{"id":1137,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:50","slug":"06-discovery-of-the-nation-soul-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/06-discovery-of-the-nation-soul-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-06_Discovery of the Nation-Soul.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

CHAPTER IV<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t
\n\t\t
\nDiscovery of the Nation-Soul<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nTHE<\/span><\/font> primal law and
\npurpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development. Consciously
\nor half consciously or with an obscure unconscious groping it strives s and
\nrightly strives at self-formulation, – to find itself, to discover within itself
\nthe law and power of its own being and to fulfil it. This aim in it is
\nfundamental, right, inevitable because, even after all qualifications have been
\nmade and caveats entered, the individual is not merely the ephemeral physical
\ncreature, a ‘mind and body that aggregates and dissolves, but a being, power of
\nthe eternal Truth, a self-manifesting spirit. In the same way the primal law and
\npurpose of a society, community or nation is to seek its own self-fulfilment; it
\nstrives rightly to find itself, to become aware within itself of the law and
\npower of its own being and to fulfil it as perfectly as possible, to realise all
\nits potentialities, to live its own self-revealing life. The reason is the same;
\nfor this too is a being, a living power of the eternal a self-manifestation of
\nthe cosmic Spirit, and it is there to and fulfil in its own way and to the
\ndegree of its capacities the special truth and power and meaning of the cosmic
\nSpirit within it. The nation or society, like the individual, has a body, an
\norganic life, a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind and a soul
\nbehind all these signs and powers sake of which they exist. One may see even
\nthat, like the individual, it essentially is a soul rather than has one; it is a
\ngroup soul that, once having attained to a sepf1.tate distinctness, must become
\nmore and more self-conscious and find itself more and more fully as it develops
\nits corporate action and mentality organic self-expressive 1ife.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The parallel is just at every turn because it is more than a parallel;
\nit is a real identity of nature. There is only this’ difference that the
\ngroup-soul is much more complex because it has a<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 29<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ngreat number of partly self-conscious mental
\nindividuals for the constituents of its physical being instead of an
\nassociation of: merely vital subconscious cells. At first, for this very
\nreason, it seems more crude, primitive and artificial in the forms it takes;
\nfor it has a more difficult task before it, it needs a longer time to find
\nitself, it is more fluid and less easily organic. When it does succeed in
\ngetting out of the stage of vaguely conscious self-formation, its first
\ndefinite self-consciousness is objective much more than subjective. And so far
\nas it is subjective, it is apt to be superficial or loose and vague. This
\nobjectiveness comes out very<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>strongly
\nin the ordinary emotional conception of the nation which centres round its
\ngeographical, its most outward and material aspect, the passion for the land in
\nwhich we dwell, the land of our fathers, the land of our birth, country,
\npatria, vaterland, janmabhiuni. <\/i>When we realise that the land is only the
\nshell of the body, though a very living shell indeed and potent in its
\ninfluences on the nation, when we begin to feel that its more real body is the
\nmen and women who compose the nation-unit, a body ever changing, yet always the
\nsame like that of the individual man, we are on the way to a truly subjective
\ncommunal consciousness. for then we have some chance of realising that even the
\nphysical being of the society is a subjective power, not a mere objective
\nexistence. Much more is it in its inner self a great corporate soul with all
\nthe possibilities and dangers of the soul-life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The objective view of society has reigned throughout the historical
\nperiod of humanity in the West; it has been sufficiently strong though not
\nabsolutely engrossing in the East. Rulers, people and thinkers alike have
\nunderstood by their national existence a political status, the extent of their
\nborders, their economic well-being and expansion, their laws, institutions and
\nthe working of these things. For this reason political and economic motives
\nhave everywhere predominated on the surface and history has been a record of
\ntheir operations and influence. The one subjective and psychological force
\nconsciously admitted and with difficulty deniable has been that of the
\nindividual. This predominance is so great that most modem historians and some
\npolitical thinkers have concluded that objective necessities are by law of
\nNature the only really determining forces, all else is<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 30<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n


\nresult or\u00a0 <\/span>superficial accidents of these forces.
