to these quests by different thinkers and inspired seers of Truth. The wisdom of these thinkers are described in the philosophies of different societies. Religion is based on these philosophical ideas. Philosophy is flesh and bone, whereas religion is blood and life, and these two things make up the whole of absolute Truth” (Abhedananda, 1968). In other words, it can be said that philosophy itself is religion, because a synthetic and perfect system of thought invariably reveals the inner core of knowledge or wisdom that already exists in man.
In course of time religion was truncated from its philosophical base and debased with all sorts of dogmas and rituals. In the name of religion peoples were divided into different sects, numerous castes and creeds. Instead of being the precursor of Truth (Sattva), Knowledge (Jnana) and Work (Karma) religion was personified with distant personal God. The religious bigots took complete advantage of these dehumanized religions to spread the dreaded venom of communalism and hatred. The records show that the progress of human civilization has been and is being halted time and again by both implicit manipulations
of communalists and religious fanatics. Even the leaders of state and society do not hesitate to kowtow these self-styled saviours of mankind to satisfy their own lust for power and possession. Now these doctrines and dogmas, rituals and ceremonies only have been prevalent in churches, mosques and temples and in all shrines and among all religious followers. The human society is obvious nonetheless that speaking the truth is far better than celebrating many horse-sacrifices' – ‘Asvamedhasahasrat tusatyam ekani visisyate’ (Mahabharata). Religious integrations are presented as synonymous with material prosperity leaving the hidden mind to cultivate all evil designs of disintegration.
Need for moral integration
It must be remembered that the manifest social or political unity is not necessarily an end in itself; it is only worth pursuing in so far as it provides a means and a framework for a better, richer and vigorous individual and collective life. We have to keep in mind that unity is an idea which is not at all abitrary or unreal, for unity is the very basis of existence. Harmony and oneness is the law of Nature. The human race has to move towards unity and has to realise it one day.
Harmony but not uniformity is the law of Life. Life exists by diversity. Order, indeed is the law of life, but not an artificial regulation. The sound order is that comes from within. It is a truism to say that notwithstanding dissension in every sphere, the human civilization is progressing towards internationalism. This is not all, it is only framework; the idea of humanity has to grow not only upon the intelligence, but in the sentiments, feelings, natural sympathies and mental habits of man. "Meanwhile the progress made is likely to be more in external adjustments more as an operative model related to certain transient purposes than at once or soon in a sincere and honest realisation of the eternal and moral ideal. A frame may have been made, but the soul will have to grow into the physical body (Sri Aurobindo. The Human Cycle)
The world needs today a value system which will make us forgetful of all those that tend to create a rift between man and man, those that generate our narrow individuality and interests. We need that conviction which will help us to perceive the oneness in Nature in its real perspective. There need not be any point of discord between material prosperity through scientific progress and through religion that is eternal, universal in nature. In fact, the present turbulent world needs a religion which will be in perfect harmony with all the truths discovered by science, which are based upon the principle of unity in variety and which regard the material and efficient cause of the universe as one and the same. The fundamental principle of all religious ethics is Love thy neighbour as thyself. Moral integration, at the psychological plane can be achieved when men realise the truth; “that which exists is one. Men call it by various names” ekam sadvipra vahudha vadanti. That no mechanism social, political, religious has ever created or can create, it must take birth in the minds of men and rise from hidden and divine within.
References :
Swami Abhedananda . Complete Works of Swami Abhedananda, VoL VI Calcutta; Ramkrishna Vedanta Math, 1968.
Sri Aurobindo . Essays on the Gita. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1983.
Sri Aurobindo. The Human Cycle. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1962.
Bhattacharya Haridas (Ed). The Cultural Heritage of India Vol. III.
Calcutta: The Ramkrishna Institute of Culture.
Singh Amar Kumar. Developing Secularism and National Integration in India. Lucknow: Presidential address, Section of Psychology and Educational Sciences, LXXII Indian Science Congress, 1985.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, their ideas, thoughts and teachings and also Indian and World culture.
He was the Editor of this journal.
Source of the Journal: Uttarpara Sri Aurobindo Parishad, Sarasi Kunja, Mandirbati Ghat, 150 G.T. Road, P.O.: Uttarpara, Dt Hooghly, W.B.,Pin-712258, Phone: 033-2663 8362 (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.)
Here is my tribute to my Sir. Please read it and make comments. Please read another blog about his academic career, comments of his colleagues, students etc. here:
http://ddroydiary.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-sir-passed-away.html
With regards,
Dr. D. Dutta Roy
Editorial
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.5, No.1, pp.3-8)
The Message Divine
It would certaintly not be a figure of rhetoric to say that Sri Aurobindo was an original thinker and like all great philosophers he always referred to the germinal philosophical ideas of The Vedas and The Upanishads. He writes, “I began my yoga in 1904 without a Guru; In 1908 I received important help from a Marathi Yogi and discovered the foundations of my Sadhana; but from that time till the Mother came to India I received no spiritual help from anyone else. My Sadhana, before and afterwards was not founded upon books but upon personal experiences that crowded on me from within. But in the jail I had the Gita and the Upanishads with me, practised the Yoga of the Gita and meditated with the help of the Upanishads...”1
The self-experience might help in to move forward to self-knowledge.
chetasā sarvakarmāni mayi samngasya matparah
buddhiyogamupāśritya machchittah satatam bhava.
