{"id":289,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=289"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","slug":"162-the-one-thing-needful-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/162-the-one-thing-needful-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-162_The One Thing Needful.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe One Thing Needful<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>A<\/font><\/b><\/span> SORT<\/font><\/b>
\nof atavism is at work in the Indian consciousness at the present moment which is
\ndrawing it back into the spirit of the fathers of the race who laid the
\nfoundations of our being thousands of years ago. Perhaps as a reaction from the
\nexcessively outward direction which our life had taken since the European
\ninvasion, the spirit of the race has taken refuge in the sources of its past and
\nbegun to bathe in the fountains of its being. A reversion such as this is the
\nsole cure for national decay. Every nation has certain sources of vitality which
\nhave made it what it is and can always, if drawn upon in time, protect it from
\ndisintegration. The secret of its life is to be found in the recesses of its own
\nbeing.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The root of the past is the source from which the future draws its sap
\nand if the tree is to be saved it must constantly draw from that source for
\nsustenance. The root may be fed from outside, but that food will have to be
\nassimilated and turned to sap in the root before it can nourish the trunk. All
\nnations therefore when they receive anything from outside steep it first in
\ntheir own individuality before it can form part of their culture and national
\nlife. India has always done this with all outside forces which sought to find
\nentry into her silent and meditative being. She has suffused them with her
\npeculiar individuality so completely that their foreign origin is no longer recognisable. If she had done the same with European civilisation,
\nshe would have been the first Asiatic
\nnation to rise and show the way to her congeners. But <\/span>at
\nthe time when Europe forced itself upon her, her political life was at its
\nnadir. Exhausted by the long struggle to substitute a new centre of national
\nlife for the effete Mogul, she was too weak and void of energy to bring her once
\nrobust individuality to bear upon the alien thought of the West. She allowed it
\nto enter her being whole and undigested. The result was a rapid disintegration
\nof her own individuality and a hastening of the process of decay which had set
\nin as a result of the prolonged anarchy<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-880<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the post-Mogul period. If there had been no reaction,
\nthe process would have been soon over and, whatever race finally occupied India,
\nit would not have been the Indian race. For that race would have slowly perished
\nas the Greek, when he parted with the springs of his life, perished and gave way
\nto the Slav, or as the Egyptian perished and gave way to the Berber. This fate
\nhas been averted because a great wave of reaction passed over the country and
\nsent a stream of the old life and thought of India beating into the veins of
\nthe country and brought it to bear on the foreign matter which was eating up the
\nbody of the nation. That process of assimilation has just begun and its effects
\nwill not be palpable for many years to come. It will first effect its purpose on
\nthe political life of the people, then on its society, last on its literature,
\nthought and speech. The effect on the political life is already visible, but it
\ncannot fulfil itself until the political power is in the hands of the people. No
\npolitical change can work itself out until the forces of change have taken
\npossession of the government, because it is through the government that the
\nfunctions of political life work. This is their organ and there can be no other.
\nThe possession of the government by the people is therefore the first condition
\nof Indian regeneration. Until this is attained, nothing else can be attained.
\nThe new forces will no doubt work quietly on society and on literature, but in
\nan imperfect fashion from which no great results can be anticipated.<\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Society lives by the proper harmony of its parts and bases that harmony
\non the centre of power in which the whole community is summed up, the State. If
\nthe State is diseased, the community cannot be healthy. If the State is foreign
\nand inorganic, the community cannot live an organic life. If the State be
\nhostile, the community is doomed. The first want of a subject people is the
\npossession of the State, without which it can neither be socially sound nor
\nintellectually great. It was for this reason that Mazzini whose natural
\ntendencies were literary and poetic, turned
\naway
\n<\/span>from literature
\nand denied his abilities their natural expres<\/span>sion
\nwith the memorable words, "The art of Italy will flourish on our
\ngraves." No great work can be done by a community which is diseased at the
\ncentre or deprived of a centre. The hope of social reform divorced from
\npolitical freedom, unless by social<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-881<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nreform
\nwe mean the aping of European habits of life and social ideas, is an illogical
\nhope which ignores the nature of social life and the conditions of its
\nwell-being. All expectation of moral regeneration which leaves freedom out of
\nthe count is a dream. First freedom, then regeneration. This is a truism which
\nwe have been obliged to dwell on because there are still remnants of the first
\ndelusive teachings which have done so much harm to India by trying to realise
\nsocial reform without providing the element in which alone any reform is
\npossible.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>To recover possession of the State is therefore the first business of the
\nawakened Indian consciousness. If this is so, then it is obvious that the
\npolitical liberation of India cannot be put off to a distant date as a thing
\nwhich can be worked out at leisure, with the slow pace of the snail, by creeping
\ndegrees of senile caution. It must be done now. It is the first condition of
\nlife which must be satisfied if the nation is to survive. On this the whole
\nenergies of the people must be concentrated and no other will-o’-the-wisp of
\nsocial reform, moral regeneration, educational improvement ought to be allowed
\nto interfere with the stupendous, single-souled effort which can alone effect
\nthe political salvation of the country. No reasonable reformer ought to be put
\nout by the demand for the precedence being given to political salvation, because
\nit is obvious that the political resurgence of the nation involves and
\nnecessitates a regeneration of the society by the great change of spirit and
\nenvironment which it will bring about. When the whole life of the nation is full
\nof the spirit of freedom and it lives in the great life of the world, then only
\ncan the work of the reformer be successful. The preoccupation with politics
\nwhich seized Bengal after the Partition was a healthy symptom. Recently there
\nhas been a tendency in some quarters to revive the old dissipation of energies,
\nto put social reform first, education first or moral regeneration first, and
\nleave freedom to result from these. The mistake should be checked before it
\ngains ground. Whatever reform, social, moral or educational, is necessary to
\nbring about freedom, the effort of the whole people to bring about freedom will
\nautomatically effect. More is impossible until freedom itself is attained. No
\nattempt to effect social reform for its own sake has any chance<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-882<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof
\nsuccess, because it will at once reawaken the old bitter struggle between the
\npast and the present which baffled the efforts of the reformers. What the nation
\nneeds, it will carry out by the force of its necessity; but it is vain to expect
\nit to dissipate its energies on what is for the moment superfluous. First we
\nmust live, afterwards we can learn to live well. The effort to survive must for
\nsome years command all our energies and absorb all our time.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> April 25, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-883<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The One Thing Needful                   A SORT of atavism is at work in the Indian consciousness at the present moment which is drawing it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","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=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}