KARMAYOGIN

 

 SRI AUROBINDO

 

CONTENTS

 

 

 

Facts and Opinions 17.7.1909/4

 

Facts and Opinions  24.7.1909/5

An Unequal Fight

 

The Indiscretions of Sir Edward

God and His Universe

 

The Demand for Co-operation

The Scientific Position

 

What Co-operation?

Force Universal or Individual

 

Sir Edward's Menace

Faith and Deliberation

 

The Personal Result

Our "Inconsistencies"

 

A One-sided Proposal

Good out of Evil

 

The Only Remedy

Loss of Courage

 

The "Bengalee" and Ourselves

Intuitive Reason

 

God and Man

 

 

 

Exit Bibhishan

 

The Doctrine of Sacrifice

The Right of Association (Speech)

 

College Square Speech

 

 

 

 

Facts and Comments 4.9.1909/11

 

Facts and Opinions 11.9.1909/12

The Kaul Judgment

 

Impatient Idealists

The Implications in the Judgment

 

The Question of Fitness

The Social Boycott

 

Public Disorder and Unfitness

The Law and the Nationalist

   
   

The Hughly Conference

The Hughly Resolutions

   

 

Facts and Opinions 18.9.1909/13

 

Facts and Opinions 25.9.1909/14

The Two Programmes

 

The Convention President

The Reforms

 

Presidential Autocracy

The Limitations of the Act

 

Mr. Lalmohan Ghose

Shall We Accept the Partition?

   
   

The Past and the Future

 

Facts and Opinions 2.10.1909/15

 

Facts and Opinions 9.10.1909/16

The Rump Presidential Election

 

The Apostasy of the National Council

Nation-Stuff in Morocco

 

The Progress of China

Cook versus Peary

 

Partition Day

     

Nationalist Organisation

 

Nationalist Work in England

An Extraordinary Prohibition

   

 

Facts and Opinions 16.10.1909/17

Gokhale's Apologia

The People's Proclamation

The Anusilan Samiti

The National Fund

 

Union Day

 

Facts and Opinions 6.11.1909/18

Mahomedan Representation

The Growth of Turkey

China Enters

The Patiala Arrests

The Daulatpur Dacoity

Place and Patriotism

The Dying Race

The Death of Senor Ferrer

The Budget

A Great Opportunity

Buddha's Ashes

Students and Politics

 

The Assassination of Prince Ito

The Hindu Sabha

 

Facts and Opinions 13.11.1909/19

 

Facts and Opinions 20.11.1909/20

House-Searches

 

A Hint of Change

Social Reform and Politics

 

Pretentious Shams

The Deoghar Sadhu

 

THE Municipalities and Reform

 

 

Police Unrest in the Punjab  

The Great Election

 

 

 

 

The ReformED COUNCILS

 

Facts and Opinions 27.11.1909/21

 

Facts and Opinions 4.12.1909/22

The Bomb Case and Anglo-India

 

The Lieutenant-Governor's Mercy

The Nadiya President's Speech

 

An Ominous Presage

Mr. Macdonald's Visit

 

Chowringhee Humour

 

 

The Last Resort

The Alipur Judgment

 

 

 

Facts and Opinions 11.12.1909/23

 

Facts and Opinions 18.12.1909/24

The United Congress

 

Sir Pherozshah's Resignation

The Spirit of the Negotiations

 

The Council Elections

A Salutary Rejection

 

British Unfitness for Liberty

The English Revolution

 

The Lahore Convention

Aristocratic Quibbling

 

 

 

 

The Moderate Manifesto

The Transvaal Indians

 

 

 

Facts and Opinions 25.12.1909/25

 

Facts and Opinions 1.1.1910/26

The United Congress Negotiations

 

The Perishing Convention

A New Sophism

 

The Convention President's Address

Futile Espionage

 

The Alleged Breach of Faith

Convention Voyagers

 

The Nasik Murder

 

 

Transvaal and Bengal

Creed and Constitution

 

 

To My Countrymen

 

National Education

 

Facts and Opinions 8.1.1910/27

 

Facts and Opinions 15.1.1910/28

Sir Edward Baker's Admissions

 

The Patiala Case

Calcutta and Mofussil

 

The Arya Samaj and Politics

The Non-Official Majority

 

The Arya Disclaimer

Sir Louis Dane on Terrorism

 

What is Sedition?

