{"id":1177,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:05","slug":"63-foreword-to-the-first-edition-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\/63-foreword-to-the-first-edition-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-63_Foreword to the First Edition.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nFOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0    \u00a0<\/font><\/span>T<\/font><\/span>HE four essays1<\/sup>
\npublished in this volume were not written at one time or conceived with any
\nintentional connection between them in idea or purpose. The first was written
\nin the early months of the war, two others when it was closing, the last
\nrecently during the formation and first operations of that remarkably
\nill-jointed, stumbling and hesitating machine, the League of Nations. But still
\nthey happen to be bound together by a common idea or at least look at four
\nrelated subjects from a single general standpoint, –<\/span> the obvious but practically quite forgotten truth that the
\ndestiny of the race in this age of crisis and revolution will depend much more
\non the spirit which we are than on the machinery we shall use. A few words on
\nthe present bearing of this truth by way of foreword may not be out of place.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The whole
\ndifficulty of the present situation turns upon the peculiar and critical
\ncharacter of the age in which we are living. It is a period of immense and
\nrapid changes so swift that few of us who live among them can hope to seize
\ntheir whole burden or their inmost meaning or to form any safe estimate of
\ntheir probable outcome. Great hopes are abroad, high and large ideals fill the
\nview, enormous forces are in the field. It is one of those vast critical
\nmoments in the life of the race when all is pressing towards change and
\nreconstitution. The ideals of the future, especially the ideals of freedom,
\nequality, commonalty, unity, are demanding to be brought out from their limited
\nfield in the spiritual life or the idealism of the few and to be given some
\nbeginning of a true soul of action and bodily shape in the life of the race.
\nBut banded against any such fulfilment there are powerful obstacles, and the
\ngreatest of them come not from outside but from within. For they are the old
\ncontinued impulsions and obstinate recalcitrance of mankind’s past nature, the almost
\ntotal subjection of its normal mind to egoistic, vital and material interests
\nand ambitions which make not for union but for strife<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1  <\/sup><\/font>
\nA
\nfifth one "After the War" has been added in this edition <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-575<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nand discord, the plausibilities of the practical reason
\nwhich looks at the possibilities of the day and the morrow and shuts its eyes
\nto the consequences of the day after, the habits of pretence and fiction which
\nimpel men and nations to pursue and forward their own interest under the
\ncamouflage of a specious idealism, a habit made up only partly of the diplomatic
\nhypocrisy of politicians, but much more of a general half-voluntary
\nself-deception, and, finally, the inrush of blinder unsatisfied forces and
\ncrude imperfect idealisms – of such is the creed of Bolshevism –<\/span> to take advantage of the unrest and
\ndissatisfaction prevalent in such times and lay hold for a while on the life of
\nmankind. It is these things which we see dominant around us and not in the
\nleast degree any effort to be of the right spirit and evolve from it the right
\nmethod. The one way out harped on by the modern mind which has been as much
\nblinded as enlightened by the victories of physical science, is the approved
\nwestern device of salvation by machinery; get the right kind of machine to work
\nand every- thing can be done, this seems to be the modern creed. But the
\ndestinies of mankind cannot be turned out to order in an American factory. It
\nis a subtler thing than that which is now putting its momentous problem before
\nus, and if the spirit of the things we profess is absent or falsified, no method
\nor machinery can turn them out for us or deliver the promised goods. That is
\nthe one truth which the scientific and industrialised modern mind for- gets
\nalways, because it looks at process and commodity and production and ignores
\nthe spirit in man and the deeper inner law of his being.
