{"id":1076,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:24","slug":"75-passing-thoughts-19-2-1910-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\/75-passing-thoughts-19-2-1910-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-75_Passing Thoughts 19-2-1910.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nPassing Thoughts<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVolume I – Feb.
\n19, 1910 – No. 33<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t
\n The
\n Bhagalpur Literary Conference<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nT<\/font>he prevalence of
\nannual conferences in the semi-Europeanised
\nlife of Bengal is a curious phenomenon eloquent of the unreality of our present
\nculture and the inefficiency of our modernised existence. Our old life was
\nwell, even minutely organised on an intelligent and consistent Oriental model.
\nThe modern life of Europe is well and largely organised on an intelligent and
\nconsistent Occidental model. It materialises certain main ideas of life and
\nwell-being, provides certain centres of life, equips them efficiently, serves
\nthe object with which they are instituted. Our old life did the same. But this
\nis precisely what our modern life does not do. Its institutions are apes of a
\nforeign plan, unintelligent expressions of an idea which is not ours; they
\nserve no civic, no national purpose. They are the spasmodic movements of an
\norganism whose own life is arrested, but which feels itself compelled to move,
\nhowever awkwardly and uselessly, if only to persuade itself that it is not
\ndead. We have for instance a Literary Conference which meets once a year, if
\nnothing occurs to prevent it. But such an annual celebration has no intelligent
\npurpose except as the centre of an organised literary life. The pulse of our
\nliterary life is feeble and artificial. Its centres are conspicuous by their
\nabsence. In Europe the club, the literary paper, the coterie, the school of
\nwriting, the Academy are distinct entities in which the members of the organism
\nhave living relations, a common atmosphere, a common intellectual food. They
\nhave no Literary Conference because the literary life of Europe is a reality.
\nWe in India have neither these institutions nor any other centres of our own.
\nThe Conference is a convulsive attempt to relate ourselves to each other,
\nwhich evinces a vague desire for united living, but no capacity to effect it.
\nThere was a time when a vigorous literary life seemed about to form itself in
\nBengal, and its relics are seen in the literary magazine<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 402<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

and
\nthe Sahitya Parishad;
\nbut at present these serve only to record the extremely languid pulsation of
\nour intellectual existence. The great intellectual stir, hopefulness and
\nactivity of the last century has disappeared. The individual lives to himself,
\nvigorously or feebly, according to the varying robustness of his personality
\nor intensity of his temperament. Co-ordination is still far from us.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Life
\n and Institutions<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Life
\ncreates institutions; institutions do not
\ncreate, but express and preserve life. This is a truth we are too apt to
\nforget. The Europeans and especially our Gurus, the English, attach an exaggerated
\nimportance to machinery, because their own machinery has been so successful,
\ntheir organisation so strong and triumphant. In the conceit of this success
\nthey imagine that their machinery is the only machinery and that the adoption
\nof their organisation by foreign peoples is all that is needed for perfect
\nsocial and political felicity. In Europe this blind attachment to machinery
\ndoes not do fatal harm, because the life of a free nation has developed the
\nexisting institutions and modifies them by its own irresistible law of life and
\ndevelopment. But to take over those institutions and think that they will magically
\ndevelop European virtues, force and robustness, or the vivid and vigorous life
\nof Europe, is as if a man were to steal another’s coat and think to take over
\nwith it his character. Have not indeed many of us thought by masquerading in
\nthe amazing garb which nineteenth century Europe developed, to become so many
\nbrown Englishmen ? This curious conjuring trick did not work; hatted, coated
\nand pantalooned, we still kept the Chaddar and the Dhoty
\nin our characters. The fond attempt to become great, enlightened and civilised
\nby borrowing European institutions will be an equally disastrous failure.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n Indian
\n Conservatism<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In
\nIndia we were, if possible, even more attached to our machinery \u2014 all the more
\nbecause we had ceased to understand the<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 403<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

