{"id":1037,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1037"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","slug":"47-facts-and-opinions-13-11-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/47-facts-and-opinions-13-11-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-47_Facts and Opinions 13-11-1909.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nFacts and Opinions<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVolume I – Nov.
\n13, 1909 – Number 19<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n House-Searches<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

            O<\/b><\/font>ne wonders what would happen in any
\nEuropean country if the police as a recompense for their utter inefficiency and
\ndetective incapacity were armed with the power and allowed to use it freely of
\nraiding the houses of respectable citizens, ransack the property of absent
\noccupants and leaving it unsafe and unprotected, carrying off the business
\nbooks of Presses, newspapers and other commercial concerns, the private letters
\nof individuals, books publicly sold and procurable in every bookshop, violating
\nthe sanctity of correspondence between wife and husband, searching the persons
\nof ladies of the house even though it be by female hands and the trampling on
\nthe sanctity of the home, the dignity of the person and the self-respect which
\nevery race worthy of existence holds to be dearer than life itself. And all
\nthis in spite of the fact, exemplified a hundred times over, that these
\ninquisitions are wholly infructuous and can
\nserve no purpose but harassment and exasperation. Usually the searches are
\nundertaken, if we do not err, on the vague information of disreputable
\nhirelings used as spies and informers, the statements of lying approvers eager to save their own skins by jeopardising innocent men and confessions to the police of arrested prisoners
\nmade either for the same purpose or dictated by a morbid vanity and
\nlight-headed braggadocio which invents facts and details in order to give
\ndignity to petty crime and magnitude to small and foolish undertakings. The
\nludicrously irrelevant and useless nature of
\nthe articles which are the sole reward of this odious activity are its
\nsufficient condemnation. Even if the widespread conspiracy dreamed of by
\nauthorities were a fact is it conceivable that respectable men, knowing the
\npolice to be on the alert, would risk liberty and property by storing bombs,
\nlooted ornaments or treasonous correspondence in their houses ? We are aware
\nthat the right of house-search is a necessary weapon in the<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 263<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

hands of authority
\nfor the suppression of crime, but it was never meant that this should be
\nmisused in order to supply the place of detective ability in the Police. House
\nsearches are unwarrantable unless the information on which they proceed is
\nprecise, reliable and highly probable. Judging from results not one of these
\nepithets can be applied to the numerous searches which are now becoming a
\nstanding feature of life in Bengal. And if the search of the persons of ladies
\nis to become another common feature of these domiciliary visits, we fear that
\nthe patience of a people jealously sensitive on these matters will not long
\nendure the strain. Surely, the higher authorities ought to have sufficient good sense to draw inevitable conclusion
\nfrom experience, perceive the limitations of this weapon and, if not for the
\npossible evil consequence of creating still greater disaffection, yet for its
\nbarren inutility, renounce its excessive
\nuse.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Social
\n Reform and Politics<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There
\nare two methods of progress, two impelling motives from which great changes and
\nfar-reaching reforms can be effected. One is the struggle of selfish interests
\nbetween man and man, class and class, working out progress by ignoble strife,
\nthe forced compromise and convenient barter of the lower kind of politics. The
\nother is the impulse and clash of mighty ideas, noble aspirations, great
\nnational or humanitarian aims, the things which inspire mankind in its upward
\nmarch and create empires and nations. Both are freely used by the Master of the
\nworld in His careful providence and various economy. Often they are intermingled.
\nBut it cannot be doubted which is most healthful to the individual, the nation
\nand the race. The social result worked out by a bitter and selfish struggle
\nbetween upper class and lower class. Labour
\nand Capital, is one thing; the harmony created by a mighty enthusiasm, such as
\nled the aristocracy of Japan to lay down their exclusive privileges and,
\nwithout reserve, call upon the masses to come up and share their high culture,
\ntheir seats of might and their ennobling traditions, is quite another. Hindu
\nsociety in the mofussil is now bitterly
\ndivided, and tends more and<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 264<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

more to be
\nconvulsed, by the new aspirations of the lower castes and the inability of the
\nhigher to decide how they will meet the demand. It is a bad sign that the
\naction of both sides tends more and more to be selfish and narrow, political in
\nthe worst sense of the word. To barter help in Swadeshi or faithfulness to
\nHinduism for social privileges, or to bribe the masses to Swadeshism by petty and calculated concessions
\nwill tend neither to the genuineness of the Swadeshi sentiment, nor the
\nstrength of the national movement, nor the dignity and purity of our religion.
\nIt is an evil and foreign principle which has entered into our system, one of
\nthe many evil results of our disastrous contact with European civilisation at a
\ntime of national weakness and disintegration and our attempt to assimilate it
\nwithout first vindicating our inner liberty and establishing ourselves as free
\nagents. A great social revolution in this ancient society ought only to come as
\nthe fruit of a mighty national, humanitarian and religious impulse. The fault
\nof the present state of things rests largely with the waning insight and
\nstatesmanship of the Brahmins. Formerly, they would not have been wanting
\neither in concerted action, largeness of view or skilfulness
\nof device. It was not their wont to stand still in an inert and impossible
\nconservatism but to recognise circumstances and meet them without sacrificing
\nthe essence of their religion or the basic principles of Hindu society.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n The
\n Deoghar Sadhu<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recently
\nsome of the Bengali papers have contained detailed information of the feat of a
\nSadhu who buried himself for some days not, as in the well-known Punjab case,
\ngiving up his outward consciousness and entering into the Jada Samadhi or
\ninert inner existence, but in full possession of his outer senses and conversing
\nat times from his living tomb with visitors outside. The correspondent of the Bengalee<\/i>
\ntells us that the local people were dissatisfied with the Sadhu because the
\npeculiar power he evinced was unattended by any moral elevation or true ascetic
\nqualities. It is a general delusion that the power thus shown is a very great
\nand almost supernatural Siddhi and ought to
\nbe in the possession<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 265<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

only of very
\nhighly developed souls. A false Indian tradition is partly responsible for the
\nerror; partly, it is due to the supreme ignorance of the deeper secrets of our
\nbeing which belongs to the limited and self-satisfied materialistic Science of
\nEurope now dominant in our midst. There is nothing wonderful in the feat of
\nthe Deoghar Sadhu,
\nwhich was the result of the conquest of the breath, Pranayam,
\nachieved by certain physical and mental processes and not necessarily
\ndependent on moral or spiritual progress. The Kumbhak
\nor retention of the Prana, dispensing with
\nthe process of inbreathing and outbreathing,
\nis the final achievement of the process and the Kumbhak can, when thoroughly
\nconquered, be continued for an indefinite period. Given the power of Kumbhak,
\nit is obvious that one can stay under water or earth or in a room hermetically
\nsealed for as long as the state continues. The power of stopping the
\nheartbeats, dispensing with the process of breathing, and other of the outworks
\nof Yogic knowledge and achievement are being
\nslowly established in order to break down the exclusive pride of European
\nScience and prepare for a new order of knowledge and a greater science to which
\nits dogmatic narrowness is bitterly and
\nscornfully opposed.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 266<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facts and Opinions Volume I – Nov. 13, 1909 – Number 19 House-Searches               One wonders what would happen in any European country if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}