(Gita - 18.57)
Surrender, by your mind, all the works that you have done or will be doing and after this surrender by pure and universal yoga and with complete devotion try to concentrate all your thinkings only to me and for nothing else, only to me. “The realisaton of the psychic being, its awakening and the bringing of it depend mainly on the extent to which one can develop a personal relation with the Divine, a relation of Bhakti, love, reliance, self-giving, rejection of the insistences of the separating and self-asserting mental, vital and physical ego.”2
Īśvarah sarvabhutanām hridddśe'rjuna tisthati
bhrāmayan sarvabhutāni yantrārudham mayayā.
(Gita - 18.61)
Oh Arjuna! The Lord is in the heart of all beings and he directs their movements like machine-driven captive dolls.
“To become divine in the nature would and in the symbol of humanity is the perfection for which we were created.”3
It is believed that human beings can develop their own Self-conscience and they have to put all efforts with deep concentration for it.
Sri Aurobindo says, he received the Adesh to accomplish the three missions - the three strides of Narayana -the family, the nation, and the humanity. Since his return from England and even before that he had been accomplishing the first two and yet had to fulfill the third one.
In communion with God (Yoga) Sri Aurobindo strode long with the prayer, “If thou art, then thou knowest my heart. ....1 ask only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love and to whom I pray that I may devote my life”.4 He was a Karma yogin. His aim of Sadhana was not for some imeffable goal, by self-annulment. “Let ours be the path of perfection, not of abandonment, let our aim be victory in the battle, not the escape from all conflict.”5
Sri Aurobindo’s evolutionary gradualism is evident in his view on spiritual philosophy for possibilities of human progress in life. One lives constantly in ignorance and unless the mind of ignorance is replaced by mind of light one cannot follow the true path and this was the indispensable preparation before any integral transformation can take place. The search for truth is ultimate goal or the evolutionary voyage of life. For true progress and acquiring the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, or in other words, what we are truly created for, what we call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner reject from us and eliminate ·whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, slowly but steadily all the elements of our existence will be organised in a homogenious whole around our psychic being, waiting for The hour of God.
A relentless critic of rationalism Sri Aurobindo does not fail to indicate, the narrowly limited, though undeniable influence in the integral scheme of life in reality and divine spirituality. The more man deepens his in-look into himself and broadens his outlook in the world the more he realises and integralises supreme consciousness and spiritual sense of reality. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of one's consciousness within oneself. The realisation is a progressive process. It has to be remembered that man's inward journey knows no end; in other words he cannot discover his own spiritual identity without ceasing to be what he is. He is indeed faced with endless possibilities. “What is this that has happened to me? I believed that I had a mission to work for the people of my country and until that work was done, I should have thy protection. Why then am I here and on such a charge? A day passed and a second day and a third, when a voice came to me from within, 'wait and see'.”6
The psychic mind is in the process of evolution for growth and development of spiritual knowledge. There are three steps of self-achievement of soul, which are three parts of one knowledge, the three steps for self-realisation.7 The first is discovery of the soul, not the outer soul of thought and emotion and desire, but the inner soul, the psychic entity, the divine element within us. One has to enthrone the soul, the divine psychic entity in place of the ego. This first step in self-realisation persuades the individual to a self-identity separated from the world and at the same time takes him to the world, one alone in a crowd, yet not an alienated one. The inner soul, then, becomes the dominant nature and mind, life and body that is to say the total vital life becomes its instrument. The individual, from time to time, gets the true adesh from within as the direction of action and behaviour of vital being. However one must be sure of the call and of his answer to that. The ego may stand on the way to true response to the voice and “only a transient emotion leaps like an unsteady flame moved by the intensity of the Voice or its sweetness or grandeour...”8 Then there can be little surety for realisation. “I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had
come to me to put aside all activity to go into seclusion and to look. into myself, so that I might enter into closer communion with Him. I was weak and could not accept the call. My work was very clear to me and in the pride of my heart I thought that unless I was there, it would suffer or even fail and cease; therefore I would not leave it.”9
The second step of realisation is “to become aware of the eternal self in us, unborn, and the one” self, “above the body, life, mind.” That Divine Self is “above and free and unattached as the static. Self in all and dynamic too as the active Divine Being and Power ..... containing the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects.”10
“It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, ”The bonds you had not strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that sould continue. I have had an other thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work.”11
The aim of the psychic being is to form an individual being individualised, personalised around the divine centre. The psychic being organises all the experiences of external life to realise a particular attitude towards the Divine. This attitude “liberates and universalises; even if our action still proceeds in the dynamics of vital” nature, “it no longer binds or misleads once the psychic being is awakened in the light of self-knowledge.”12
At this stage of realisation, one feels the presence of the self-soul in the waking daily consciousness, its influence fills, dominates, transforms the mind and vital and their movements, even the physical.13 “Then he placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhana of the Gita. I was able not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what he demands of those who aspire to do his work....”14 Hereafter Sri Aurobindo expresses his experiences about the various aspects of the jail and
its surroundings. The Magistrate, the jailor and others. And in what forms he visualized them. It was Vasudeva whom he visualised in everybody and in every material aspect of the jail.15 To him Sanatan Hindu Dharma has not so much ‘to be believed as lived’. “That which the Gita teaches is nor a human but a divine action; nor the performance of social duties but the abandonment of all other standards of duty or conduct for a selfless performance of divine will and working through our nature. In other words, “the Gita is not a book of practical ethic but of spiritual life.”16
In his Uttarpara Speech, we get a glimpse of Sri Aurobindo's spiritual life. However he was the Sadhaka of the Divine Perfection - the Puma Yogin. The entire purpose of Yoga to Sri Aurobindo was to have the truth that the adesh he received in jail, “....it is for the Sanatan Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves that they arise.”17 Released from Alipore jail his sadhana progressed to attain Siddhi in the Puma Yoga, to bring all mankind in the same divine perfection : this is the third step of self-realisation. “.....to know the Divine Being who is once our supreme transcendent Self, the Cosmic Being, foundation of our universality, and the Divinity within, of which our psychic being, the true evolving individual in our nature, is a portion, a spark, a flame growing into the enternal Fire from which it was lit....”18 However for the Victory Day which was to come at Pondicherry we had to wait till November 24, 1926.