\nScientific history has been conceived as if it must be a record and
\nappreciation of the environmental motives of political action, of the play of
\neconomic<\/font><\/span> forces and
\ndevelopments and the course of institutional <\/span>evolution.
\nThe few who still valued the psychological element have kept their eye fixed on
\nindividuals and are not far from conceiving of history as a mass of
\nbiographies. The truer and more comprehensive science of the future will see
\nthat these conditions only apply to the imperfectly self-conscious period of
\nnational development. Even then there was always a greater subjective force
\nworking behind individuals, policies, economic, economic movements and the
\nchange of institutions; but it worked for the most<\/span> <\/span><\/font>
\npart
\nsubconsciously, more as a subliminal self than as a conscious mind. It is when
\nthis subconscious power of the group- soul comes to the surface that nations
\nbegin to enter into possession of their subjective selves; they set about
\ngetting, vaguely or imperfectly, at their souls.<\/font><\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Certainly, there is always a vague
\nsense of this subjective existence at work even on the surface of the communal
\nmentality. But so far as this vague sense becomes at all definite, it concerns
\nit self mostly with details and unessentials, national idiosyncrasies, habits
\nprejudices, marked mental tendencies. It is, so to speak an objective sense of
\nsubjectivity. As man has been accustomed on himself as a body and a life, the
\nphysical animal with i moral or immoral temperament, and the things of the mind
\nhave been regarded as a fine flower and attainment of the life rather than them
\nselves anything essential or the sign of something essential, so and much more
\nhas the community that small part of its subjective self of which it becomes It
\nclings indeed always to its idiosyncrasies, habits, prejudices, but in a blind
\nobjective fashion, insisting on their\u00a0
\n<\/span>most external aspect and not at all going behind them to that they
\nstand, that which they try blindly to express.<\/font><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This has been the rule not only with
\nthe nation, but with all communities. A Church is an organised religious
\ncommunity religion, if anything in the world, ought to be subjective; very
\nreason for existence – where it is not merely an creed <\/font> <\/span>
\nwith a supernatural authority<\/span><\/font> – is to find and<\/font><\/span><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 31<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nrealise the soul. Yet religious history
\nhas been almost entirely, except in the time of the founders and their
\nimmediate successors, an insistence on things objective, rites, ceremonies,
\nauthority, church governments, dogmas, forms o f belief. Witness the whole
\nexternal religious history of Europe, that strange sacrilegious tragi-comedy of
\ndiscords, sanguinary disputations, "religious" wars, persecutions,
\nState churches and all else that is the very negation of the spiritual life. It
\nis only recently that men have begun seriously to consider what Christianity,
\nCatholicism, Islam really mean and are in their soul, that is to say, in their
\nvery reality and essence.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But now we have, very remarkably,
\nvery swiftly coming to the surface this new psychological tendency of the
\ncommunal consciousness. Now first we hear of the soul of a nation and, what is
\nmore to the purpose, actually see nations feeling for their souls, trying to
\nfind them, seriously endeavouring to act from the new sense and make it
\nconsciously operative in the common life and action. It is only natural that
\nthis tendency should have been, for the most part, most powerful in new nations
\nor in those struggling to realise themselves in spite of political subjection
\nor defeat. For these need more to feel the difference between themselves and
\nothers so that they may assert and justify their individuality as against the
\npowerful superlife which tends to absorb or efface it. And precisely because
\ntheir objective life is feeble and it is difficult to affirm it by its own
\nstrength in the adverse circumstances, there is more chance of their seeking
\nfor their individuality and its force of self-assertion in that which is
\nsubjective and psychological or at least in that which has a subjective or a
\npsychological significance.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Therefore in nations so
\ncircumstanced this tendency of self- finding has been most powerful and has
\neven created in some of them a new type of national movement, as in Ireland and
\nIndia. This and no other was the root-meaning of Swadeshism in Bengal and of
\nthe Irish movement in its earlier less purely political stages. The emergence
\nof Bengal as a sub-nation in India was throughout a strongly subjective
\nmovement and in its later development it became very consciously that. The
\nmovement of 1905 in Bengal pursued a quite new conception of the nation not
\nmerely as a<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 32<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\ncountry, but a soul, a psychological,
