{"id":1996,"date":"2013-07-13T01:38:49","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1996"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:38:49","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:38:49","slug":"22-the-doctrine-of-sacrifice-vol-08-karmayogin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/08-karmayogin\/22-the-doctrine-of-sacrifice-vol-08-karmayogin","title":{"rendered":"-22_The Doctrine of Sacrifice.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Doctrine of Sacrifice\n\t<\/p>\n

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THE GENIUS of self-sacrifice is not common to all nations
\n\tand to all individuals; it is rare and precious, it is the flowering of mankind’s ethical growth, the evidence of
\n\tour gradual rise from the self-regarding animal to the selfless divinity. A man capable of self-sacrifice, whatever his other sins,
\n\thas left the animal behind him; he has the stuff in him of a future and higher humanity. A nation capable of a national act
\n\tof self-sacrifice ensures its future. <\/p>\n

Self-sacrifice involuntary or veiled by forms of selfishness is,
\n\thowever, the condition of our existence. It has been a gradual growth in humanity. The first sacrifices are always selfish
\n\t\t\t\u2013they
\n\tinvolve the sacrifice of others for one’s own advancement. The first step forward is taken by the instinct of animal love in the
\n\tmother who is ready to sacrifice her life for the young, by the instinct of protection in the male who is ready to sacrifice his
\n\tlife for his mate. The growth of this instinct is the sign of an enlargement in the conception of the self. So long as there is
\n\tidentification of self only with one’s own body and its desires, the state of the
\njiva <\/i>is unprogressive and animal. It is only when
\n\tthe self enlarges to include the mate and the children that advancement becomes possible. This is the first human state, but
\n\tthe animal lingers in it in the view of the wife and children as chattels and possessions meant for one’s own pleasure, strength,
\n\tdignity, comfort. The family even so viewed becomes the basis of civilisation, because it makes social life possible. But the real
\n\tdevelopment of the god in man does not begin until the family becomes so much dearer than the life of the body that a man
\n\tis ready to sacrifice himself for it and give up his ease or even his life for its welfare or its protection. To give up one’s ease
\n\tfor the family, that is a state which most men have attained; to give up one’s life for the honour of the wife or the safety of the<\/p>\n

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\n\thome is an act of a higher nature of which man is capable in individuals, in classes, but not in the mass. Beyond the family
\n\tcomes the community and the next step in the enlargement of the self is when the identification with the self in the body and
\n\tthe self in the family gives way to the identification with the self in the community. To recognise that the community has a
\n\tlarger claim on a man than his family is the first condition of the advance to the social condition. It corresponds to the growth
\n\tof the tribe out of the patriarchal family and to the perfection of those communal institutions of which our village community
\n\twas a type. Here again, to be always prepared to sacrifice the family interest to the larger interest of the community must be
\n\tthe first condition of communal life and to give one’s life for the safety of the community, the act of divinity which marks the
\n\tconsummation of the enlarging self in the communal idea. The next enlargement is to the self in the nation. The evolution of the
\n\tnation is the growth which is most important now to humanity, because human selfishness, family selfishness, class selfishness
\n\thaving still deep roots in the past must learn to efface themselves in the larger national self in order that the God in humanity may
\n\tgrow. Therefore it is that Nationalism is the dharma <\/i>of the age, and God reveals himself to us in our common Mother. The first
\n\tattempts to form a nationality were the Greek city, the Semitic or Mongolian monarchy, the Celtic clan, the Aryan
\nkula <\/i>or jati<\/i>.
\n\tIt was the mixture of all these ideas which went to the formation of the mediaeval nation and evolved the modern peoples. Here
\n\tagain, it is the readiness to sacrifice self-interest, family interest, class interest to the larger national interest which is the condition
\n\tof humanity’s fulfilment in the nation and to die for its welfare or safety is the supreme act of self-consummation in the larger
\n\tnational ego. There is a yet higher fulfilment for which only a few individuals have shown themselves ready, the enlargement
\n\tof the self to include all humanity. A step forward has been taken in this direction by the self-immolation of a few to humanitarian
\n\tideals, but to sacrifice the interests of the nation to the larger interest of humanity is an act of which humanity in the mass
\n\tis not yet capable. God prepares, but He does not hasten the<\/p>\n

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\n\tripening of the fruit before its season. A time will come when this also will be possible, but the time is not yet. Nor would it be
\n\twell for humanity if it came before the other and lesser identification were complete; for that would necessitate retrogression
\n\tin order to secure the step which has been omitted. The advance of humanity is a steady progress and there is no great gain in
\n\trushing positions far ahead, while important points in the rear are uncaptured.\n\t<\/p>\n