Coming out of jail he was at a cross road looking at the road-map to know which way to move. It appeared to him that a hush, a silence had fallen on the total environment. “But one thing I knew, that it was the Almighty Power of God which has raised that cry, the hope, so it was the same Power which had sent down that silence.”19 He realised that he was to walk alone with goal:
I walked on the high-wayed Seat of Solomon
Where Shankaracharya's tiny temple stands
Facing Infinity from Time's edge, alone
On the bare ridge ending earth’s vain romance.
Around me was a formless solitude :
All had become one strange Unnamable,
An unborn sole Reality world-nude.
Topless and fathomless, for ever still20
Man is here, in the world to fulfil himself. His body, life and mind, his history, and his present environment provide him with all that he needs to fulfil himself by exceeding himself.
Amitava Chattopadhyay
Reference:
1. Sri Aurobindo. On Himself. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1995. p. 68 2. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. The Psychic Being. Selections.
Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1997. p. 119.
3. Sri Aurobindo. The Hour of God. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1997, p. 40.
4. Sri Aurobindo. "Uttarpara Speech." Rtam, Vol. I, No.1, May 2002.
p. 18.
5. The Hour of God. p. 20.
6. Uttarpara Speech. p. 13.
7. The Psychic Being. pp. 101-102.
8. The Hour of God. p. 5.
9. Uttarpara Speech. p. 13.
10. The Psychic Being. p. 102.
11. Uttarpara Speech. pp. 13-14.
12. The Psychic Being. p. 101.
13. Ibid. pp. 102-103.
14. Uttarpara Speech. p. 14.
15. Ibid. pp. 14-15.
16. Sri Aurobindo. Essays on the Gita. 9th ed. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1996. p. 31.
17. Uttarpara Speech. p. 19.
18. The Psychic Being. pp. 101-102.
19. Uttarpara Speech. p. 12.
20. Sri Aurobindo. Collected Poems. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram. 1994. p. 163.
Editorial
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.4, No.3, pp.4-7)
Nature of Consciousness
“Each grade of cosmic manifestation, each type of form that can house the indwelling spirit, is tushed by rebirth into a means for the individual soul, the psychic entity, to manifest more and more its concealed consciousness; each life becomes a step in a victory over Matter by a greater progression of consciousness in it which shall make eventually Matter itself a means for full manifestation of the Spirit” - said Sri Aurobindo.
The question arises, what is consciousness? In all human life-behaviour we notice its presence through manifestations. However, we cannot denote its location or place of origin in physical, or physical-vital, or in physical-mental plane. We often speak of consciousness as equivalent to mind. Mind has a physical location, as in some part of the brain. In the same vein sensations also have locations in nerve endings, and at different locations of stimulated brain. But, although, without consciousness no sensation or perception or so to speak, no mental function can be evoked.
The Kathopanisad says - The human physical body is considered as the chariot, the physical-mental as the driver and the psychical-mental as charioteer. The eyes, the ears and all senses are spoken as the steeds and the object of senses as the paths to which they move; and one yoked with self and the mind and the senses, is the enjoyer, say the Thinkers.
Consciousness, in one sense, means the mind's awareness of its own processes. Mind is that inner self which thinks, remembers, chooses, reasons, and directs movement of the body, so is consciousness the inner knowledge of this Thought and government. Nevertheless, consciousness is something more than mind; it is the
immediate knowledge which the mind has of its sensations and thoughts. Thus, in another sense, consciousness is identified with mind. But in True sense, consciousness is division of the mind-stream. Mind is the sum-total of mental processes occurring in the life-time of an individual.
According to eastern philosophy all things and events that we perceive are creations of the mind, arising from a particular state of consciousness and dissolving again if this state is transcended. All shapes and structures around us are created by a mind under the spell of maya, and it regards our tendency to attach deep significance to them as the basic human illusion. And human consciousness prays for liberation from this self-created illusion.
The Is’opanisad says – “Covered with a golden pot is the face of the Truth, Oh Sun of Truth remove it for the seeker of Truth to see it.” When the oneness of the totality of things are not recognised, then ignorance as well as particularisation arises and all phases of the defiled mind are thus developed. All phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind and have no reality on their own. Out of mind spring innumerable things, conditioned by discrimination. These things people accept as an external world. What appears to be external does not exist in reality; it is indeed mind that is seen as multiplicity; the body, and above all these are nothing but mind.
