{"id":1112,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:37","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:37","slug":"04-the-ideal-of-the-karmayogin-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\/04-the-ideal-of-the-karmayogin-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-04_The Ideal of the Karmayogin.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n


\n                                            The Ideal of the Karmayogin<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nA<\/font> NATION
\n<\/font><\/b>is building in India today before the eyes of the world so swiftly, so
\npalpably that all can watch the process and those who have sympathy and
\nintuition distinguish the forces at work, the materials in use, the lines of
\nthe divine architecture. This nation is not a new race raw from the workshop
\nof Nature or created by modern circumstances. One of the oldest races and
\ngreatest civilisations on this earth, the most indomitable in vitality, the
\nmost fecund in greatness, the deepest in life, the most wonderful in
\npotentiality, after taking into itself numerous sources of strength from
\nforeign strains of blood and other types of human civilisation, is now seeking
\nto lift itself for good into an organised national unity. Formerly a congeries
\nof kindred nations with a single life and a single culture, always by the law
\nof this essential oneness tending to unity, always by its excess of fecundity
\nengendering fresh diversities and divisions, it has never yet been able to
\novercome permanently the almost insuperable
\nobstacles to the organisation of a continent. The time has now come when those
\nobstacles can be overcome. The attempt which our race has been making
\nthroughout its long history, it will now make under entirely new
\ncircumstances. A keen observer would predict its success because the only
\nimportant obstacles have been or are in the process of being removed. But we go
\nfarther and believe
\nthat it is sure to succeed because the freedom, unity and greatness of India
\nhave now become necessary to the world. This is the faith in which the Karmayogin
\nputs its hand to the work and will persist in it, refusing to be discouraged
\nby difficulties however immense and apparently insuperable. We believe that
\nGod is with us and in that faith we shall conquer. We believe that humanity
\nneeds us and it is the love and service of humanity, of our country, of the
\nrace, of our religion that will purify our heart and inspire our action in the
\nstruggle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe
\ntask we set before ourselves is not mechanical but moral and spiritual. We aim
\nnot at the alteration of a form of govern-<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 16<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n
\nment but at the
\nbuilding up of a nation. Of that task politics is a part,
\nbut only a part. We shall devote ourselves not to politics alone, nor to social
\nquestions alone, nor to theology or philosophy or literature or science by
\nthemselves, but we include all these in one entity which we believe to be
\nall-important, the dharma<\/i>, the
\nnational religion which we also believe to be universal. There is a mighty law
\nof life, a great principle of human evolution, a body of spiritual knowledge
\nand experience of which India has always been destined to be guardian, exemplar
\nand missionary. This is the sanātana<\/i> dharma<\/i>, the eternal religion. Under the
\nstress of alien impacts she has largely lost hold not of the structure of that
\ndharma<\/i>,
\nbut of its living reality. For the religion of India is nothing if it is not
\nlived. It has to be applied not only to life, but to the whole of life; its spirit has to enter into and mould our
\nsociety, our politics, our literature, our science, our individual character,
\naffections and aspirations. To understand the heart of this dharma<\/i>, to
\nexperience it as a truth, to feel the high emotions to which it rises and to
\nexpress and execute it in life is what we understand by Karmayoga. We believe that it is to make the
\nyoga<\/i> the
\nideal of human life that India rises today; by
\nthe yoga<\/i> she will get the strength to realise her freedom, unity and
\ngreatness, by the yoga<\/i> she will keep the strength to preserve it. It is
\na spiritual revolution we foresee and the material is only its shadow and
\nreflex.<\/span><\/p>\n

The European sets great store by machinery. He seeks
\nto renovate humanity by schemes of society and systems of government; he hopes
\nto bring about the millennium by an act of Parliament. Machinery is of great
\nimportance, but only as a working means for the spirit within, the force
\nbehind. The nineteenth century in India aspired to political emancipation,
\nsocial renovation, religious vision and rebirth, but it failed because it adopted
\nWestern motives and methods, ignored the spirit, history and destiny of our
\nrace and thought that by taking over European education, European machinery,
\nEuropean organisation and equipment we should reproduce in ourselves European
\nprosperity, energy and progress. We of the twentieth century reject the aims,
\nideals and methods of the anglicised nineteenth, precisely because we accept
\nits experience. We refuse to make an idol<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 17<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n


\nof
\nthe present; we look before and after, backward to the mighty history of our
\nrace, forward to the grandiose history for which that destiny has prepared it.<\/span><\/p>\n

We do not believe that our political salvation can be attained by
\nenlargement of Councils, introduction of the elective principle, colonial
\nself-government or any other formula of European politics. We do not deny the
\nuse of some of these things as instruments, as weapons in a political struggle,
\nbut we deny their sufficiency whether as instruments or ideals and look beyond
\nto an end which they do not serve except in a trifling degree. They might be
\nsufficient if it were our ultimate destiny to be an outlying province of the
\nBritish Empire or a dependent adjunct of European civilisation. That is a
\nfuture which we do not think it worth making any sacrifice to accomplish. We believe,
\non the other hand, that India is destined to work out her own independent life
\nand civilisation, to stand in the forefront of the world and solve the
\npolitical, social, economic and moral problems which Europe has failed to
\nsolve, yet the pursuit of which and the feverish passage in that pursuit from
\nexperiment to experiment, from failure to failure she calls her progress. Our
\nmeans must be as great as our ends and the strength to discover and use the
\nmeans so as to attain the end can only be found by seeking the eternal source
\nof strength in ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

