{"id":3109,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3109"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:00","slug":"03-15-september-1915-vol-a-philosophical-review-vol-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/arya\/a-philosophical-review-vol-2\/03-15-september-1915-vol-a-philosophical-review-vol-2","title":{"rendered":"-03_15 September 1915.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n

<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE LIFE DIVINE<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nCHAPTER XIV.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nTHE SUPERMIND AS CREATOR<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n    All things are self expanding
\nof the Idea.\n<\/p>\n

\n   
\n<\/i>
\nVishnu Purana.\n<\/p>\n

\n    A principle of active Will and
\nKnowledge superior to Mind and creature of the wilds is then the intermediary
\npower and state of being between that self-possession of the One and this flux
\nof the Many. This principle is not entirely alien to us; it does not belong
\nsolely and incommunicably to a Being who is entirely other than ourselves or to
\na state of existence from which we are mysteriously projected into birth, but
\nalso rejected and unable to return. If it seems to us to be seated on heights
\nfar above us, yet are they the heights of our own being and accessible to our
\ntread. We can not only infer and glimpse that Truth, but we are capable of
\nrealising it. We. may by a progressive expanding or a sudden luminous
\nself-transcendence mount up to these summits in unforgettable moments or dwell
\non them during hours or days of greatest superhuman experience. When we descend
\nagain, there are doors of communication which we can keep always open or reopen
\nthough they should constantly shut. But to dwell there permanently on this last
\nand highest summit of the created and creative being is in the end the supreme
\nideal for our evolving human consciousness when it seeks not self-annulment but
\nself-perfection. For, as we have seen, this is the original Idea and the final
\nharmony and truth to which
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-65<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nour gradual self-expression in the world returns and which it is meant to
\nachieve.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Still, we may doubt whether it is possible, now
\nor at all, to give any account of this state to the human intellect or to
\nutilise in any communicable and cognizable way its divine workings for the
\nelevation of our human knowledge and action. The doubt arises not only from the
\nrarity or dubiety of any known phenomena that would betray a human working of
\nthis divine faculty, nor from the remoteness which separates this action from
\nthe experience and verifiable knowledge of ordinary humanity; it is strongly
\nsuggested also by the apparent contradiction in both essence and operation
\nbetween human mentality and the divine Supermind.\n<\/p>\n

\n    And certainly, if this consciousness had no relation at
\nall to mind nor anywhere any identity with the mental being, it would be quite
\nimpossible to give any account of it to our human notions. Or if it were in its
\nnature only vision in knowledge and not at all dynamic power of knowledge, we
\ncould hope to attain by its contact a beatific state of mental illumination, but
\nnot a greater light and power for the works of the world. But since this
\nconsciousness is creature of the world, it must be not only state of knowledge,
\nbut power of knowledge, and not only a Will to light and vision, but a Will to
\npower and works. And since Mind too is created out of it, Mind must be a
\ndevelopment by limitation out of this primal faculty and this mediatory act of
\nthe supreme conscience and must therefore be capable of resolving itself back
\ninto it through a reverse development by expansion. For always Mind must be
\nidentical with Supermind in essence and conceal in itself the potentiality of
\nSupermind, however different or even contrary it may have become in its actual
\nforms and settled modes of operation. It may not then be an irrational or
\nunprofitable attempt to strive by the method of comparison and contrast towards
\nsome idea of the Supermind from the standpoint and in the terms of our
\nintellectual knowledge. The idea, the terms may well be in adequate and yet
\nstill serve as a finger of light pointing
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-66<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nus onward on a way which to some distance at least we may tread.\n<\/p>\n

\n    And first we may pause a moment and ask
\nOurselves whether no light can be found from the past which will guide us
\ntowards these ill-explored domains. We need a name, and we need a
\nstarting-point. For we have called this state of consciousness the Supermind;
\nbut the word is ambiguous since it may be taken in the sense of mind itself
\nsuper eminent and lifted above ordinary mentality but not radically changed, or
\non the contrary it may bear the sense of all that is beyond mind and therefore
\nassume a\n<\/p>\n