In modern particle physics the world is described as a dynamic network of events and emphasises change and transformation rather than fundamental structures and entities. S. Radhakrishnan writes -
“How do we come to think of things, rather than properties in this absolute flux? By shutting our eyes to the successive events. It is an artificial attitude that makes sections in the stream of change, and calls them things...
When we shall know the truth of things, we shall realise how absurd it is for us to worship isolated products of the
incessant series of transformations as though they were eternal and real. Life is no thing or a state of a thing, but a continuous movement or change.”
The philosophical idea of the universe is that the universe is an interconnected whole in which no part is any more fundamental than the other, so that the properties of anyone part are determined by those of all others. In that sense, one might say that every part contains the others and, indeed, a vision of mutual embodiment seems to be characteristic of the mystical experience of nature. Said Sri Aurobindo – “Nothing of the supramental sense is really finite; it is founded on a feeling of all in each and of each in all.”
Consciousness is not regarded as synonymous to mind. It might be considered as the prime element of mental functions. Consciousness may be considered as essentially synonymous to ‘awareness’. It is not simply something that is either or not there, but is a matter of degree.
In a broader sense mind has certain material location. For all perceptions, like vision, audition, smell, feelings or so, whatever in general, we term as mental functioning, has its material location in brain or nerve endings. The material objects, by their movements, thus evoke consciousness. Conversely, consciousness by the -action of its will can influence the (apparently physically determined) motion of material objects. These are the passive and active aspects of mind-body problem. It appears that we have, not in mind, but in consciousness a non-material thing, that is as well, evoked by material world. It appears that consciousness confer some selection advantage to those who actually possess it. There must indeed be some mode of behaviour which is characteristic of consciousness (even though not always evidenced by consciousness), which are sensitive to our common-sense intuitions. These are the passive roles of consciousness.
Consciousness must have some active roles in our behaviour. We, conscious beings are sometimes troubled by questions about self. We can answer to those probings. It is hard to imagine that an unconscious automation should waste its time with such matters. Conscious beings, do seem to act in some funny way from time to time, they are thereby, behaving in a way that is different from the way that they would if not conscious.
The fully consciousness thinking that can be rationalised as entirely logical can again (often) be formalised as something mathematical, but this is at an entirely different level. We are manipulating entire thoughts. This thought manipulation has a rational and mathematical character. The judgement-forming is the hallmark of consciousness.
Conscious contemplation can sometimes enable one to ascertain the truth of a statement. This ability to divine (or ‘intuit’) truth from falsity (and beauty from ugliness!) in appropriate circumstances, is another hallmark of consciousness.
Consciousness is largely related to all types of thinking, especially, to inspiration and insight. The aesthetic criteria, which is the hallmark of consciousness, are enormously valuable in our forming judgements regarding inspiration and insight. The intervention of the sense of beauty playing its part as an indispensable means of finding the truth in any discovery. Hadamard said “We have reached the double conclusion : that invention is choice; that this choice is imperatively governed by the sense of scientific beauty”.
Such is the nature of physical-mental consciousness which is the manifestation of the eternal, infinite, ineffable divine consciousness which is the ultimate essence of all manifested existence.
- Amitabha Chattopadhyay
Editorial
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.2, No.3, pp.3-9)
November 24 : A day of Divine Boon
Not only to the devotees of Sri Aurobindo but to the human civilization, as well, November 24, 1926 should be marked as a day of an equal importance to that of August 15, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo, and May 30, the day of his Uttarpara Speech. On 15th August (1872) a ‘Divine Life’ comes on earth to show the earthly lives the way to Divinity. The earlier part of his life he devoted to the struggle of national freedom to come out of the alien rule. On seventy fifth birthday of Sri Aurobindo, India earns her national freedom, ‘making for her.............the beginning of a new age.’ It is not just a coincidence. Sri Aurobindo says, “it is naturally gratifying for me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my step in work with which I began life the beginning of its “full fruition”.”1
What was his life mission? “It is this, by whatever means I must have the direct vision of God,.........the Hindu religion declares that the way lies in one’s own body, in one’s own mind.”2
The Uttarpara Speech (May 30, 1909) indicates, though in seed form, Sri Aurobindo's spiritual philosophy that he evolved. ‘Man has to become the divine superman and a perfect vessel of Godhead.’ “To be the superman is to live the divine life, to be a god: for the gods are the powers of God. Be a power of God in humanity”3 According to Sri Aurobindo's integral evolutionary gradualism man is the latest but certainly not the last evolute of nature; the spirit in him has not yet been fully realised by him. According to Sri Aurobindo man is supramental (atimanasa) being in the making.4
Sri Aurobindo was clear about his goal in yoga-
sadhana. Man in his ascent on the path of mental evolution to higher consciousness has to climb respectively the mental steps, of higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind and overmind. Sri Aurobindo writes, “Above physical mind and deeper within physical sensation, there is what we may call the intelligence of the life-mind, dynamic, vital, nervous, more open, though still obscurely, to the physic, capable of a first soul-formation, though only of an obscurer life-soul.....”5 In between mind and supermind are there grades in the series; there are successive elevations which we may call planes of the total mental consciousness.