science
\nof social mechanics which they embodied. We attached a superstitious importance
\nto maintaining our society exactly in the mould of our Shastras
\nwhile in reality that mould had been altered out of recognition centuries ago.
\nWe quoted Parasara and Manu while we followed Raghunandan
\nand custom. This religious fiction was very much like the English superstition
\nabout the British constitution which is supposed to be the same thing it was in
\nthe days of Lord Somers, but is really a
\nthing Lord Somers would have stared at
\naghast as an unrecognisable democratic horror. The cause is the same in both
\ncases \u2014 a robust and tenacious society freely developing its machinery in
\nresponse to its inner needs while cherishing and preserving them. Englishman
\nand Hindu have been alike in their tenacious conservatism and their refusal to
\naccept revolution, alike in their respect for law and the thing established,
\nalike in their readiness to change rapidly and steadily if the innovator would
\nonly disguise from them the fact that they were changing. The Hindu advanced
\nmore slowly because he was an Asiatic in a period of contraction, the
\nEnglishman more quickly because he was an European in a period of expansion. If
\nour social reformers had understood this Indian characteristic, they might have revolutionised our society with comparatively small friction, but the parade of
\nrevolution which they made hampered their cause. Even as it is, Indian
\nSociety, in Bengal at least, is changing utterly while all the time loudly
\nprotesting that it has not changed and will not change. The mould in which Raghunandan cast society, is disintegrating as utterly as the mould of Parasara or Manu has disintegrated. What will
\nreplace it, is another matter.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Samaj
\n and Shastra<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every
\nSamaj must have its Shastra, written or unwritten. Where there is no Social
\nScripture, there is none the less a minute and rigid code of social laws
\nbinding men in their minutest actions. The etiquette of the European is no less
\nbinding than the minute scrupulosities of Manu or Raghunandan, and it is even
\nmore minute and scrupulous. It is a mistake to think that in Europe men can eat
\nas they will, talk as they will, act as they will with<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 404<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

impunity.
\nThey cannot \u2014 or at least they could not, though one hears of strange
\nrevolutions, and in the days of the suffragette everything is possible. Society
\neverywhere is exacting, scrupulous, minute, pitiless in punishment of slight
\ndepartures from its code, however absurd and unreasonable that code may be. But
\nwhile in India the sanction is religious, in Europe it is social. In India a
\nman dreaded spiritual impurity, in Europe he shrinks from the sneers and disliike of his class or his fellows. Social
\nexcommunication is always the ultimate penalty.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n Revolution<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But
\nin Europe and India alike we seem to stand on the threshold
\nof a vast revolution, political, social and religious. Whatever nation now is
\nthe first to solve the problems which are threatening to hammer Governments,
\ncreeds, societies into pieces all the world over, will lead the world in the
\nage that is coming. It is our ambition that India should be that nation. But in
\norder that she should be what we wish, it is necessary that she should be
\ncapable of unsparing revolution. She must have the courage of her past
\nknowledge and the immensity of soul that will measure itself with her future.
\nThis is impossible to England, it is not impossible to India. She has in her
\nsomething daemonic, volcanic, elemental \u2014 she can rise above conventions, she
\ncan break through formalities and prejudices. But she will not do so unless she
\nis sure that she has God’s command to do it, \u2014 unless the Avatar descends and
\nleads. She will follow a Buddha or a Mohammad
\nwherever he will lead her, because he is to her either God himself, or his
\nservant, \u2014 because as Sri Ramakrishna would
\nhave put it, she saw the Chapras. It was a
\nlittle of that daemonic, volcanic, elemental thing in the heart of the Indian
\nwhich Lord Curzon lashed into life in 1905.
\nBut the awakening was too narrow in its scope, too feebly supported with
\nstrength, too ill-informed in knowledge. Above all the Avatar had not descended.
\nSo the movement has drawn back to await a farther and truer impulse. Meanwhile
\nlet it inform its intellect and put more iron into its heart, awaiting a
\ndiviner manifestation.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Page \u2013 405<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Passing Thoughts Volume I – Feb. 19, 1910 – No. 33 The Bhagalpur Literary Conference   The prevalence of annual conferences in the semi-Europeanised life…<\/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-1076","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\/1076","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=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}