{"id":31,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=31"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:27","slug":"43-the-greatness-of-the-individual-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/43-the-greatness-of-the-individual-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-43_The Greatness of the Individual.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nI<\/font>N ALL <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>movements, in every great mass
\nof human action it is the Spirit of the Time, that which Europe
\ncalls the Zeitgeist and India kāla<\/i>, who expresses himself. The
\nvery names are deeply significant. Kali, the mother of all and
\ndestroyer of all, is the śakti<\/i> that works in secret in the heart of
\nhumanity, manifesting herself in the perpetual surge of men,
\ninstitutions and movements; Mahakala is the Spirit within whose
\nenergy goes abroad in her and moulds the progress of the world
\nand the destiny of the nations. His is the impetus which fulfils
\nitself in Time, and once there is movement, impetus from the Spirit
\nwithin, Time and the Mother take charge of it, prepare, ripen
\nand fulfil. When the Zeitgeist, God in Time, moves in a settled
\ndirection, then all the forces of the world are called in to swell
\nthe established current towards the purpose decreed. That which
\nconsciously helps, swells it, but that which hinders swells it still
\nmore, and like a wave on the wind-swept ocean, now rising, now
\nfalling, now high on the crest of victory and increase, now down
\nin the trough of discouragement and defeat, the impulse from the
\nhidden Source sweeps onwards to preordained fulfilment. Man
\nmay help or man may resist, but the Zeitgeist works, shapes, overbears, insists.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe great and memorable vision of Kurukshetra when Sri
\nKrishna manifesting His world-form declared Himself as destroying Time, is significant of this deep perception of humanity.
\nWhen Arjuna wished to cast aside his bow and quiver, when he
\nsaid, "This is a sin we do and a great destruction of men and
\nbrothers, I will forbear," Sri Krishna, after convincing his intellect of error, proceeded by that marvellous vision described in
\nthe eleventh canto of the Gita to stamp the truth of things upon
\nhis imagination. Thus run the mighty stanzas:<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                                                            <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n Page <\/font>
\n\u2013 352<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n  <\/p>\n

\n"I am Time who waste and destroy the
\npeoples; lo, I have arisen in my might, I am here to swallow up the nations.
\nEven without thee all they shall not be, the men of war who stand arrayed in the
\nopposing squadrons. Therefore do thou arise and get thee great glory, conquer
\nthy foes and enjoy a great and wealthy empire. For these, they were slain even
\nbefore and it is I who have slain them; be the occasion only, O Savyasachin."<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt is not as the slow process of Time that Sri Krishna
\nmanifests Himself; it is as the Zeitgeist consummating in a moment
\nthe work carefully prepared for decades that He appears to Arjuna. All have been moving inevitably towards the catastrophe
\nof Kurukshetra. Men did not know it; those who would have
\ndone everything possible to avert the calamity, helped its coming
\nby their action or inaction; those who had a glimpse of it strove
\nin vain to stop the wheels of Fate; Sri Krishna Himself as the
\nniskāma karmayogin<\/i> who does His duty without regard to results,
\nwent on that hopeless embassy to Hastinapura; but the Zeitgeist
\noverbore all. It was only afterwards that men saw how like rivers
\nspeeding towards the sea, like moths winging towards the lighted
\nflame, all that splendid, powerful and arrogant Indian world with
\nits clans of kings and its weapons and its chariots and its gigantic
\narmies were rushing towards the open mouths of the Destroyer to be lost in His
\nmighty jaws, to be mangled between His gnash-<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>kālo’smi lokaks<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>ayakr<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>t pravr<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>ddho<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n lokān samāhartumiha pr<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>avrttah<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n rte’pi tvām na bhavis<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>yanti sarve<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n ye’vasthitāh<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font> pratyan<\/i><\/font>ī<\/i><\/font>kes<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>u
\nyodh<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>h<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\ntasmāttvamuttis<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>t<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>ha yaśo labhasva<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\njitvā śatrūn bhunks<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>va rājyam samr<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>ddham<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nmayaiveite nihatāh<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font> pūrvameva<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nnimittamātram bhava savyas<\/i><\/font>ā<\/i><\/font>cin.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 353<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ning teeth. In the lilā<\/i> of the Eternal, there are movements that
\nare terrible as well as movements that are sweet and beautiful.