The uppermost elevation between physical mind and supermind is ‘overmind’. Sri Aurobindo emphasized the link between overmind and supermind. In the Life Divine Sri Aurobindo has described, in detail, the overmind plane, overmind consciousness and overmind gods.” The overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms.6 Sri Aurobindo thinks, man's position in the divine scheme of evolutionary gradualism is ambiguous; he can neither reject altogether the inframental ‘push’ of matter and life nor the supermental ‘pull’ of (overmind) and supermind. Caught in between the forces of nature and the spirit, man is evolving, moves towards a divinely specified goal.
The inframental push of nature from below is called ascent and the supermental pull of spirit is called descent. The mental equilibrium even in presence of opposing forces, is dynamic; however the dynamism is unsteady, which may be attributed to the spiritual urge for moving forward. In this fight against the lower nature man's final victory is said to be assured by the Divine. “In the inner reality of things a change of consciousness has always the major fact, the evolution has always had a spiritual significance.”7
When he went to Pondicherry (1910) Sri Aurobindo was clear about the mission as well as the path of his yogasadhana. By 1920, he realised that unlike terrestrial
evolution the spiritual evolution has no end in the process, it progresses indefinitely. On reaching the highest elevation in Divine consciousness by ascending progression the individual starts to descend down ‘so that after reaching the highest level God will through him help others to reach supermind with less effort.’ “The physical body, the life, the mind and understanding, the supermind, and the Ananda these are the spirit’s five levels. The highest one rises on this ascent the nearer he comes the state of that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. One attains a firm foundation in the condition of the indivisible and infinite Ananda, not only in the timeless Parabrahman but in the body, in life, in the world. The integral being, the integral consciousness, the integral Ananda blossoms out and takes form in life”8 This is the basic theme of Sri Aurobindo’s yogasadhana and this is the basic principle of his philosophy of integral evolutionary gradualism.
Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana for ascent to supermental level started, as referred by himself in Uttarpara Speech, during his jail life (1909). In a letter to Barin in 1920 Sri Aurobindo describes this stage as “preliminary and preparatory.” His intense tapasya to yoga continued after he settled in Pondicherry. He writes these years (1910-1920) he had been trying to follow the path as laid down to him by God (cf. “Then he placed the Gita in my hands”, Uttarpara Speech). and it was not completed till then. “If we cannot rise above that is, to the supermental level, it is hardly possible to know the last secret of the world and the problems it raises remains unsolved.”
“This is not easy change to make. After these fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when this Siddhi will be complete, then I am absolutely certain that god will through me give to others the siddhi of the supermind with less effort.”9
From the trends of evening talks by Sri Aurobindo
just after August 15, 1926 it was gradually becoming clear to the disciples round him, that the descent of Higher Consciousness, promised by him, was drawing nearer and nearer to them. Then at last the great day, the day for which all had been waiting for so many long years arrived on 24 November, 1926 - the Siddhi Day of Sri Aurobindo, the day of Victory for mankind.
Siddhi is accomplishment of the aims of self-discipline by yoga. But the supermental self-discipline is not the same as that of spiritual accomplishment. In spiritual accomplishment the psychic being will undoubtedly, rise above to a certain extent but the physical, vital and mental activities continue to exist in the same standing as it had been. However in supermental siddhi the total consciousness along with physical, vital and mental being would get transformed into a totally different existence. It is “to know the Divine Being who is at once our supreme transcendent self, the Cosmic Being, foundation of our universality, and the Divinity within of which our psychic being, the true evolving individual in our nature, is a portion, a spark, a flame growing into the eternal fire from which it was lit and of which it is the witness ever living within us and the conscious instrument' of its light and power and joy and beauty.”10 We have to know our true self lying deep within our apparent self of terrestrial existence. Unless we know our true self, the true knowledge of ‘who am l’ and ‘what for am I’ remain unknown. True knowledge alone takes its deep within our self-consciousness and breaks the boundaries between our inner self and the ignorant material self and the boundaries between individual self and the universal self; it enables us to realize the cosmic spirit the higher supermental consciousness.
November 24, Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi does not mean as if only he himself and a handful of disciples were receiving the blessings of the supreme in one little corner of the earth. The significance is far greater than that. It was certain that a Higher Consciousness had descended on earth since then. 24th (November 1926) was the descent of Krishna
into the physical. Krishna is not the supermental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards the Ananda.”11
There arose a wide consenting Voice :
“Oh Strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry,
One shall descend and break the iron Law,
Change Nature's doom by the lone spirit's power.
A limitless Mind that can contain the world,
A sweet and violent heart of ardent calms
Moved by the passions of the gods shall come.
All mights and greatnesses shall join in her;
Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,
Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair.
And in her body as on his homing tree
Immortal Love shall beat his glorious wings.”
(Savitri : Book III, Canto IV)
Reference:
1. Sri Aurobindo : On Himself, Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1995, p. 404.
2. Ibid A.B. Purani. The Life of Sri Aurobindo, 4th ed. Pondicherry:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1995 p. 82.
3. Sri Aurobindo : The Hour of God, Pondichery: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1993 p.l0.
4. Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine, p. 295-98 (Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL) Vol. 18.
