{"id":1107,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:35","slug":"24-the-boycott-celebraton-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\/24-the-boycott-celebraton-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-24_The Boycott Celebraton.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\nThe Boycott Celebration<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nA <\/b><\/font>
\nNATIONAL <\/b><\/span>festival is the symbol of the national
\nvitality. All outward action depends eventually on the accepted ideas and
\nimaginations of the doer. As these are, so is his aspiration; and although it is not true that as is his
\naspiration, so is his action, yet it is true that as is his aspiration, so will
\nhis action more and more tend to be. If it is the idea that finally expresses
\nitself in all material forms, actions, institutions and consummations, it is
\nthe imagination that draws the idea out, suggests the shape and gives the
\ncreative impulse. Hence the importance of celebrations like the 7th of August,
\nespecially in the first movements of a great national resurgence. A time may
\ncome when the living meaning may pass out of a solemnity or anniversary and
\nleave it a dead form which only the persistence of habit preserves, but that
\ncannot happen until the underlying idea is realised and the imaginative impulse
\ntowards creation has victoriously justified itself and exhausted its sources of
\nsatisfaction. The ideas which the boycott celebration holds as its roots and
\nthe imaginations to which it appeals are not yet even partially satisfied and,
\nuntil they have confirmed themselves in victorious action and are perpetuated
\nin lasting forms and institutions, it is of the first importance that this
\ngreat festival should be celebrated in some form or other and, as far as
\npossible, in the form it originally took. There is a meaning in the
\nimaginative conservatism which refuses to part with the cherished pomps and
\neven the little details of show and brightness which have always been
\nassociated with this day, the procession, the places, the meeting, the flags,
\nmusic, songs, the vow, the resolution. Any laxness
\nin these minutiae would show a fainting of the imagination which clings to the
\nfestival and its underlying ideas and a carelessness in the heart about those
\nemotions without which the idea by itself is always inoperative. This appeal to
\nthe imagination and nourishing of the emotions is especially necessary when
\nthe outward circumstances are widely different from the cherished hopes and<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
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\n\u2013 146<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\timaginations
\nand the speedy advent of the longed-for future seems to the reason distant or
\nimprobable. That is why importance is attached in all countries to ceremonies
\nand festivals. There are many of us who are inclined to speak with contempt of
\nspeeches and shows, and there was a time when we too in our impatience of the
\nmere babbler were inclined to echo the cry for silent work. A juster knowledge of human psychology has led us
\nto modify our view on that head. Man is not by nature a silent animal nor in
\nthe mass is he capable of work without frequent interchange of speech. Talk is
\nnecessary to him, emotion is necessary to him, imagination is necessary to
\nhim; without these he cannot be induced to action. This constitutes the supreme
\nimportance of the right of free speech and free meeting; this also constitutes the justification of symbolical
\nholidays and festivals. Speech and writing are necessary to the acceptance and
\nspread of the idea without which there can be no incentive to action.
\nCeremonies help the imagination and encourage it to see in the concrete that
\nwhich cannot be immediately realised. It was out of the gurge and welter of an infinite oratory, thousand-throated journalism,
\nendless ceremonies, processions, national festivals that the appallingly
\nstrenuous action of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic age in France arose to
\nreconstitute society and transform Europe. Let us not therefore despise these
\nmighty instruments. God has created them and the natural human love for them
\nfor very great and abiding purposes. Even in these few years the Ganapati and Sivaji
\nfestivals, instituted by the far-seeing human sympathy and democratic instinct
\nof Mr. Tilak, have done much to reawaken and
\nsolidify the national feeling of Maharashtra,
\nand we can all feel what a stimulus to the growth and permanence of the
\nmovement we have found in the celebrations of the 7th August and the 16th
\nOctober. They are to us what sacred days are to the ordinary religions. The
\nindividual religious man can do without them, collective religion cannot. These
\nare the sacred days in the religion of Nationalism, the worship of God the
\nMother.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe 16th October is the idea of unity, the worship of the Mother one
\nand indivisible. The 7th of August is the idea of separateness,
\nthe worship of the Mother free, strong and glorious.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
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\n
\n