\n      
\nThe elimination of war is one of the cherished ideals and expectations of the
\nage. But what lies at the root of
\nthis desire? A greater unity of heart, sympathy, understanding between men and
\nnations, a settled will to get rid of national hatreds, greeds, ambitions, all
\nthe fertile seeds of strife and war? If so, it is well with us and success will
\nsurely crown our efforts. But of this deeper thing there may be something in
\nsentiment, but there is still very little in action and dominant motive. For
\nthe masses of men the idea is rather to labour and produce and amass at ease
\nand in security without the disturbance of war; for the statesmen and governing
\nclasses the idea is to have peace and<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-576<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nsecurity for the maintenance of past acquisitions and
\nan untroubled domination and exploitation of the world by the great highly
\norganised imperial and industrial nations without the perturbing<\/span> appearance of new unsatisfied
\nhungers and the peril of violent unrests, revolts, revolutions. War, it was
\nhoped at one time, would eliminate itself by becoming impossible, but that
\ndelightfully easy solution no longer commands credit. But now it is hoped to
\nconjure or engineer it out of existence by the machinery<\/span> of a league of victorious nations admitting the rest, some
\nif they will, others whether they like it or not, as subordinate partners or as
\nprot\u00e8g\u00e8s. In the magic of this just and beautiful arrangement the intelligence
\nand goodwill of closeted statesmen and governments supported by the
\nintelligence and goodwill of the peoples is to combine and accommodate
\ninterests, to settle or evade difficulties, to circumvent the natural results,
\nthe inevitable Karma of national selfishness and passions and to evolve out,<\/span> of the present chaos a fair and
\ncharmingly well-mechanised cosmos of international order, security, peace and
\nwelfare. Get the clockwork going, put your penny-worth of excellent professions
\nor passably good intentions in the slot and all will go well, this seems to be
\nthe’ principle. But it is too often the floor of Hell that is paved with these
\nexcellent professions and passable intentions, and the cause is that while the
\nbetter reason and will of man may be one hopeful factor in Nature, they are not
\nthe whole of nature and existence and not by any means the whole of our human
\nnature. There are other and very formidable things in us and in the world and
\nif we juggle with them or put on them, in order to get them admitted, these
\nmasks of reason and sentiment, – as unfortunately we have all the habit of
\ndoing and that is still the greater part of the game of politics, – the results
\nare a foregone conclusion. War and violent revolution can be eliminated, if we
\nwill, though not without immense difficulty, but on the condition that we get
\nrid of the inner causes of war and the constantly accumulating Karma of
\nsuccessful injustice of which violent revolutions are the natural reactions.
\nOtherwise, there can be only at best a fallacious period of artificial peace.
\nWhat was in the past will be sown still in the present and continue to return
\non us in the future.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-577<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nThe intelligent mind or the best intellectual reason
\nand science of man are not the sole disposers of our future. Fortunately for
\nthe order of things a greater unseen power, a Universal Will, or, if you
\nplease, a universal Force or Law is there which not only gives us all the
\nframework and conditions of our idea and effort, but evolves by them and by the
\nlaw of these conditions out of the thing in being the thing that is to be. And
\nthis power deals with us not so much according to the devices of our reason,
\nthe truths or fictions of our intelligence, but much rather according to the
\ntruth of what man is and the real soul and meaning of what he does. God is not
\nto be deceived, says the Scripture. The modern mind does not believe in God,
\nbut it believes in Nature: but Nature too is not to be deceived; she enforces
\nher law, she works out always her results from the thing that really is and
\nfrom the real spirit and character of the energy we put into action. And this
\nespecially is one of the ages in which mankind is very closely put to the
\nquestion. The hopes, the ideals, the aspirations that are abroad in it are
\nthemselves so many severe and pregnant questions put to us, not merely to our
\nintelligence but to the spirit of our being and action. In this fateful
\nexamination it is not skill and cleverness, machinery and organisation which
\nwill ultimately prevail, –<\/span> that
\nwas the faith which Ger- many professed, and we know how it ended, –<\/span> but the truth and sincerity of our
\nliving. It is not impossible for man to realise his ideals so that he may move
\non to yet greater undreamed things, but on condition that he makes them totally
\nan inner in order that they may become too an outer reality. The changes which
\nthis age of reconstruction portends will certainly come, but the gain they will
\nbring to humanity depends on the spirit which governs us during the time of
\ntheir execution.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>We of
\nto-day have not the excuse of ignorance since we have before us perfectly clear
\nideals and conditions. Freedom and unity, the self-determination of men and
\nnations in the frame- work of a life drawn together by co-operation,
\ncomradeship, brotherhood if it may be, the acceptance of a close interrelation
\nof the common aims and interests of the race, an increasing oneness of human
\nlife in which we cannot deny any longer to others what we claim for ourselves,
\n– are things of which we have<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-578<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nformed a definite conception. The acknowledgment of them
\nis there in the human mind, but not as yet any settled will to practise. Words