\n    It is the cryptic verses of the Veda that
\nhelp us here ; for they contain, though concealed, the gospel of the divine and
\nimmortal Supermind and through the veil some illumining flashes come to us. The
\ninspired poets of the Veda speak of this Supermind as a vastness beyond the
\nordinary firmaments of our consciousness in which truth of being is luminously
\none with all that expresses it and assures inevitably truth of vision,
\nformulation, arrangement, word, act and movement and therefore truth also of
\nresult of movement, result of action and expression, infallible ordinance or
\nlaw. Vast all-comprehensiveness; luminous truth and harmony of being in that
\nvastness and not a vague chaos or self-lost obscurity; truth of law and act and
\nknowledge expressive of that harmonious truth of being : these are the essential
\nterms of the Vedic description. The Gods, who are powers of this Supermind, born
\nof it, seated in it as in their proper home, are in their knowledge "
\ntruth-conscious " and in their action possessed of the seer-will". Their
\nconscious-force turned towards works and creation is possessed and guided by a
\nperfect and direct knowledge of the thing to be done and its essence and its
\nlaw,\u2014a knowledge which determines a wholly effective will-power that does not
\ndeviate or falter in its process or in its result, but expresses and fulfils
\nspontaneously and inevitably in the act that which has been seen in the vision,
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-67<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nLight is here one with Force, the vibrations of knowledge with the rhythm of the
\nwill and both are on\u00a3, perfectly and without seeking, groping or effort, with
\nthe assured result. The divine Nature has a double power, a spontaneous
\nself-formulation and self-arrangement which wells naturally out of the essence
\nof the thing manifested and expresses it original truth, and a self-force of
\nlight inherent in the thing itself and the source of its spontaneous and
\ninevitable self-arrangement.\n<\/p>\n

\n    There are subordinate, but important details. The
\nVedic seers seem to speak of two primary faculties of the "truth-conscious "
\nsoul ; they are Sight and Hearing, by which is intended direct operations of an
\ninherent Knowledge describable as truth-vision and truth-audition and reflected
\nfrom far-off in our human mentality by the faculties of revelation and
\ninspiration. Besides, a distinction sterns to be made in the operations of the
\nSupermind between knowledge by a comprehending and pervading consciousness which
\nis very near to subjective knowledge by identity and knowledge by a projecting,
\nconfronting, apprehending consciousness which is the beginning of objective
\ncognition. These are the Vedic clues. And we may accept from this ancient
\nexperience the subsidiary term truth-consciousness " to delimit the connotation
\nof the more elastic phrase, Supermind.\n<\/p>\n

\n    We see at once that such a consciousness,
\ndescribed by such characteristics, must be an intermediate formulation which
\nrefers back to a term above it and forward to another below it ; we see at the
\nsame time that it is evidently the link and means by which the inferior develops
\nout of the superior and should equally be the link and means by which it may
\ndevelop back again towards its source. The term above is the Unitarian or
\nindivisible consciousness of pure Sachchidananda in which there are no
\ndistinctions; the term below is the analytic or dividing consciousness of Mind
\nwhich can only know by distinctions and has at the most a vague and secondary
\napprehension of unity and infinity. Between them is this comprehensive and
\ncreative consciousness, by its power of pervading and comprehending
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-68<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nknowledge the child of that self-awareness by identity which is the poise of
\nthe Brahman and by its power of projecting, confronting, apprehending knowledge
\nparent of that awareness by distinction which is the process of the Mind.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    Above, the formula of the One eternally stable
\nand immutable; below, the formula of the Many which, eternally mutable, seeks
\nbut hardly finds in the flux of things a firm and immutable standing-point;
\nbetween, the seat of all trinities, of all that is biome, of all that becomes
\nMany in-One and yet remains One-in-Many because it was originally One that is
\nalways potentially Many. This intermediary term is therefore the beginning and
\nend of all creation and arrangement, the Alpha and the Omega, the starting-point
\nof all differentiation, the instrument of
\n all
\nunification, originative, executive and consummative of all realise or
\nrealisable harmonies. It has the knowledge of the One, but is able to draw out
\nof the One its hidden multitudes; it creates the Many, but does not lose itself
\nin their differentiations. And shall we not say that its very existence points
\nback to Something beyond the ineffable Unity,\u2014Something ineffable and
\ninconceivable not because of its unity and indivisibility, but because of its
\nfreedom from tavern these formulations of our mind,\u2014Something beyond both unity
\nand multiplicity ? That would be it the utter Unknowable and Real which yet
\njustifies to us both our knowledge of God and our knowledge of the world.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    But these terms are large and difficult to grasp;
\nlet us come to precisions. We speak of the One as Sachchidananda; but in the
\nvery description we posit three entities and unite them to arrive at a trinity.
\nWe say " Existence, Consciousness, Bliss," and then we say, " they are one". It
\nis a process of the mind. But for the Unitarian consciousness such a process is
\ninadmissible. Existence is Consciousness and there can be no distinction between
\nthem; Consciousness is Bliss and there can be no distinction between them. And
\nsince there is not even this differentiation there can be no world. If that is
\nthe sole reality,
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-69<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthen world is not and never existed, can never have been conceived; for
\nindivisible consciousness is uninviting consciousness and cannot originate
\ndivision and differentiation. But this is a reduction ad absurdum <\/i>; we
\ncannot admit it unless we are content to base every thing upon an impossible
\nparadox and an unreconciled antithesis.\n<\/p>\n