\nalmost a spiritual being and, <\/font> <\/span>even<\/span><\/font><\/span> when acting from economical
\nand political motives, it sought to dynamise them by this subjective conception
\nand to make them instruments of self-expression rather than objects in
\nthemselves. We must not forget, however, that in the first stages these
\nmovements followed in their superficial thought the old motives of an objective
\nand mostly political self-consciousness. The East indeed is always more
\nsubjective than the West and we can see the subjective tinge even in its
\npolitical movements whether in Persia, India or China, and even in the very
\nimitative movement of the Japanese resurgence. But it is only recently that this
\nsubjectivism has become self-conscious. We may therefore conclude that the
\nconscious and deliberate subjectivism of certain nations was only the sign and
\nprecursor of a general change in humanity and has been helped forward by local
\ncircumstances, but was not really dependent upon them or in any sense their
\nproduct.<\/font><\/span>
\n      <\/span>This
\ngeneral change is incontestable; it is one of the capital phenomena of the
\ntendencies of national and communal life at the present hour. The conception to
\nwhich Ireland and India have been the first to give a definite formula, "to be
\nourselves", – so different from the impulse and ambition of dependent or
\nunfortunate nations in the past which was rather to become like others, <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/span> is now
\nmore and more a generally accepted motive of national life. It opens the way to
\ngreat dangers and errors, but it is the essential condition for that which has
\nnow become the demand of the Time-Spirit on the human race, that it shall find
\nsubjectively, not only in the individual, but in the nation and in the unity of
\nthe human race itself, its deeper being, its inner law, its real self and live
\naccording to that and no longer by artificial standards. This tendency was
\npreparing itself everywhere and partly coming to the surface before the War, but
\nmost prominently, as we have said, in new nations like Germany or in de- pendent
\nnations like Ireland and India. The shock of the war brought about from its
\nearliest moments an immediate – and for the time being a militant <\/span>–<\/span><\/font> emergence
\nof the same deeper self-consciousness everywhere. Crude enough were most of its
\nfirst manifestations, often of a really barbarous and reactionary<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 33<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\ncrudeness.
\nEspecially, it tended to repeat the Teutonic lapse, preparing not only "to be
\noneself", which is entirely right, but to live solely for and to oneself, which,
\nif pushed beyond a Certain point, becomes a disastrous error. For it is
\nnecessary, if the subjective age of humanity is to produce its best fruits, that
\nthe nations should become conscious not only of their own but of each other’s
\nsouls and learn to respect, to help and to profit, not only economically and
\nintellectually but subjectively and spiritually by each other.<\/font><\/span>
\n      <\/span>The great
\ndetermining force has been the example and the aggression of Germany; the
\nexample, because no other nation has so self-consciously, so methodically, so
\nintelligently, and from the external point of view so successfully sought to
\nfind, to dynamise, to live itself and make the most of its own power of being;
\nits aggression, because the very nature and declared watchwords of the attack
\nhave tended to arouse a defensive self- consciousness in the assailed and forced
\nthem to perceive what was the source of this tremendous strength and to perceive
\ntoo that they themselves must seek consciously an answering strength in the same
\ndeeper sources. Germany was for the time the most remarkable present instance of
\na nation preparing for the subjective stage because it had, in the first place,
\na certain kind of vision <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/span> unfortunately intellectual rather than illuminated – and the courage
\nto follow it – unfortunately again a vital and intellectual rather than a
\nspiritual hardihood, – and, secondly, being master of its destinies, was able to
\norder its own life so as to express its self-vision. We must not be misled by
\nappearances into thinking that the strength of Germany was created by Bismarck
\nor directed by the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Rather the appearance of Bismarck was in
\nmany respects a misfortune for the growing nation because his rude and powerful
\nhand precipitated its subjectivity into form and action at too early a stage; a
\nlonger period of incubation might have produced results less disastrous to
\nitself, if less violently stimulative to humanity. The real source of this great
\nsubjective force which has been so much disfigured in its objective action, was
\nnot in Germany’s statesmen and soldiers <\/span>–<\/span> for the
\nmost part poor enough types of men <\/span>–<\/span><\/font> but came from her great philosophers, Kant,
\nHegel, Fichte, Nietzsche, from her<\/font><\/span><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 34<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\ngreat thinker