\nand professions are excellent things in themselves and we will do them all
\nhomage; but facts are for the present "more powerful and the facts will
\nhave their results, but the results which we deserve and not those aimed at by
\nour egoism. The principle of self-determination is not in itself a chimera, it
\nis only that if we choose to make it so. It is the condition of the better
\norder of the world which we wish to bring into being, and to make jettison of
\nit at the very first opportunity is an unpromising beginning for so great and
\ndifficult an endeavour. Self-determination is not a principle which can stand
\nby itself and be made the one rule to be followed; no principle can rightly
\nstand in that way isolated and solely dominant in the complicated web of life
\nand, if we so treat it, it gets falsified in its meaning and loses much of its
\nvirtue. Moreover, individual self-determination must harmonise with a common
\nself-determination, freedom must move in the frame of unity ‘or towards the
\nrealisation of a free unity. And it may readily be conceded to the opportunist,
\nthe practical man and all the minds that find a difficulty in looking beyond
\nthe circumstances of the past and present, that there are in very many
\ninstances great difficulties in the way of applying the principle immediately
\nand in its full degree. But when in the light of a great revealing moment a
\nprinciple of this kind has been recognised not only as an ideal but as a clear
\ncondition of the "<\/span> result at
\nwhich we aim, it has to be accepted as a leading factor of the problem to be
\nworked out, the difficulties sincerely considered and met and a way found by
\nwhich without evasion or equivocation and without unnecessary delay it can be
\ndeveloped and given its proper place in the solution. But it is the very
\nopposite method that has been adopted by the governments of the world, and
\nadmitted by its peoples. The natural result is that things are being worked out
\nin the old way with a new name or at the most with some halting change and
\npartial improvement of the method.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The botched
\nconstitution and limping action of the League of Nations is the result of this
\nancient manoeuvre. The League has been got into being by sacrificing the
\nprinciples which<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-579<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\ngoverned the idea behind its inception. The one thing
\nthat has been gained is a formal, regularised and established instrument by
\nwhich the governments of the leading nations can meet together habitually,
\nconsult, accommodate their interests, give some kind of consideration to the
\nvoice and the claim of the smaller free nations, try to administer with a
\ncommon under- standing certain common or conflicting interests, delay dangerous
\noutbreaks and collisions or minimise them when they come, govern the life of
\nthe nations that are not free and not already subjects of the successful
\nempires under the cover of a mandate instead of the rough-and-tumble chances of
\na scramble for markets, colonies and dependencies. The machine does not seem to
\nbe acting even for these ends with any remarkable efficiency, but it is at
\nleast something, it may be said, that it can be got to act at all. In any case
\nit is an accomplished fact which has to be accepted without enthusiasm, for it
\nmerits none, but with a practical acquiescence or an enforced recognition. All
\nthe more reason that the imperfections it embodies and the evils and dangers
\nits action involves or keeps in being, should not be thrust into the
\nbackground, but kept in the full light so that the imperfections may be
\nrecognised and mended and there may be some chance of avoiding the worst
\nincidence of the threatened evils and dangers. And all the more too that the
\nideals which have been ignored or converted in the practice into a fiction,
\nshould insist on themselves and, defrauded of the present, still lift their
\nvoice to lay their claim on the future.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>For these
\nideals stand and they represent the greater aims of the spirit in man which
\nthrough all the denials, obstacles and imperfections of his present incomplete
\nnature knows always the perfection towards which it moves and the greatness of
\nwhich it is capable. Circumstances and force and external necessity and past
\nnature may still be too strong for us, the Rudra powers still govern our
\ndestinies and the Lords of truth and justice and the Lords of love have to wait
\nfor their reign, but if the light of the ideal is kept burning in its flame of
\nknowledge and its flame of power, it will seize even on these things and create
\nout of their evil its greater inevitable good. At present it may seem only an
\nidea and a word unable to become a living reality,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-580<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n


\n\u00a0<\/font><\/span>but it is the
\nIdea and the Word expressing what was concealed in the Spirit which preside
\nover creation. The time will come when they will be able to seize on the Force
\nthat works and turn it into the instrument of a greater and fairer creation.
\nThe nearness or the distance of the time depends on the fidelity of the mind
\nand will of man to the best that he sees and the insistence of his
\nself-knowledge, unobsessed by subjection to the circumstances he suffers and
\nthe machinery he uses, to live out its truth within himself so that his
\nenvironment may accept it and his outward life be shaped in its image.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-581<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0    \u00a0THE four essays1 published in this volume were not written at one time or conceived with any intentional…<\/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-1177","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\/1177","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=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}