\n    On the other hand, Mind can only conceive
\ndistinctions as real; it can conceive totality or the finite extending itself
\nindefinitely, but the ultimate unity and absolute infinity are to its conscience
\nof things abstract notions and unreal quantities, not something that is real to
\nits grasp, much less something that is alone real. Here is therefore the very
\nopposite term to the Unitarian consciousness; we have, confronting the essential
\nand indivisible unity, an essential multiplicity which cannot arrive at unity
\nwithout abolishing itself and in the very act confessing that it could never
\nreally have existed. Yet it was; for it is this that has found unify and
\nabolished itself. And again we have a reduction ad absurdum <\/i>repeating the
\nviolent paradox which seeks to convince thought by stunning it and the
\nreconciled and irreconcilable antithesis.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The difficulty, in its lower term, disappears if
\nwe realise that Mind is only a preparatory form of our consciousness. Mind is an
\ninstrument of analysis and synthesis, but not of essential knowledge. Its
\nfunction is to cut out something vaguely from the unknown Thing in itself and
\ncall its measurement or delimitation the whole, and again to analyse the whole
\ninto its parts which it regards as separate mental objects. It is only the parts
\nand accidents that the mind can see definitely and, after its own fashion, know.
\nOf the whole its only definite idea is an assemblage of parts or a totality of
\nproperties and accidents. The whole not seen as a part of something else or in
\nits own parts, properties and accidents is to the mind no more than a vague
\nperception; only when it is analysed and put by itself as a separate object, a
\ntotality in a larger totality, can Mind say to itself. "This now I know." And
\nreally it does not know. Its knows only its own analysis of the object and the
\nidea it has formed of it by a synthesis
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-70<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nof the separate parts and properties that it has seen. There its characteristic
\npower, its sure function ceases, and if we would have a greater, a profounder
\nand a real knowledge\u2014a knowledge and not an intense but formless sentiment such
\nas comes sometimes to certain deep but inarticulate parts of our mentality\u2014Mind
\nha; to make room for another consciousness which will fulfill Mind by
\ntranscending it or reverse and so rectify its operations after leaping beyond
\nit: the summit of mental knowledge is only a vaulting-board from which that leap
\ncan be taken. The utmost mission of Mind is to train our obscure consciousness
\nwhich has emerged out of the dark prison of Matter, to enlighten its blind
\ninstincts, random intuitions, vague perceptions till it shall become capable of
\nthis greater light and this higher ascension. Mind is a passage, not a
\nculmination.\n<\/p>\n