5. Ibid, p. 640.
6. Ibid, p. 283.
7. Ibid, p. 843-45 (SABCL, Vol. 19)
8. Ibid.
9. A letter of Sri Aurobindo to Barin : Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Vol. XIV, No.3, 1962.
10. Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine, pp. 630-631 (SABCL, Vo!. 18)
11. Sri Aurobindo : On Himself, p. 136.
Amitava Chatterjee
* * *
Gratefully we acknowledge the receipt of the permission of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry for reproducing two extracts from Savitri and The Life Divine along with their translations by Nalinida and Sri Anirvan respectively.
We remain thankful to Uttarpara-Kotrung Municipality, M/s. Jenson and Nicholson (India) Ltd., and Prof. D. L. Sarkar for the financial assistance towards the publication of this issue of Rtam.
This issue of Rtam contains three articles in English and three in Bengali.
An Introduction to The Synthesis of Yoga by Dr. Ananda Reddy, serves its purpose cogently. To many of us The Synthesis of Yoga continues to be a difficult study. Dr. Reddy's deep understanding of the subject and its facile and masterful exposition within the short span of the article should be immensely rewarding to all of us.
Dr. Dilip Kumar Roy, a reputed scholar and Professor of Philosophy (Rtd.), has written in this issue of Rtam on Sri Aurobindo's Philosophic Expression of Yoga. For this we have been waiting eagerly for quite some time. Inspite of his heavy pre-occupations and indifferent health Dr. Roy has made Rtam enriched through his scholarly contribution. We remain grateful to him for this act of kindness and hope for more to come from him. We pray to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for his recovery and good health.
24 November is a Day of great spiritual significance to man. It was on this day in 1926 that Sri Krishna The Overmind Consciousness descended in Sri Aurobindo. This divine event has been recorded by some of the disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as witnessed by them. Dr. Supriyo Bhattacharya dwells on this subject in his article The Descent of Sri Krishna on 24 November focussing a new light on the subject. The theme came to him as a sudden
and new revealation. The article as such must be an enlightening and delightful reading. We are especially thankful to him for this article for the 24 November issue of Rtam.
In some of the earlier issues of Rtam we had the privilege of publishing a number of articles in English by Dr. Usharanjan Chakraborty. On our request Dr. Chakraborty has written in Bengali for this issue of Rtam. The article sriarabinda o srigitar aloye atimanab abirbhav chintan (Musings on The advent of the Superman in the Light of Sri Aurobindo and Sri Gita) is written in a very attractive and lucid language, which we believe will be appreciated by all.
Our beloved Nirodda, a phenomenon blessed by the Master and the Mother has just stepped into his one hundred and first birthday on 17 November 2003. The article by Prof. Pinaki Chakraborty niradbaran: esana o praiti (Nirodbaran : Quests and Impulsions) is being published in this issue of Rtam as our worshipful tribute to him on the occasion of his glorious centenary. The article, an appreciation of Nirodbaran's poetic genius includes some new material with the kind consent of the poet. bharatiya biplabbader jnanaguru sriarabinda (Sri Aurobindo the Master of Indian Revolutionary Ideology) by well reputed scholar and Professor Shyamlesh Das (Rtd.) deals with the origins and development of revolutionary thoughts and ideology in India with Sri Aurobindo as its intellectual as well as spiritual master. We remain thankful to Prof. Das for the kind and ready interest he has taken in Rtam in response to our approach to him. Our expectations from him does not end indeed with this one alone.
Human Unity - Need for
Social Integration
Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay
(Ritam, Vol.5, No.3, pp.11-18)
Source: Uttarpara Sri Aurobindo Parishad, Sarasi Kunja, Mandirbati Ghat, 150 G.T. Road, P.O.: Uttarpara, Dt Hooghly, W.B.,Pin-712258, Phone: 033-2663 8362 (6 p.m. to 8 p.m.)
Chaos and confusion, tension and strife, hatred and disbelief are almost part of life of the human society of today. All of us cry hoarse for secularism, democracy and integration. The frequent and rather overuse turn these words as mere cliches and possibly more. Nonetheless by implication however they denote our commitments to certain values conducive to universal peace and harmony.
Integration is a global concept. It is not the mere aggregate of different parts. It implies the interactions and interdependence of the different parts to achieve a common purpose. In mathematical terminology, it calculates the total effect of change by changing the quantities / qualities of parts. In integration the identity of each element is not lost, nonetheless the vital characteristics of any do not interface with the totality of change - a new force emerges out of the older ones.
Integration : moral and operative
As human civilization has, on the one hand, progressed from cave dwelling to the present age, the cloud of disintegration on the other has cast its shadow on all spheres of society and individual beings. With growing dissensions all attempts towards unity in human society have appeared as elusive as ever because of the lack of ideological spirit. The integration aimed at hitherto has rested on an almost entirely physical and vital, that is to say, on geographical, military, political and religious basis. It does not spread its root in the minds of men and thus has been uprooted time and again by all types of onslaughts.
A newly born child today has no ethnic, religious or so to say, any humanly divisive identity, but tomorrow will start his christening for cutting to size him suitable for the pre-determined models. Extensive studies have confirmed
that like all children in all societies religious and ethnic identities of Indian children emerge in early childhood and crystallise in early adolescence (Singh, 1985).