\nThe national ego may easily mean nothing more than collective selfishness. I may be ready to sacrifice money and ease
\n\tfor the country in order to secure my wealth, fame or position and property which depend upon her security and greatness. I
\n\tmay be ready to sacrifice these and more for her because of the safety of the home and the hearth which her safety ensures. I
\n\tmay be ready to sacrifice much for her because her greatness, wealth, ease mean the greatness, wealth, ease of my community or my class. Or I may be ready to sacrifice everything to secure her greatness because of my pride in her and my desire
\n\tto see my nation dominant and imperial. All these are forms of selfishness pursuing man into the wider life which is meant to
\n\tassist in liberating him from selfishness. The curse of capitalism, the curse of Imperialism which afflict modern nations are due
\n\tto this insistence. It is the source of that pride, insolence and injustice which affect a nation in its prosperity and by that
\n\tfatal progression which the Greeks with their acute sense for these things so clearly demarcated, it leads from prosperity to
\n\tinsolence and outrage and from insolence and outrage to that ate<\/i>, that blind infatuation, which is God’s instrument for the
\n\tdestruction of men and nations. There is only one remedy for this pursuing evil and it is to regard the nation as a necessary
\n\tunit but no more in a common humanity. <\/p>\n

\nThere are two stages in the life of a nation, first, when it is
\n\tforming itself or new-forming itself, secondly, when it is formed, organised and powerful. The first is the stage when National-
\n\tism makes rightly its greatest demands on the individual, in the second it should abate its demands and, having satisfied, should
\n\tpreserve itself in Cosmopolitanism somewhat as the individual<\/p>\n

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\n\tpreserves itself in the family, the family in the class, the class in the nation, not destroying itself needlessly but recognising
\n\ta larger interest. In the struggles of a subject nation to realise its separate existence, the larger interest can only be viewed in
\n\tprospect and as a higher inspiration to a broadminded and generous patriotism. No sacrifice of the nation to the larger interest
\n\tis possible, for the nation must exist before it can sacrifice its interests for a higher good.\n\t<\/p>\n

\nWe are at present in the first or formative stage, and in this stage the demand of Nationalism is imperative. It is only by
\n\tthe sacrifices of the individual, the family and the class to the supreme object of building up the nation that under such adverse
\n\tcircumstances Nationalism can secure the first conditions for its existence. Every act of the new Nationalism has been a call for
\n\tsuffering and self-sacrifice. Swadeshi was such a call, arbitration was such a call, national education was such a call, above all,
\n\tpassive resistance was such a call. None of these things can be secured except by a general readiness to sacrifice the individual
\n\tand the family to the interests of the nation. Nowadays a new call is visibly forming, the call on the higher classes to sacrifice
\n\ttheir privileges and prejudices, as the Japanese Samurai did, for the raising up of the lower. The spread of a general spirit
\n\tof ungrudging self-sacrifice is the indispensable prelude to the creation of the Indian nation. This truth is not only evident from
\n\tthe very nature of the movement we have initiated, but it is borne out by the tests of history and experience to which we have been
\n\trecently asked to refer in each individual case before the act of sacrifice is decided. It is by the appeal to history and experience
\n\tthat the Nationalist party has convinced the intellect, just as by its inspiring ideals and readiness to suffer, it has carried with
\n\tit the heart of the nation. The demand that we should in every individual case go into a review of the whole question is excessive
\n\tand impossible. It is enough if we are generally convinced of the utility and necessity of sacrifice and feel the individual call. It
\n\tmust be remembered that we cannot argue from the condition of a people formed, free and prospering to that of a people subject,
\n\tstruggling and miserable. In the first case the individual is not<\/p>\n

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\n\tcalled to frequent acts of self-sacrifice, but only to those regularly demanded by the nation and to a general readiness for especial
\n\tsacrifice in case of necessity, but in the second the necessity is a constant quantity. Nor is it a sound principle to demand in
\n\tsuch circumstances an adequate value for every individual act of courage and self-denial. It would indeed be singular for the
\n\tindividuals of a subject nation asked for the price of their liberty to say to the Dispenser of Karma, “You shall give me so much
\n\tin return for every individual sacrifice and we must know your terms beforehand. We will not trust you to the extent of a single
\n\tpice worth of result for our sufferings.” Not by such men or such a spirit have subject nations been delivered.\n\t<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

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\nOTHER WRITINGS BY SRI AUROBINDO IN THIS ISSUE <\/p>\n

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\nThe Greatness of the Individual<\/p>\n

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

The Doctrine of Sacrifice   THE GENIUS of self-sacrifice is not common to all nations and to all individuals; it is rare and precious, it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-08-karmayogin","wpcat-44-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996","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=1996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}