\n    On the other hand, the Unitarian
\nconsciousness or indivisible Unity cannot be that impossible entity, a thing
\nwithout contents out of which all contents have issued and into which they
\ndisappear and become annihilated. It must be an original self-concentration in
\nwhich all is contained but in another manner than in this temporal and spatial
\nmanifestation. That which has thus concentrated itself, is the utterly
\nineffable, and inconceivable Existence which the Nihilist images to his mind as
\nthe negative Void of all that we know’ and are but the Transcendentalist with
\nequal reason may image to his mind as the positive but indistinguishable Reality
\nof all that we know and are. " In the beginning " says the Vedanta " was the one
\nExistence without a second," but before and after the beginning, now, for ever
\nand beyond Time is that which we cannot describe even as the One;, even when we
\nsay that nothing but That is. What we can be aware of is, first, its original
\nself-concentration which we end devour to realise as the indivisible One ;
\nsecondly, the diffusion and apparent disintegration of all that was concentrated
\nin its unity which is the Mind’s conception of the universe ; and thirdly, its
\nfirm self-extension in the Truth-conscious ness which contains and upholds the
\ndiffusion and prevents it
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-71<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nfrom being a real disintegration, maintains unity in utmost diversity and
\nstability in utmost mutability, insists on harmony in the appearance of an
\nall-pervading strife and collision, keeps eternal cosmos where Mind would arrive
\nonly at a chaos eternally attempting to form itself. This is the Supermind, the
\nTruth-consciousness, the Real-Idea which knows itself and all that it becomes.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Supermind is the vast self extension of the
\nBrahman that contains and develops. By the Idea it develops the triune principle
\nof existence, consciousness and bliss out of their indivisible unity. It
\ndifferentiates them, but it does not divide. It establishes a Trinity, not
\narriving like the Mind from the three to the One, but manifesting the three out
\nof the One\u2014for it manifests and develops, and yet maintaining them in the
\nunity,\u2014for it knows and contains. By the differentiation it is able to bring
\nforward one or other of them as the effective Deity which contains the others
\ninvolved or explicit in itself and this process it makes the foundation of all
\nother differentiations. And it acts by the same operation on all the principles
\nand possibilities which it evolves out of this all-constituent trinity. It
\npossesses the power of development, of evolution, of making explicit, and that
\npower carries with it the other power of involution, of envelopment, of making
\nimplicit. In a sense, the whole of creation may be said to be a movement between
\ntwo involutions, Spirit in which all is involved and out of which all evolves
\ndownward to the other pole of Matter, Matter in which a4so all is involved and
\nout of which all evolves upward to the other pole of Spirit.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Thus the whole process of differentiation
\nby the Real-Idea creative of the universe is a putting {forward of principles,
\nforces, forms which contain for the comprehending consciousness all the rest of
\nexistence within them and front the apprehending consciousness with all the rest
\nof existence implicit behind them. Therefore all is in each as well as each in
\nall. Therefore every seed of things implies in itself all the infinity o’
\nvarious possibilities, but is kept to one law of process and result by the Will,
\nthat is
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-72<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nto say by the Knowledge-Force of the Conscious-Being who is manifesting himself
\nand who, sure of the Idea in himself, predetermines by it his own forms and
\nmovements. The seed is the Truth of its own being which this Self-Existence sees
\nin itself, the resultant of that seed of self-vision is the Truth of
\nself-action, the natural law of development, formation and functioning which
\nfollows inevitably upon the self-vision and keeps to the processes in" evolved
\nin the original Truth. All Nature is simply, then, the Seer-Will, the
\nKnowledge-Force of the Conscious-Being at work to evolve in force and form all
\nthe inevitable truth of the Idea into which it has originally thrown itself.\n<\/p>\n

\n    This conception of the Idea points us
\nto the essential contrast between our mental consciousness and the
\nTruth-consciousness. We regard thought as a thing separate from existence,
\nabstract, unsubstantial, different from reality, something which appears one
\nknows not whence and detaches itself from objective reality in order to observe,
\nunderstand and judge it ; for so it seems and therefore is to our all-dividing,
\nall-analysing mentality. The first business of Mind is to render "discrete," to
\nmake fissures much more than to discern and so it has made this paralysing
\nfissure between thought and reality. But in Supermind all being is consciousness,
\nall conscious ness is of being, and the idea, a pregnant vibration of
\nconsciousness, is equally a vibration of being pregnant of itself; it is an
\ninitial coming out in creative self-knowledge of that which lay concentrated in
\nuncreative self-awareness. It comes tout as Idea that is a reality, and it is
\nthat reality of the Idea which evolves itself, always by its own power and
\nconsciousness of itself, always self-conscious, always self-developing by the
\nwill inherent in the Idea, always self-realising by the knowledge ingrained in
\nits every impulsion. This is the truth of all creation, of all evolution.\n<\/p>\n