\nand poet Goethe, from her great musicians, Beethoven and Wagner, and from all in
\nthe German soul and temperament which they represented. A nation whose master
\nachievement has lain almost entirely in the two spheres of philosophy and music,
\nis clearly predestined to lead in the turn to subjectivism and to produce a
\nprofound result for good or evil on the beginnings of a subjective age.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n    
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>This was one side of the predestination of Germany; the other is to be
\nfound in her scholars, educationists, scientists, organisers. It was the
\nindustry, the conscientious diligence, the fidelity to ideas, the honest and
\npainstaking spirit of work for which the nation has been long famous. A people
\nmay be highly gifted in the subjective capacities, and yet if it neglects to
\ncultivate is lower side of our complex nature, it will fail to build that ridge
\nbetween the idea and imagination and the world of facts, ten the vision and the
\nforce, which makes realization possible; its higher powers may become a joy and
\ninspiration to the but it will never take possession of its own world until it
\nhas learned the humbler lesson. In Germany the bridge was there  <\/span>though it ran mostly through a dark
\ntunnel with a gulf underneath; for there was no pure transmission from the
\nsubjective mind of the thinkers and singers to the objective mind of scholars
\nand organisers. The misapplication by Treitschke of teachings of Nietzsche to
\nnational and international uses which would have profoundly disgusted the
\nphilosopher himself, is an example of this obscure transmission. But still a
\ntransmission there was. For more than a half-century Germany turned a deep eye
\nof subjective introspection on herself and things and sin search of the truth of
\nher own being and of the world, for another half-century a patient eye of
\nscientific research on Objective means for organising what she had or thought
\nshe gained. And something was done, something indeed powerful and enormous, but
\nalso in certain directions, not in all, misshapen and disconcerting.
\nUnfortunately, those directions were precisely the very central lineson which to
\ngo wrong is to miss the goal.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>It may be said, indeed, that the last result of the something done- the
\nwar, the collapse, the fierce reaction towards the rigid,<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 35<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\narmoured, aggressive, formidable Nazi State <\/font> <\/span>
\n
\n–<\/span><\/font> is not only discouraging enough, but a clear warning to abandon that
\npath and go back to the older and safer ways. But the misuse of great powers is
\nno argument against their right use. To go back is impossible; the attempt is
\nalways, indeed, an illusion; we have all to do the same thing which Germany has
\nattempted, but to take care not to do it likewise. Therefore we must look beyond
\nthe red mist of blood of the War and the dark fuliginous confusion and chaos
\nwhich now oppress the world to see why and where was the failure. For her
\nfailure which became evident by the turn her action took and was converted for
\nthe time being into total collapse, was clear even then to the dispassionate
\nthinker who seeks only the truth. That befell her which sometimes befalls the
\nseeker on the path of Yoga, the art of conscious self-finding, – a path exposed
\nto far profounder perils than beset ordinarily the average man, – when he
\nfollows a false light to his spiritual ruin. She had mistaken her vital ego for
\nherself; she had sought for her soul and found only her force. For she had said,
\nlike the Asura, "I am my body, my life, my mind, my temperament," and be- come
\nattached with a Titanic force to these; especially she had said, "I am my life
\nand body", and than that there can be no greater mistake for man or nation. The
\nsoul of man or nation is something more and diviner than that; it is greater
\nthan its instruments and cannot be shut up in a physical, a vital, a mental or a
\ntemperamental formula. So to confine it, even though the false social formation
\nbe embodied in the armour-plated social body of a huge collective human
\ndinosaurus, can only stifle the growth of the inner Reality and end in decay or
\nthe extinction that overtakes all that is unplastic and unadaptable.<\/font><\/span><\/span>
\n     <\/span>It is evident
\nthat there is a false as well as a true subjectivism and the errors to which the
\nsubjective trend may be liable are as great as its possibilities and may well
\nlead to capital disasters. This distinction must be clearly grasped if the road
\nof this stage of social evolution is to be made safe for the human race.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 36<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER IV Discovery of the Nation-Soul   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE primal law and purpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development. Consciously or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","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=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}