{"id":1095,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1095"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","slug":"03-ourselves-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\/03-ourselves-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-03_Ourselves.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nOurselves<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/b><\/font>HE<\/span><\/b> Karmayogin<\/i> comes
\ninto the field to
\nfulfil a function which an increasing tendency in the country
\ndemands. The life of the nation which once flowed in a broad
\nand single stream has long been severed into a number of
\nseparate meagre and shallow channels. The two main floods 
\nhave followed the paths of religion and politics, but they have
\nflowed separately. Our political activity has crept in a channel
\ncut for it by European or Europeanised minds; it tended always
\nto a superficial wideness, but was deficient in depth and volume.
\nThe national genius, originality, individuality poured itself into
\nreligion, while our politics were imitative and unreal. Yet
\nwithout a living political activity national life cannot, under
\nmodern circumstances, survive. So also there has been a stream
\nof social life, more and more muddied and disturbed, seeking
\nto get clearness, depth, largeness, freedom, but always failing
\nand increasing in weakness or distraction. There was a stream
\ntoo of industrial life, faint and thin, the poor survival of the
\nold vigorous Indian artistic and industrial capacity murdered
\nby unjust laws and an unscrupulous trade policy. All these ran
\nin disconnected channels, sluggish, scattered and ineffectual.
\nThe tendency is now for these streams to unite again into one
\nmighty invincible and grandiose flood. To assist that tendency,
\nto give voice and definiteness to the deeper aspirations now
\nforming obscurely within the national consciousness is the
\nchosen work of the Karmayogin<\/i>.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThere is no national life perfect or
\nsound without the cāturvarnya<\/i>. The life of the nation must contain within itself
\nthe life of the Brahmin, \u2014 spirituality, knowledge, learning,
\nhigh and pure ethical aspiration and endeavour; the life of the
\nKshatriya, \u2014 manhood and strength moral and physical, the
\nlove of battle, the thirst for glory, the sense of honour, chivalry,
\nself-devotion, generosity, grandeur of soul; the life of the Vaishya, \u2014 trade, industry, thrift, prosperity, benevolence,
\nphi-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 11<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nlanthropy; the life of the Shudra, \u2014
\nhonesty, simplicity, labour,
\nreligious and quiet service to the nation even in the humblest
\nposition and the most insignificant kind of work. The cause of
\nIndia’s decline was the practical disappearance of the Kshatriya
\nand the dwindling of the Vaishya. The whole political history of
\nIndia since the tyranny of the Nandas has been an attempt to
\nresuscitate or replace the Kshatriya. But the attempt was only
\npartially successful. The Vaishya held his own for a long time, indeed, until the British advent by which he has almost been
\nextinguished. When the cāturvarnya<\/i> disappears, there comes varnasankara<\/i>, utter confusion of the great types which keep a
\nnation vigorous and sound. The Kshatriya dwindled, the
\nVaishya dwindled, the Brahmin and Shudra were left. The inevitable tendency was for the Brahmin type to disappear and the
\nfirst sign of his disappearance was utter degeneracy, the tendency to lose himself and while keeping some outward signs of
\nthe Brahmin to gravitate towards Shudrahood. In the kaliyuga
\n<\/i>the Shudra is powerful and attracts into himself the less vigorous
\nBrahmin, as the earth attracts purer but smaller bodies, and the brahmateja<\/i>, the spiritual force of the latter, already diminished,
\ndwindles to nothingness. For the satyayuga<\/i> to return, we must
\nget back the brahmateja<\/i> and make it general. For the brahmateja
\n<\/i>is the basis of all the rest and in the satyayuga<\/i> all men have it
\nmore or less and by it the nation lives and is great.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nAll this is, let us say, a parable. It
\nis more than a parable,
\nit is a great truth. But our educated class have become so unfamiliar with the deeper knowledge of their forefathers that it has
\nto be translated into modern European terms before they can
\nunderstand it. For it is the European ideas alone that are real
\nto them and the great truths of Indian thought seem to them
\nmere metaphors, allegories and mystic parables. So well has
\nBritish education done its fatal denationalising work in India.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Brahmin stands for religion,
\nscience, scholarship and the
\nhigher morality; the Kshatriya for war, politics and administration; the Vaishya for the trades, professions and industries, the
\nShudra for labour and service. It is only when these four great
\ndepartments of human activity are all in a robust and flourishing
\ncondition that the nation is sound and great. When any of these<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 12<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndisappear or suffer, it is bad for the
\nbody politic. And the two highest are the least easy to be spared. If they
\nsurvive in full strength, they can provide themselves with the two others, but
\nif either the Kshatriya or the Brahmin go, if either the political force or the
\nspiritual force of a nation is lost, that nation is doomed unless it can revive
\nor replace the missing strength. And of the two the Brahmin is the more
\nimportant. He can always create the Kshatriya; spiritual force can always raise
\nup material force to defend it. But if the Brahmin becomes the Shudra,
\nthen the lower instinct of the serf and the labourer becomes all in
\nall, the instinct to serve and seek a living as one supreme object
\nof life, the instinct to accept safety as a compensation for lost
\ngreatness and inglorious ease and dependence in place of the
\nardours of high aspiration for the nation and the individual.