\n    In Supermind being, consciousness of
\nknowledge and consciousness of will are not divided as they seem to be in our
\nmental operations ; they are a trinity, one movement with three effective
\naspects. Each has its own effect. Being gives the effect of substance,
\nconsciousness the effect of
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-73<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nknowledge, of the self-guiding and shaping idea, of comprehension and
\napprehension ; will gives the effect of self-fulfilling force. But the idea is
\nonly the light of the reality illumining itself; it is not mental thought nor
\nimagination, but effective self-awareness. It is Real-Idea.\n<\/p>\n

\n    In Supermind knowledge in the Idea is not
\ndivorced from will in the Idea, but one with it\u2014just as it is not different from
\nbeing or substance, but is one with the being, luminous power of the substance.
\nAs the power of burning light is not different from the substance of the fire,
\nso the power of the Idea is not different from the substance of the Being which
\nworks itself out in the Idea and its development. In our mentality all are
\ndifferent. We have an idea and a will according to the idea or an impulsion of
\nwill and an idea detaching itself from it; but we differentiate effectually the
\nidea from the will and both from ourselves. I am; the idea is a mysterious
\nabstraction that appears in me, the will is another mystery, a force nearer to
\nconcreteness, though not concrete, but always something that is not myself,
\nsomething that I have or get or am seized with, but am not. I make a gulf also
\nbetween my will, its means and the effect, for these I regard as concrete
\nrealities – outside and other than myself. Therefore neither myself nor the idea
\nnor the will in me are self-effective. The idea may fall away from me, the will
\nmay fail, the means may be lacking, I myself by any or all of these lacunae may
\nremain unfulfilled.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But in the Supermind there is no such paralysing
\ndivision, because knowledge is not solidified, force is not self-divided, being
\nis not self-divided as in the mind; they are neither broken in themselves, nor
\ndivorced from each other. For the Supermind is the Vast ; it starts from unity,
\nnot division, it is primarily comprehensive, differentiation is only its
\nsecondary act. Therefore whatever be the truth of being expressed, the idea
\ncorresponds to it exactly, the will to the idea,\u2014force being,.; only power of
\nthe consciousness,\u2014and the result to the will. Nor does the idea clash with
\nother ideas, the will or force with other will or force as in man and his world
\n; for there is one
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-74<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nvast Consciousness which contains and relates all ideas in itself as its own
\nideas, one vast Will which contains and relates all energies in itself as its
\nown energies. It holds back this, advances that other, but according to its own
\npreconceiving Idea-Will.\n<\/p>\n