The advocacy for moral integration is there in all philosophies, in all religions, and in all political theories. Human beings are not born labelled in caste, creed or religion nor even bounded by state or nation boundaries. They belong to human fraternity and having no beginning or end in themselves. Physical Science teaches us about transformation and continuation of energy. It suggests that the various energies like heat, light, electricity, magnetism and all others are nothing but so many manifestations of expressions of the cosmic energy. The different energies transform and retransform again and again, moves on from stage to stage in the wheel of transformation. The wheel of cosmic energy is rotating from the beginningless past and will continue through the endless eternity and there is no rest. Nothing is lost in this universe. Everything will remain in its primordial conditions and in course of time a new form may emerge. The origin and growth of all human beings are explained by modern science in the same manner through the process of evolution. Human beings in their vital forms have not been just created out of nothing by some supernatural being. The life of today existed from the beginningless past in germinal form in some animals and vegetables and some even in water. After death, which means denunciation of the body human beings continue to exist in newer and newer forms. Thus the diversities between man and man are only the apparent expressions of the all-pervading but latent integrating force. The realization of this will lead to the feeling of oneness with all, and spiritual integration. It becomes manifest as a general disposition to-engage in consistent lines of activity for its own sake, not for any other instrumental worth. “Man has to get back from his lower apparent existence, imperfect and mortal, to his essential nature of immorality and perfection. ....therefore man has to discover his spiritual unity with all creatures to see all in the self and the self
in all beings, even to see all things and creatures as himself, atmanpamyena sarvatra and accordingly think, feel and act in all his mind, will and living” (Sri Aurobindo - Essays on Gita)
In concurrence with that objective, how to account for disharmony? How can there be any jealousy or hatred? How can there be conflict between nations, between nationalities, between religious and ethnic groups or of any interpersonal in nature? There should be nothing but peace, not only in our hearts but among all men and women of the whole world - nay, in all living creatures.
The history of human civilization bears testimony to human endeavour for integration, to substitute conflict by cooperation. Unfortunately and unknowingly of the leaders, the attempts have been made at the surface level. To check the divisive forces newer and newer measures are to be adopted, which by themselves at times germinate the seeds of more discord. Procrustean mould of a social ideal has have to be cast and force the free being to suit the transient demand of time. In operative integration the unity remains in operation as a result of accumulation of certain gains to the participating members. The gains may be material or even psychological in terms of certain beliefs, ideals, values or commitment. The advocates of this type of integration prescribe and specify what benefit would accrue to the follower. The actions would be Kamya Karmas duties of imperfect or contingent obligation: one is not obliged to perform them if one has no desire to have the fruits thereof. Certain duties indeed, are made obligatory, but they are contingent in the sense that their performances depend upon certain specific things happening and if those things happened, the relevant actions have to be, performed, naimittika karmas (Bhattacharya, 1983). As is evident, this process is situation and time bound and thus short-lived.
Integration : state units
The human aggregation in the ancient world started
from the tribe, the class and the small regional state. These units were protected in their diversity from others by a loose cultural affinity and primarily by geographical locations. Integration in these units was rather deep-rooted and ethical in nature. In the medieval period political or economic necessities at times or the psychological need for dominance and achievement at other made the fittest to extend his area of control by military conquest and colonisation. The weaker ones were subjected to operative integration in the struggle for survival. This trend no doubt is continuing at modern times, but, of course, with more sophisticated methods of conquest and subtle modes of subjugation. A marked difference is noted between the ancient and modern methods of operative integration. In the medieval period once the military conquest was assured, the conquerer (e.g. Roman empire) was not content in holding the sway together as an artificial political unity, nor did he trust solely, on the Political expediency of an efficient and bureaucratic government with contingent economic and administrative benefits which was initially acceptable to conquered peoples. But at the same time as a shrewd politician he knew that if the conquered nations had been allowed to maintain their separate identities, and once accustomed to the new efficient organization, they would have tried, in course of time, to reap the benefits as separate independent nations. It was this sense of separate nationality that was successfully effaced by medieval rulers wherever they established their own dominant influence. This was achieved not by trampling under the feet of brutal force, but in a congenial climate of give and take. The conquerer did not hesitate to accept those cultural aspects of the vanquished that were superior to that of his own; linguistic synthesis was brought in by assimilation in the rich language the tongue of the native speaker. Thus the acculturation process was more or less complete. And via it the desire for unity that started as continuance commitment for certain material gains moved towards affective one in the psychological plane. Nevertheless as the process did not have a moral base the
aculturation could not at the end lead to cultural syntheses.
At modern times the physically strong nations have tried to impose on others along with the flag, their culture, their language and all aspects of their life-style. This had been done primarily as a political necessity for domination and later with conscious psychological arrogance of extending the benefits of civilization to the 'inferior' races. It was tried everywhere with considerable thoroughness and sometimes with all ruthlessness. But the destinies of distinctive cultures could not be enclaved for long by the shackles of a homogenous culture however “enlightened” that might have been. A frustrated sense of despair and rebellion prevailed everywhere. The sovereign enforcement of new administrative and economic conditions was done with as much social change as could be achieved by education and the force of circumstances. Integration was accomplished but only as a transient device without any possibility of developing as a stable measure.