We do not believe that by changing the machinery so as to make our
\nsociety the ape of Europe we shall effect social renovation. Widow-remarriage,
\nsubstitution of class for caste,
\nadult-marriage, intermarriages, interdining
\nand the other nostrums of the social reformer are mechanical changes which,
\nwhatever their merits or demerits, cannot by themselves save the soul of the
\nnation alive or stay the course of degradation and decline. It is the spirit
\nalone that saves, and only by becoming great and free in heart can we become
\nsocially and politically great and free.<\/span><\/p>\n

We do not believe that by multiplying new sects limited within the
\nnarrower and inferior ideas of religion imported from the West or by creating
\norganisations for the perpetuation of the mere dress and body of Hinduism we
\ncan recover our spiritual health, energy and greatness. The world moves through
\nan in-<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 18<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n
\ndispensable
\ninterregnum of free thought and materialism to a new synthesis of religious
\nthought and experience, a new religious world-life free from intolerance, yet
\nfull of faith and fervour, accepting all forms of religion because it has an
\nunshakable faith in the One. The religion which embraces Science and
\nfaith, Theism, Christianity, Mahomedanism
\nand Buddhism and yet is none of these, is that to which the World-Spirit moves.
\nIn our own, which is the most sceptical and the most believing of all, the most
\nsceptical because it has questioned and experimented the most, the most
\nbelieving because it has the deepest experience and the most varied and
\npositive spiritual knowledge, \u2014 that wider Hinduism which is not a dogma or
\ncombination of dogmas but a law of life, which is not a social framework but
\nthe spirit of a past and future social evolution, which rejects nothing but
\ninsists on testing and experiencing everything and when tested and experienced,
\nturning it to the soul’s uses, in this Hinduism we find the basis of the future
\nworld-religion. This sanātana<\/i> dharma<\/i>
\nhas many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita, Upanishad, Darshana, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the Bible or the
\nKoran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the
\nEternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we
\nshall find the proof and source of the world’s Scriptures, the law of
\nknowledge, love and conduct, the basis and inspiration of Karmayoga.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our aim will therefore be to help in building up India for the sake
\nof humanity \u2014 this is the spirit of the Nationalism which we profess and
\nfollow. We say to humanity: "The time has come when you must take the
\ngreat step and rise out of a material existence into the higher, deeper and
\nwider life towards which humanity moves.
\nThe problems which have troubled mankind can only be solved by conquering the
\nkingdom within, not by harnessing the forces of Nature to the service of
\ncomfort and luxury, but by mastering the forces of the intellect and the
\nspirit, by vindicating the freedom of man within as well as without and by
\nconquering from within external Nature. For that work the resurgence of Asia is
\nnecessary, therefore Asia rises. For that work the freedom and greatness of
\nIndia are essential, therefore she claims her destined freedom and greatness,
\nand it is to the<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 19<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n


\ninterest
\nof all humanity, not excluding England, that she should wholly establish her
\nclaim."<\/span><\/p>\n

We say to the nation: "It is God’s will that we should be
\nourselves and not Europe. We have sought to regain life by following the law of
\nanother being than our own. We must return and seek the sources of life and
\nstrength within ourselves. We must know our past and recover it for the
\npurposes of our future. Our business is to realise ourselves first and to mould
\neverything to the law of India’s eternal life and nature. It will therefore be
\nthe object of the Karmayogin<\/i> to read the heart of our religion, our
\nsociety, our philosophy, politics, literature, art, jurisprudence, science,
\nthought, everything that was and is ours, so that we may be able to say to
\nourselves and our nation, ‘This is our dharma<\/i>‘. We shall review European civilisation entirely from the standpoint of Indian thought and knowledge and
\nseek to throw off from us the dominating stamp of the Occident; what we have to
\ntake from the West we shall take as Indians. And the dharma<\/i> once discovered, we shall strive our utmost not only
\nto profess but to live, in our individual actions, in our social life, in our
\npolitical endeavours."<\/span><\/p>\n


\nWe
\nsay to the individual and especially to the young who are now arising to do
\nIndia’s work, the world’s work, God’s work: "You
\ncannot cherish these ideals, still less can you fulfil them if you subject your
\nminds to European ideas or look at life from the material standpoint.
\nMaterially you are nothing, spiritually you are everything. It is only the
\nIndian who can believe everything, dare everything, sacrifice everything.
\nFirst, therefore, become Indians. Recover the patrimony of your forefathers.
\nRecover the Aryan thought, the Aryan discipline, the Aryan character, the Aryan
\nlife. Recover the Vedanta, the Gita, the Yoga. Recover them not only in intellect
\nor sentiment but in your lives. Live them
\nand you will be great and strong, mighty, invincible and fearless. Neither life
\nnor death will have any terrors for you. Difficulty and impossibility will
\nvanish from your vocabularies. For it is in the spirit that strength is eternal
\nand you must win back the kingdom of yourselves, the inner Swaraj, before you
\ncan win back your outer empire. There the Mother dwells and She waits for
\nworship that She may give strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 20<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n


\nBelieve
\nin Her, serve Her, lose your wills in Hers, your egoism in the greater ego of
\nthe country, your separate selfishness in the service of humanity. Recover the
\nsource of all strength in yourselves and all else will be added to you, social
\nsoundness, intellectual pre-eminence, political freedom, the mastery of human
\nthought, the hegemony of the world."<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 21<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n


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

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

                                            The Ideal of the Karmayogin   A NATION is building in India today before the eyes of the world so swiftly, so palpably that…<\/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-1112","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\/1112","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=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}