\nThe dance of Brindaban is not complete without the death-dance
\nof Kurukshetra; for each is a part of that great harmonic movement of the world which progresses from discord to accord, from
\nhatred and strife to love and brotherhood, from evil to the fulfilment of the evolution by the transformation of suffering and
\nsin into beauty, bliss and good, śivam<\/i>, śāntam<\/i>, śuddham<\/i>, ānandam<\/i>.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nWho could resist the purpose of the Zeitgeist ? There were
\nstrong men in India then by the hundred, great philosophers and
\nYogins, subtle statesmen, leaders of men, kings of thought and
\naction, the efflorescence of a mighty intellectual civilisation at its
\nheight. A little turning to the right instead of to the left on the
\npart of a few of these would, it might seem, have averted the whole
\ncatastrophe. So Arjuna thought when he flung aside his bow.
\nHe was the whole hope of the Pandavas and without him their
\nvictory must seem a mere dream and to fight an act of madness.
\nYet it is to him that the Zeitgeist proclaims the utter helplessness
\nof the mightiest and the sure fulfilment of God’s decree. "Even
\nwithout thee all they shall not be, the men of war who stand
\narrayed in the opposing squadrons." For these men are only
\nalive in the body; in that which stands behind and fulfils itself,
\nthey are dead men. Whom God protects who shall slay ? Whom
\nGod has slain who shall protect ? The man who slays is only the
\noccasion, the instrument by which the thing done behind the veil
\nbecomes the thing done on this side of it. That which was true
\nof the great slaying at Kurukshetra is true of all things that are
\ndone in this world, of all the creation, destruction and preservation that make up the
\nlīlā<\/i>.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe greatness of this teaching is for the great. Those who are
\ncommissioned to bring about mighty changes are full of the force
\nof the Zeitgeist. Kali has entered into them and Kali, when she
\nenters into a man, cares nothing for rationality and possibility.
\nShe is the force of Nature that whirls the stars in their orbits
\nlightly as a child might swing a ball, and to that force there is
\nnothing impossible. She is aghatanaghatanapatīyasī<\/i>, very skilful
\nin bringing about the impossible. She is the devātmaśaktih svagunair nigūdhā<\/i>, the Power of the Divine Spirit hidden in the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 354<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmodes of its own workings, and she needs nothing but time to
\ncarry out the purpose with which she is commissioned. She
\nmoves in Time and the very movement fulfils itself, creates its
\nmeans, accomplishes its ends. It is not an accident that she works
\nin one man more than in another. He is chosen because he is a
\nlikely vessel, and having chosen him she neither rejects him till
\nthe purpose is fulfilled nor allows him to reject her. Therefore
\nSri Krishna tells Arjuna:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n"The thought which thou thinkest and takest refuge in
\negoism saying, ‘I will not fight’, this thy resolve is a vain thing;<\/font> 
\n<\/font>Nature will yoke thee to thy work."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWhen a man seems to have rejected his work, it merely means
\nthat his work is over and Kali leaves him for another. When a
\nman who has carried out a great work is destroyed, it is for the
\negoism by which he has misused the force within that the force
\nitself breaks him to pieces, as it broke Napoleon. Some instruments are treasured up, some are flung aside and shattered, but
\nall are instruments. This is the greatness of great men, not that
\nby their own strength they can determine great events, but that
\nthey are serviceable and specially-forged instruments of the
\nPower which determines them. Mirabeau helped to create the
\nFrench Revolution, no man more. When he set himself against
\nit and strove, becoming a prop of monarchy, to hold back the
\nwheel, did the French Revolution stop for the backsliding of
\nFrance’s mightiest? Kali put her foot on Mirabeau and he
\ndisappeared; but the Revolution went on, for the Revolution
\nwas the manifestation of the Zeitgeist, the Revolution was the
\nwill of God.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nSo it is always. The men who prided themselves that great
\nevents were their work, because they seemed to have an initial
\nhand in them, go down into the trench of Time and others march<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00b9<\/font>yadahamkāramāśritya na yotsya iti manyase<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\nmithyais<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>a vyavasāyaste prakr<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>tistvām niyoks<\/i><\/font><\/i><\/font>yati.<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 355<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nforward over their shattered reputations. Those who are swept
\nforward by Kali within them and make no terms with Fate, they
\nalone survive. The greatness of individuals is the greatness of the
\neternal Energy within.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 356<\/font><\/p>\n

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