\n    This is the justification of the current
\nreligious notions of the omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence of the Divine
\nBeing. Far from being an ii rational imagination they are perfectly rational and
\nin no way contradict either the logic of a comprehensive philosophy nor the
\nindications of observation and experience. The error is to make an unbridgeable
\ngulf between God and man, Brahman and the world. That error elevates an actual
\nand practical differentiation in being, consciousness and force into an
\nessential division. But this aspect of the question we shall touch upon
\nafterwards. At present we have arrived at an affirmation and some conception of
\nthe divine and creative Supermind in which all s one in being, consciousness,
\nwill and delight, yet when an infinite capacity of differentiation that deploys
\nbut does not destroy the unity,\u2014in which Truth is the substance and Truth rises
\nin the Idea and Truth comes out in the form and there is one truth of knowledge
\nand will, one truth of self-fulfillment and therefore of delight; for all
\nself-fulfillment is satisfaction of being. Therefore, always, in all mutations
\nand combinations a self-existent and inalienable harmony.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-75<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\nThe Secret of the Veda<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nCHAPTER XIII.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nDAWN AND THE TRUTH.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n    <\/b> Usha is described repeatedly as the Mother’ of the
\nCows. If then the cow is a Vedic symbol for the physical light or for spiritual
\nillumination the phrase I must either bear this sense that she is the mother or
\nsource of the physical rays of the daylight or else that she creates the
\nradiances of the supreme Day, the splendor and clarity of the inner
\nillumination. But we see in the Veda that Aditi, the Mother of the Gods, is
\ndescribed both as the Cow and as the general Mother; she is the Supreme Light
\nand all radiances proceed from her. Psychologically, Aditi is the supreme or
\ninfinite Consciousness, mother of the gods, in opposition to Danu or Diti,* the
\ndivided consciousness, mother of Vritra and the other Danavas\u2014enemies of the
\ngods and of man in his progress. In a more general aspect she is the source of
\nall the cosmic forms of consciousness from the physical upwards; the seven cows,
\n‘sapta g\u00e2vah, <\/i>are her forms and there are, we are told, seven names and
\nseven seats of the Mother. Usha as the mother of the cows can only be a form or
\npower of this supreme Light, of this supreme Consciousness, of Aditi. And in
\nfact, we do find her so described in I. 99, m<\/span>\u00e2<\/i>t<\/span>\u00e2<\/i>
\ndev<\/span>\u00e2n\u00e2<\/i>m aditeran\u00eekam, .. Mother of the gods,
\nform (or, power) of Aditi ,"<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n * Not that the word Aditi is etymologically the privative of Aditi ; the two
\n words derive from entirely different roots, ad <\/i>and di.<\/i>
\n\t<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-76<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nBut the illumining dawn of the higher or undivided Consciousness is always the
\ndawn of the Truth; it Usha is that illumining dawn, then we are bound’ to find
\nher advent frequently associated in the verses of the Rig-Veda with the idea of
\nthe Truth, the R’itam. And such association we do repeatedly find. For, first of
\nall, Usha is described as " following effectively the path of the Truth ,"
\nr’itasya panth\u00e2m anveti sadhu. <\/i>Here neither the ritualistic nor, the
\nnaturalistic ensue suggested for r’itam <\/i>can at all apply ; there would be
\nno meaning in a constant affirmation that Dawn follows the path of the sacrifice
\nor follows the path of the water. We can only escape from the obvious
\nsignificance if we choose to understand by panth\u00e2 r’itasya <\/i>the path, not
\nof the Truth, but of the Sun. But the Veda describes rather the Sun as following
\nthe path of Usha and this would be the natural image suggested to an observer of
\nthe physical Dawn. Moreover, even if the phrase did not clearly in other
\npassages mean the path of the Truth, the psychological significance would still
\nintervene ; for the sense would then be that the dawn of illumination follows
\nthe path of the True or the Lord of the Truth, Surya Savitri.\n<\/p>\n

\n    We have precisely the same idea
\nrepeated but with still clearer and fuller psychological indications in I. 124.
\n3 ; r’itasya panth<\/font><\/i><\/span>\u00e2<\/i>m
\nanveti s\u00e2dhu, praj\u00e2<\/i>nativa
\nna di\u00e7o min\u00e2ti: " <\/font> <\/i>
\nShe moves according to the path of the
\nTruth and, as one that knows, she limits not the regions." Di\u00e7ah, <\/i>we may
\nnote, has a double sense ; but it is not necessary to insist upon it here. Dawn
\nadheres to the path of the Truth and because she has this knowledge or
\nperception she does not limit the infinity, the bright, <\/i>of which she is
\nthe illumination. That this is the true sense of the versa is proved beyond
\ndispute, expressly, unmistakably, by a Rik of the fifth Mandela (V. 50. 1 )
\nwhich describes Usha dyutad-yamanam br’ihatim r’itena r’itavarim svar avahantim, <\/i>"of a luminous movement, vast with the Truth, supreme in (or
\npossessed of) the Truth, bringing with her Swar." We have the idea of the Vast,
\nthe idea of" the Truth, the idea of the solar light of the<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-77<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nworld of Swar; and certainly all these notions are thus intimately and
\ninsistently associated with no mere physical Dawn! We may compare VII. 75.1.
\nvyush\u00e2 \u00e2vo divij\u00e2 r’itena, \u00e2vishkr’in’v\u00e2n\u00e2 mahim\u00e2n\u00e2m \u00e2g\u00e2t; <\/i>Dawn born in
\nheaven opens out things by the Truth, she comes manifesting the greatness. Again
\nwe have Dawn revealing all things by the power of the Truth and the result
\ndescribed as the manifestation of a certain Vastness.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Finally we have the same idea described,
\nbut with the use of another word for Truth, satyr <\/i>which does not, like
\nr’itam, <\/i>lend itself to any ambiguity, saty\u00e2 satyebhir mahati mahadbhir
\ndevi devebhir. <\/i>Dawn true in her being with the gods who are true, vast with
\nthe Gods who are vast. This " truth " of the Dawn is much insisted upon by
\nVamadeva in one of his hymns, IV. 51 ; for there not only does he speak of the
\nDawns " encompassing the worlds immediately with horses yoked by the Truth,"
\nr’itayugbhir a\u00e7vaih <\/i>(cf. VI. 05. 2 ) but he speaks of them as bhadr\u00e2
\nr’itaj\u00e2tasaty\u00e2h, " <\/i>happy, and true because born from the Truth"; and in
\nanother verse he describes them as " the goddesses who awake from the seat of
\nthe Truth."\n<\/p>\n