The Menace of Deportation

 

 

 

 

A Thing that Happened

A Practicable Boycott

 

 

 

Facts and Opinions 22.1.1910/29

 

Facts and Opinions 29.1.1910/30

Lajpatrai's Letters

 

The High Court Assassination

A Nervous Samaj

 

Anglo-Indian Prescriptions

The Banerji Vigilance Committees

 

House-Search

Postal Precautions

 

The Elections

Detective Wiles

 

 

 

 

The Viceroy's Speech

The  New Policy

 

 

 

Facts and Opinions 5.2.1910/31

 

Passing Thoughts 12.2.1910/32

The Party of Revolution

 

Vedantic Art

Its Growth

 

Asceticism and Enjoyment

Its Extent

 

Aliens in Ancient India

Ourselves

 

The Scholarship of Mr. Risley

 

 

Anarchism

The Necessity of the Situation

 

The Gita and Terrorism

The Elections

 

 

 

 

 

Passing Thoughts

Volume I - Feb. 26, 1910 - No. 34

Great Consequences

 

The events that sway the world are often the results of trivial circumstances. When immense changes and irresistible movements are in progress, it is astonishing how a single event, often a chance event, will lead to a train of circumstances that alter the face of a country or the world. At such times a slight turn this way or that produces results out of all proportion to the cause. It is on such occasions that we feel most vividly the reality of a Power which disposes of events and defeats the calculations of men. The end of many things is brought about by the sudden act of a single individual. A world vanishes, another is created almost at a touch. Certainty disappears and we begin to realise what the pralaya of the Hindus, the passage from one age to another, really means and how true is the idea that it is by rapid transitions long-prepared changes are induced. Such a change now impends all over the world, and in almost all countries events are happening, the final results of which the actors do not foresee. Small incidents pass across the surface of great countries and some of them pass and are forgotten, others precipitate the future. In England, in Prussia, in Greece, still more in Turkey, Persia and China a slight movement of one or two men may be sufficient at the present moment to alter the destinies of the country.

 

The Egyptian Murder

 

The assassination of Boutros Pasha in Egypt has the chance of being one of these momentous events. In itself it is an incident which has happened in many countries without disturbing the march of ordinary events. The lives of rulers are always open to this peril from the fanatic, the personal enemy with a grudge, the

 

Page – 406


crank or the lunatic. In England itself the lives of ruling men or princes have been taken or attempted. But these are not ordinary times and Egypt is not in a normal condition. Hitherto the Egyptian question has not been acute. There is a strong Nationalist sentiment which grows with time, the Denshawi incident has left wounds behind, but, beyond the mere fact of the presence of the foreigner, there seems to be no specific grievance which could give intensity of feeling or a formidable shape to the vague discontent and the perfectly natural general aspiration. If the virtual ruler of Egypt is well advised, the act of a solitary assassin need not provide anything but a few days' unhealthy excitement — it need not be the spark in the power magazine. But if Sir Eldon Gorst allows himself to be swayed into providing the Egyptian with specific causes of discontent, he may succeed in adding an Egyptian difficulty to the permanent burdens of England. The mind of rulers at such seasons are moved rather by impulses beyond their control than by that calm thought which would guide them in ordinary times. We know what Lord Cromer would have done; it is to be seen what a higher Power impels Sir Eldon Gorst to do; for on the reception of an event and not on the event itself its consequences depend.

 

Great Preparations

 

Conversely, at such times great preparations, at least in the initial stages of the change, lead to nothing or very little. Pompous associations, largely attended conferences, earnest and careful deliberations all end in smoke; they vanish, leaving no trace behind. This is largely because these great preparations either take their stand on the chimaera that the past can be restored, or they anchor themselves on the permanency of present conditions. But in these periods things move so rapidly that yesterday's conditions entirely disappear today and today's have no surety of being in existence tomorrow. Under such circumstances the rule of the Gita becomes almost a necessity, to do one's duty according to one's lights and leave the results to God. For, when we attempt to gaze into the immediate future, the one

 

Page – 407


comment that suggests itself is in the Homeric phrase,

 

"These things lie on the knees of the Gods."

 

Revelation in Jail

 

Revelation is a thing Religion powerfully asserts, Science as powerfully denies. According to our ideas in this country, man has a faculty, latent in him but easily developed through the various means grouped under the expression Sadhana, by which he is able to see spiritually and get the revelation of things not discernible by the reason. Srijut Krishna Kumar Mitra in relating his spiritual experiences in Agra jail dwelt on the revelation of the omnipresent and merciful God which was continually with him in his imprisonment. He had what we call the pratyaksa darśan. This is a thing the possibility of which our wise men trained in European enlightenment think it a very intellectual thing to deny. On a similar occasion the Indian Social Reformer sneered at the experience, declared that God reveals Himself only in His laws and, if we remember right, scoffed at the idea of such a revelation being given in such an inappropriate, disreputable and uncomfortable place as a jail. It is curious at least that not one but many should have had this experience recently in precisely similar circumstances and that the various experiences should have been expressed in almost exactly the same terms. After all, an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory. Our own belief is that the motions of the world are travelling towards a signal refutation of the atheistic and agnostic attitudes and that India is the place selected for the revelation. It is for this reason that these experiences are becoming so frequent in men who are rather men of action than what is generally known as purely religious men, that is to say, who seek God in life and the service of men and not merely in the closet and the Ashram. A new religion summing up and correcting the old, a religion based not on dogma but on direct knowledge and experience, is the need of the age, and it is only India that can give it to the world.

 

Page – 408