The scientific progress and technological developments of modern world have brought in peoples from different parts together with the resulting impact· of different cultures upon each other. Much easily available modes of mobility and communication explosion has made it impossible for any nation, nay for an individual, to have solitary existence. The urge for affiliation accentuated by the horrors of death and destruction of infighting groups have forced the human civilization to move towards national and international unity. Nevertheless all the action-plans, so far, have been formulated not by the ideas of the thinker but by the practical temperament of the time. It is true that the individualistic basis of society of the past has been replaced today by an emerging collectivism. The human society has taken successful strides towards the goal for unification from the League of Nations of yesteryear to the United Nations Organization of today. Neither, though, has proved very satisfactory from the political point of view, the growing insecurity, and disorder have made the existence of some international system more and
more imperative if modern civilization is not to collapse in bloodshed and chaos. So, there we find calculated stops towards integration. But in reality peoples remain integrated as long they visualise the force of unity as instrumental to the fulfilment of their partisan interests, passions and prejudices. There has yet been not long psychological preparation of a more dominant thought spelt out by the intellectuals of the age to remould the ideas of common men which would warrant us in expecting a total change in the ‘why’ and ‘what for’ of our Life. There cannot as yet be even a real external unity, far less an effective oneness.
Integration : Secularism
If we study the scriptures of different religious systems of the world, we find that from ancient times human mind has tried to trace the origin, cause and source of this phenomenal world. Various answers have been given to these quests by different thinkers and inspired seers of Truth. The wisdom of these thinkers are described in the philosophies of different societies. Religion is based on these philosophical ideas. Philosophy is flesh and bone, whereas religion is blood and life, and these two things make up the whole of absolute Truth” (Abhedananda, 1968). In other words, it can be said that philosophy itself is religion, because a synthetic and perfect system of thought invariably reveals the inner core of knowledge or wisdom that already exists in man.
In course of time religion was truncated from its philosophical base and debased with all sorts of dogmas and rituals. In the name of religion peoples were divided into different sects, numerous castes and creeds. Instead of being the precursor of Truth (Sattva), Knowledge (Jnana) and Work (Karma) religion was personified with distant personal God. The religious bigots took complete advantage of these dehumanized religions to spread the dreaded venom of communalism and hatred. The records show that the progress of human civilization has been and is being halted time and again by both implicit manipulations
of communalists and religious fanatics. Even the leaders of state and society do not hesitate to kowtow these self-styled saviours of mankind to satisfy their own lust for power and possession. Now these doctrines and dogmas, rituals and ceremonies only have been prevalent in churches, mosques and temples and in all shrines and among all religious followers. The human society is obvious nonetheless that speaking the truth is far better than celebrating many horse-sacrifices' – ‘Asvamedhasahasrat tusatyam ekani visisyate’ (Mahabharata). Religious integrations are presented as synonymous with material prosperity leaving the hidden mind to cultivate all evil designs of disintegration.
Need for moral integration
It must be remembered that the manifest social or political unity is not necessarily an end in itself; it is only worth pursuing in so far as it provides a means and a framework for a better, richer and vigorous individual and collective life. We have to keep in mind that unity is an idea which is not at all abitrary or unreal, for unity is the very basis of existence. Harmony and oneness is the law of Nature. The human race has to move towards unity and has to realise it one day.
Harmony but not uniformity is the law of Life. Life exists by diversity. Order, indeed is the law of life, but not an artificial regulation. The sound order is that comes from within. It is a truism to say that notwithstanding dissension in every sphere, the human civilization is progressing towards internationalism. This is not all, it is only framework; the idea of humanity has to grow not only upon the intelligence, but in the sentiments, feelings, natural sympathies and mental habits of man. "Meanwhile the progress made is likely to be more in external adjustments more as an operative model related to certain transient purposes than at once or soon in a sincere and honest realisation of the eternal and moral ideal. A frame may have been made, but the soul will have to grow into the physical body (Sri Aurobindo. The Human Cycle)
The world needs today a value system which will make us forgetful of all those that tend to create a rift between man and man, those that generate our narrow individuality and interests. We need that conviction which will help us to perceive the oneness in Nature in its real perspective. There need not be any point of discord between material prosperity through scientific progress and through religion that is eternal, universal in nature. In fact, the present turbulent world needs a religion which will be in perfect harmony with all the truths discovered by science, which are based upon the principle of unity in variety and which regard the material and efficient cause of the universe as one and the same. The fundamental principle of all religious ethics is Love thy neighbour as thyself. Moral integration, at the psychological plane can be achieved when men realise the truth; “that which exists is one. Men call it by various names” ekam sadvipra vahudha vadanti. That no mechanism social, political, religious has ever created or can create, it must take birth in the minds of men and rise from hidden and divine within.
References :
Swami Abhedananda . Complete Works of Swami Abhedananda, VoL VI Calcutta; Ramkrishna Vedanta Math, 1968.
Sri Aurobindo . Essays on the Gita. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1983.
Sri Aurobindo. The Human Cycle. Pondicherry : Sri Aurobindo Ashram 1962.
Bhattacharya Haridas (Ed). The Cultural Heritage of India Vol. III.
Calcutta: The Ramkrishna Institute of Culture.
Singh Amar Kumar. Developing Secularism and National Integration in India. Lucknow: Presidential address, Section of Psychology and Educational Sciences, LXXII Indian Science Congress, 1985.
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