\n    This close connection of bhadr\u00e2 <\/i>and
\nr’itam <\/i>reminds us of the same connection of ideas in Madhuchchhandas’ Hymn to
\nAgni. In our psychological interpretation of the Veda we are met at every turn
\nby the ancient conception of the Truth as the path to the Bliss. Usha, the dawn
\nof the illumination of the Truth, must necessarily bring also the joy and the
\nbeatitude. This idea of the Dawn as the bringer of delight we find constantly in
\nthe Veda and Vasishtha gives a very positive expression to it in V. 81. 3. yd
\nvahasi puru sp\u00e2rham ratnam na d\u00e2\u00e7ushe mayah, <\/i>"thou who bearest to the giver
\nthe beatitude as a manifold and desirable ecstasy."\n<\/p>\n

\n    A common Vedic word is the word sunr’it\u00e2 <\/i>which Sayana interprets as " pleasant and true speech " ; but it seems to have
\noften the more general sense of " happy truths. " Dawn is sometimes described as
\nr’itavari, <\/i>full of the Truth, sometimes as sunr’it\u00e2vari. <\/i>She comes
\nuttering her true and happy words, sunr’it\u00e2 irayanti. <\/i>As she has
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-78<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nbeen described as the leader of the radiant herds and the leader of the days, so
\nshe is described as the luminous leader of happy truths, bh\u00e2svati netri sunr’it\u00e2n\u00e2m. <\/i>( I, 92. 7.) And this close connection in the mind of the Vedic
\nRishis between the idea of light, of the rays or cows, and the idea of the truth
\nis even more unmistakable in another Rik, I. 92.14, gomati a\u00e7v\u00e2vati
\nvibh\u00e2vari…sunr’it\u00e2vari, <\/i>"Dawn with thy shining herds, with thy steeds,
\nwidely luminous, full of happy truths." A similar but yet more open phrase in I.
\n84. 2 points the significance of this collocation of epithets, gomat\u00eer
\na\u00e7v\u00e2vatir vi\u00e7vasuvidah, <\/i>Dawns with their radiances (herds), their
\nswift nesses (horses), rightly knowing all things. "\n<\/p>\n

