{"id":2074,"date":"2013-07-13T01:39:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2074"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:39:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:39:16","slug":"84-passing-thoughts-33-vol-08-karmayogin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/08-karmayogin\/84-passing-thoughts-33-vol-08-karmayogin","title":{"rendered":"-84_Passing Thoughts_33.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n

\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tKARMAYOGIN<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA WEEKLY
\n\t\t\tREVIEW <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tof National
\n\t\t\tReligion, Literature, Science, Philosophy, &c.,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\n
\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tVol. I <\/font>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t }<\/font><\/td>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSATURDAY 19th<\/sup> FEBRUARY 1910<\/font><\/td>\n

\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t{<\/font>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNo. 33<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

\t\t\t\t<\/font><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPassing Thoughts<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe Bhagalpur Literary Conference<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe prevalence of annual conferences in the semi-Europeanised life of Bengal is a curious phenomenon eloquent of the unreality
\nof our present culture and the inefficiency of our modernised existence. Our old life was well, even minutely organised on
\nan intelligent and consistent Oriental model. The modern life
\nof Europe is well and largely organised on an intelligent and
\nconsistent Occidental model. It materialises certain main ideas of life and well-being, provides certain centres of life, equips
\nthem efficiently, serves the objects with which they are instituted.
\nOur old life did the same. But this is precisely what our modern
\nlife does not do. Its institutions are apes of a foreign plan, unintelligent expressions of an idea which is not ours; they serve no
\ncivic, no national purpose. They are the spasmodic movements
\nof an organism whose own life is arrested, but which feels itself
\ncompelled to move, however awkwardly and uselessly, if only
\nto persuade itself that it is not dead. We have for instance a
\nLiterary Conference which meets once a year, if nothing occurs
\nto prevent it. But such an annual celebration has no intelligent
\npurpose except as the centre of an organised literary life. The
\npulse of our literary life is feeble and artificial. Its centres are
\nconspicuous by their absence. In Europe the club, the literary<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-454<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npaper, the coterie, the school of writing, the Academy are distinct entities in which the members of the organism have living
\nrelations, a common atmosphere, a common intellectual food.
\nThey have no Literary Conference because the literary life of
\nEurope is a reality. We in India have neither these institutions
\nnor any other centres of our own. The Conference is a convulsive attempt to relate ourselves to each other, which evinces
\na vague desire for united living, but no capacity to effect it.
\nThere was a time when a vigorous literary life seemed about
\nto form itself in Bengal, and its relics are seen in the literary
\nmagazine and the Sahitya Parishad; but at present these serve only to record the extremely languid pulsation of our intellectual
\nexistence. The great intellectual stir, hopefulness and activity of
\nthe last century has disappeared. The individual lives to himself,
\nvigorously or feebly, according to the varying robustness of his
\npersonality or intensity of his temperament. Coordination is still
\nfar from us.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nLife and Institutions<\/a><\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nLife creates institutions; institutions do not create, but express
\nand preserve life. This is a truth we are too apt to forget. The Europeans and
\nespecially our gurus, the English, attach an exaggerated importance to machinery, because their own machinery has
\nbeen so successful, their organisation so strong and triumphant.
\nIn the conceit of this success they imagine that their machinery is
\nthe only machinery and that the adoption of their organisation
\nby foreign peoples is all that is needed for perfect social and
\npolitical felicity. In Europe this blind attachment to machinery
\ndoes not do fatal harm, because the life of a free nation has
\ndeveloped the existing institutions and modifies them by its own
\nirresistible law of life and development. But to take over those
\ninstitutions and think that they will magically develop European
\nvirtues, force and robustness, or the vivid and vigorous life of
\nEurope, is as if a man were to steal another’s coat and think
\nto take over with it his character. Have not indeed many of us
\nthought by masquerading in the amazing garb which nineteenth<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-455<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncentury Europe developed, to become so many brown Englishmen? This curious conjuring trick did not work; hatted, coated and pantalooned, we still kept the chaddar and the dhooty in our characters. The fond attempt to become great, enlightened and
\ncivilised by borrowing European institutions will be an equally
\ndisastrous failure.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIndian Conservatism<\/a><\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIn India we were, if possible, even more attached to our machinery \u2013all the more because we had ceased to understand the science of social mechanics which they embodied. We attached
\na superstitious importance to maintaining our society exactly in
\nthe mould of our Shastras while in reality that mould had been altered out of recognition centuries ago. We quoted Parashara and Manu while we followed Raghunandan and custom. This religious fiction was very much like the English superstition
\nabout the British constitution which is supposed to be the same
\nthing it was in the days of Lord Somers, but is really a thing Lord
\nSomers would have stared at aghast as an unrecognisable democratic horror. The cause is the same in both cases
\n\u2013a robust and tenacious society freely developing its machinery in response to
\nits inner needs while cherishing and preserving them. Englishman and Hindu have been alike in their tenacious conservatism
\nand their refusal to accept revolution, alike in their respect for