\nWhen spirituality is lost all is lost. This is the fate from which we
\nhave narrowly escaped by the resurgence of the soul of India in
\nNationalism.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut that resurgence is not yet
\ncomplete. There is the sentiment of Indianism, there is not yet the knowledge. There is a
\nvague idea, there is no definite conception or deep insight. We
\nhave yet to know ourselves, what we were, are and may be; what
\nwe did in the past and what we are capable of doing in the future;<\/font>
\nour history and our mission. This is
\nthe first and most important
\nwork which the Karmayogin<\/i> sets for itself, to popularise this
\nknowledge. The Vedanta or Sufism, the temple or the mosque,
\nNanak and Kabir and Ramdas, Chaitanya or Guru Govinda,
\nBrahmin and Kayastha and Namasudra, whatever national
\nasset we have, indigenous or acclimatised, it will seek to make
\nknown, to put in its right place and appreciate. And the second
\nthing is how to use these assets so as to swell the sum of national
\nlife and produce the future. It is easy to appraise their relations
\nto the past; it is more difficult to give them their place in the
\nfuture. The third thing is to know the outside world and its relation to us and how to deal with it. That is the problem which we
\nfind at present most difficult and insistent, but its solution depends on the solution of the others.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe have said that brahmateja<\/i> is
\nthe thing we need most of
\nall and first of all. In one sense, that means the pre-eminence of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 13<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nreligion; but after all, what the
\nEuropeans mean by religion is not brahmateja<\/i>; which is rather spirituality, the force and energy of
\nthought and action arising from communion with or self-surrender to that within us which rules the world. In that sense we
\nshall use it. This force and energy can be directed to any purpose
\nGod desires for us; it is sufficient to knowledge, love or service; it is good for the liberation of an
\nindividual soul, the building of
\na nation or the turning of a tool. It works from within, it works
\nin the power of God, it works with superhuman energy. The
\nreawakening of that force in three hundred millions of men by
\nthe means which our past has placed in our hands, that is our
\nobject.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe European is proud of his success in
\ndivorcing religion
\nfrom life. Religion, he says, is all very well in its place, but it has
\nnothing to do with politics or science or commerce, which it
\nspoils by its intrusion; it is meant only for Sundays when, if one
\nis English, one puts on black clothes and tries to feel good, and if
\none is continental, one puts the rest of the week away and amuses
\noneself. In reality, the European has not succeeded in getting rid
\nof religion from his life. It is coming back in socialism, in the
\nAnarchism of Bakunin and Tolstoy, in many other isms<\/i>; and in
\nwhatever form it comes, it insists on engrossing the whole of life,
\nmoulding the whole of society and politics under the law of
\nidealistic aspiration. It does not use the word God or grasp the
\nidea, but it sees God in humanity. What the European understood by religion, had to be got rid of and put out of life, but real
\nreligion, spirituality, idealism, altruism, self-devotion, the hunger
\nafter perfection is the whole destiny of humanity and cannot be
\ngot rid of. After all God does exist and if He exists, you cannot
\nshove Him into a corner and say, "That is your place and as for
\nthe world and life it belongs to us." He pervades and returns.
\nEvery age of denial is only a preparation for a larger and more
\ncomprehensive affirmation.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Karmayogin<\/i> will be more of a
\nnational review than a
\nweekly newspaper. We shall notice current events only as they
\nevidence, help, affect or resist the growth of national life and
\nthe development of the soul of the nation. Political and social
\nproblems we shall deal with from this standpoint, seeking first<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 14<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n


\ntheir spiritual
\nroots and inner causes and then proceeding to measures and remedies. In a
\nsimilar spirit we shall deal with all sources of national strength in the past
\nand in the present, seeking to bring them home to all comprehensions and make
\nthem applicable to our life, dynamic and not static, creative and not merely
\npreservative. For if there is no creation, there must be disintegration; if
\nthere is no advance and victory, there must be recoil and defeat.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vol. I  –  June  19,  1909  –  No. 1<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 15<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\tHOME<\/span><\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ourselves   THE Karmayogin comes into the field to fulfil a function which an increasing tendency in the country demands. The life of the nation…<\/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-1095","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\/1095","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=1095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}