\n\tBoth
\nthese ideas are as yet ideas merely, realised in our faith and aspiration by
\nthe shaping imagination, not yet materialised in the world of concrete fact.
\nThis, according to our Vedantic ideas, is
\nhow the world and things whether in general or particular come into being. They
\nexist first in seed form in the silent and unexpressed idea, in a world of
\ndeep sleep where there is as yet no action of thought or deed, only the inert,
\ninoperative idea. Shiva the white and pure, the ascetic, the still, contemplative Yogin holds them in himself as Prajna, the Wise One, God ideal. But Shiva is
\n\ttāmasika<\/i> and rajas<\/i> is necessary to
\ninduce motion before things can exist. The thing has next to sprout out of the
\nseed and take a volatile and unfixed shape in the psychic world where it waits
\nfor a material birth. Here Brahma, the flaming, shapeless and many-shaped,
\nholds them in his brilliant vibrating medium of active imagination and thought
\nand by his daughter Vach, the Goddess speech
\neldest-born of the world, puts them into shape and body as Hiranyagarbha, God imaginative and therefore
\ncreative. Last they take permanent shape and abide in some material body, form,
\norganism. Vishnu there holds them in his fixed and visible cosmos as virāt,<\/i> God practical, until the divine imagination
\nwearies of them and Shiva as destroyer draws them back again, their outward form
\n\tdisintegrated and their supporting imaginations dead, into the seed-state from
\n\twhich they
\nemerged. For a long time the idea of unity, the idea of a strong national
\nself-expression were merely sleeping and inoperative ideas
\nheld as sounding words rather than possibilities. Still the repetition of the
\n\twords like the repetition even mechanical of a
\npowerful Mantra, began to awaken the divine force latent in the idea and,
\nhowever feebly, it began to stir. But it was not till the 16th of October and
\nthe 7th of August that these ideas seized on the faith and imagination of the
\npeople and took shape, volatile and unfixed but still shape, as a living
\naspiration. The day of material realisation is yet distant. Moving to unity we
\nare still divided by external and internal agencies. Moving towards strength
\nand freedom we are still subject to external force and internal weakness. But
\nthis we have gained that the purpose and imagination of unity and strength is
\nrooted in the hearts and minds of a great and the most vigorous portion of the
\nyoung<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
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\n
\n

generation,
\ninheritors of the future, beyond the power of force or sophistry to remove.
\nHaving secured so much we can go on in the confidence that, whatever now
\nhappens to the pioneers, Hiranyagarbha has
\ntaken the new ideas into his protection and when that has once happened Virat must inevitably fulfil them.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

It is a short-sighted and superficial outlook which sees in the 16th
\nOctober only the day of mourning for the partition of Bengal or in the 7th
\nAugust only a commemoration of the Boycott. The Boycott is a symbol, the
\nmourning a symbol. When the weapon of Boycott has done its work, we shall lay
\nit aside, but the 7th August we shall not lay aside, for it is our sacred Day
\nof Awakening. When the Partition is rescinded, we shall cease to go into
\nannual mourning, but the 16th October will not fall into oblivion or desuetude,
\nfor it is our sacred Day of the Worship of the Indivisible Mother. These are
\nthe imaginations, these the mighty and creative thoughts and aspirations which
\nwe seek to foster by these celebrations. Therefore we regard the holding of the
\nBoycott Day as a national duty. Let those who scoff at it and talk of the
\nnecessity of silent sādhanā<\/i>, for we
\nhave heard of such, be warned
\nhow they desecrate sacred words by using them as a convenient cant and try, out
\nof selfish and infidel fears, to thwart in the minds of the young the work
\nwhich by these celebrations God has been doing.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 149<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nHOME<\/font><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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

The Boycott Celebration   A NATIONAL festival is the symbol of the national vitality. All outward action depends eventually on the accepted ideas and imaginations…<\/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-1107","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\/1107","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=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}