\nlaw and the thing established, alike in their readiness to change
\nrapidly and steadily if the innovator would only disguise from
\nthem the fact that they were changing. The Hindu advanced
\nmore slowly because he was an Asiatic in a period of contraction,
\nthe Englishman more quickly because he was a European in a
\nperiod of expansion. If our social reformers had understood this
\nIndian characteristic, they might have revolutionised our society with comparatively small friction, but the parade of revolution
\nwhich they made hampered their cause. Even as it is, Indian
\nsociety, in Bengal at least, is changing utterly while all the time
\nloudly protesting that it has not changed and will not change.
\nThe mould in which Raghunandan cast society, is disintegrating<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-456<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nas utterly as the mould of Parashara or Manu has disintegrated. What will replace it, is another matter.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSamaj and Shastra<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nEvery Samaj must have its Shastra, written or unwritten. Where there is no Social Scripture, there is none the less a minute and
\nrigid code of social laws binding men in their minutest actions.
\nThe etiquette of the European is no less binding than the minute
\nscrupulosities of Manu or Raghunandan, and it is even more minute and scrupulous. It is a mistake to think that in Europe
\nmen can eat as they will, talk as they will, act as they will with
\nimpunity. They cannot \u2013or at least they could not, though one hears of strange revolutions, and in the days of the suffragette
\neverything is possible. Society everywhere is exacting, scrupulous, minute, pitiless in punishment of slight departures from its
\ncode, however absurd and unreasonable that code may be. But
\nwhile in India the sanction is religious, in Europe it is social.
\nIn India a man dreaded spiritual impurity, in Europe he shrinks
\nfrom the sneers and dislike of his class or his fellows. Social
\nexcommunication is always the ultimate penalty.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nRevolution<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nBut in Europe and India alike we seem to stand on the threshold
\nof a vast revolution, political, social and religious. Whatever
\nnation now is the first to solve the problems which are threatening to hammer Governments, creeds, societies into pieces all
\nthe world over, will lead the world in the age that is coming. It
\nis our ambition that India should be that nation. But in order
\nthat she should be what we wish, it is necessary that she should
\nbe capable of unsparing revolution. She must have the courage
\nof her past knowledge and the immensity of soul that will measure itself with her future. This is impossible to England, it is
\nnot impossible to India. She has in her something daemonic,
\nvolcanic, elemental \u2013she can rise above conventions, she can break through formalities and prejudices. But she will not do<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-457<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nso unless she is sure that she has God’s command to do it, \u2013unless the Avatar descends and leads. She will follow a Buddha
\nor a Mohammad wherever he will lead her, because he is to her
\neither God himself, or his servant, \u2013because as Sri Ramakrishna would have put it, she saw the
\nchapras<\/i>. It was a little of that
\ndaemonic, volcanic, elemental thing in the heart of the Indian
\nwhich Lord Curzon lashed into life in 1905. But the awakening
\nwas too narrow in its scope, too feebly supported with strength,
\ntoo ill-informed in knowledge. Above all the Avatar had not
\ndescended. So the movement has drawn back to await a farther
\nand truer impulse. Meanwhile let it inform its intellect and put
\nmore iron into its heart, awaiting a diviner manifestation.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nOTHER<\/span> WRITINGS<\/span> BY SRI AUROBINDO<\/span> IN ISSUES 33 \u00ad 36
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe Strength of Stillness
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nConversations of the Dead II
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nA System of National Education II \u00ad V
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBaji Purbhou (poem) <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Principle of Evil
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe Stress of the Hidden Spirit
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nMoondac Upanishad of the Atharvaveda II.2, III.1<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-458<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSri Aurobindo left Calcutta for Chandernagore in the middle of February 1910. His connection with the
\nKarmayogin
\n<\/i>ceased with his sudden departure. The editorial
\nmatter in the issue of 19 February certainly was written
\nby him. Most articles in subsequent issues were written by Sister Nivedita. Two pieces by Sri Aurobindo published in the
\nKarmayogin
\n<\/i>after his departure are
\nreproduced on the following pages.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-459<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSj. Aurobindo Ghose<\/a>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWE ARE greatly astonished to learn from the local Press
\nthat Sj. Aurobindo Ghose has disappeared from Calcutta and is now interviewing the Mahatmas in Tibet.
\nWe are ourselves unaware of this mysterious disappearance. As
\na matter of fact Sj. Aurobindo is in our midst and, if he is
\ndoing any astral business with Kuthumi or any of the other great Rishis, the fact is unknown to his other Koshas. Only as he requires perfect solitude and freedom from disturbance for
\nhis Sadhan for some time, his address is being kept a strict secret. This is the only foundation for the remarkable rumour which the
\nvigorous imagination of a local contemporary has set floating.
\nFor similar reasons he is unable to engage in journalistic works,
\nand Dharma
\n<\/i>has been entrusted to other hands.<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nKarmayogin
\n<\/i>no. 37, 19 March 1910<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-461<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KARMAYOGIN A WEEKLY REVIEW of National Religion, Literature, Science, Philosophy, &c., Vol. I  } SATURDAY 19th FEBRUARY 1910 { No. 33   Passing Thoughts  …<\/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-2074","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\/2074","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=2074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}