\n    These are by no means all the indications
\nof the psychological character of the Vedic Dawn that we find in the Rig Veda.
\nDawn is constantly represented as awakening to vision, perception, right
\nmovement. "The goddess" says Gotama Rahugana, "fronts and looks upon all the
\nworlds, the eye of vision shines with an utter wideness; awakening all late for
\nmovement she discovers speech for all that thinks, " vi\u00e7vasya v\u00e2cham avidan
\nman\u00e2yoh. <\/i>( 1.92 .9 ) We have here a Dawn that releases life and mind into
\ntheir fullest wideness and we ignore the whole force of the words and phrases
\nchosen by the Rishi if we limit the suggestion to a mere picture of the
\nreawakening of earthly life in the physical dawning. And even if here the word
\nused for the vision brought by the Dawn, chakshuh, <\/i>is capable of
\nindicating only physical sight, yet in other passages it is ketuh <\/i>which
\nmeans perception, a perceptive vision in the mental consciousness, a faculty of
\nknowledge. Usha is preached <\/i>, she who has this perceptive knowledge.
\nMother of the radiances, she has created this perceptive vision of the mind;
\ngav\u00e2m janitri akr’ita pra ketum <\/i>(I. 124.5.) She is herself that vision,\u2014"
\nNow perceptive vision has broken out into its wide dawn where naught was
\nbefore," vi nunam uchhad asati pra ketuh <\/i>(I. 124.4). She is by her
\nperceptive power possessed of the happy truths, chikitvit-sunr’it\u00e2vari.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-79<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n    This perception, this vision is, we
\nare told, that of the Immortality, amr’itasya ketuh <\/i>
\n(III.6l.3j ; it is the light, in other
\nwords, of the Truth and the Bliss which constitute the higher or immortal
\nconsciousness. Night in the Veda is the symbol of our obscure consciousness full
\nof ignorance in knowledge and of stumbling in will and act, therefore of all
\nevil, sin and suffering ; light is the coming of the illuminated higher
\nconsciousness which leads to truth and happiness. We find constantly the
\nopposition of the two words duritam <\/i>and suvitam. Duritam <\/i>means
\nliterally stumbling or wrong going, figuratively all that is wrong and evil, all
\nsin, error, calamity; suvitam <\/i>means literally right or good going and
\nexpresses all that is good and happy, it means especially the felicity that
\ncomes by following the right path. Thus Vasishtha says of the goddess (V.78.2) "
\nDawn comes divine repelling by the Light all darkness’s and evils," vi\u00e7v\u00e2
\ntam\u00e2nsi durit\u00e2<\/i>; and in a number of verses the goddess is described as
\nawakening, impelling or leading men to right going, to the happiness, <\/font>
\nsuavity.<\/font><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    Therefore she is the leader not only
\nof happy truths, but of our spiritual wealth and joy, bringer of the felicity
\nwhich is reached by man or brought to him by the Truth, esha netri r\u00e2dhasah
\nsunr’it\u00e2n\u00e2m <\/i>(V.76.5.)
\nThis wealth for which the Rishis pray is
\ndescribed under the figure of material riches ; it is gomad a\u00e7v\u00e2vad viravad <\/i>or it is gomad a\u00e7v\u00e2vad rathavach cha r\u00e2dhah. <\/i>Go, the cow, a\u00e7va, <\/i>
\nthe horse, praja <\/i>or apatya, <\/i>the offspring, nr’i <\/i>or v\u00eera, <\/i>
\nthe man or hero, hiran’ya, <\/i>gold, ratha, <\/i>the chariot, \u00e7ravas,<\/i>\u2014food
\nor fame, according to the ritualism interpretation,\u2014these are the constituents
\nof the wealth desired by the Vedic sages. Nothing, it would seem, could be more
\nmatter-of-fact, earthy, material ; these are indeed the blessings for which a
\nrace of lusty barbarians full of vigorous appetite, avid of earth’s goods would
\npray to their primitive gods. But we have seen that hiran’ya <\/i>is used in
\nanother sense than that of earthly gold. We have seen that the cows " return
\nconstantly in connection with the Dawn as a figure for the Light and we have
\nseen that this light is connected with mental vision and with the truth that
\nbrings the bliss. And<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-80<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\na\u00e7va, <\/i>the horse, is always in these concrete images of psychological
\nsuggestions coupled with the symbolic figure of the cow: Dawn is gomati
\na\u00e7v\u00e2vati. <\/i>Vasishtha has a verse ( V. 77.3)\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDev\u00e2n\u00e2m ch\u00e2kshuh subhag\u00e2. vahant\u00ee, <\/p>\n

   
\n\t\u00e7vetam nayant\u00ee sudr’i\u00e7ikam a\u00e7vam;<\/p>\n

\n\tUsh\u00e2 adar\u00e7i ra\u00e7mibhir vyukt\u00e2 <\/p>\n

   
\n\tchitr\u00e2magh\u00e2<\/i> vi\u00e7vam anu prabhut\u00e2 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n    ” Happy, bringing the gods’ eye of
\nvision, leading the white Horse that has perfect sight, Dawn is seen expressed
\nentirely by the rays, full of her varied riches, manifesting her birth in all
\nthings." It is clear enough that the white horse (a phrase applied to the god
\nAgni who is the Seer-Will, kahikatoa, <\/i>the prefect’s seeing force of
\ndivine will in its works, V. 1.4.) is entirely symbolical * and that the ”
\nvaried riches " she brings with her are also a figure and certainly do not mean
\nphysical wealth.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Dawn is described as gomati
\na\u00e7v\u00e2vati viravati ; <\/i>and since the epithets gomati <\/i>and a\u00e7v\u00e2vati <\/i>
\napplied to her are symbolical and mean not "cowful and horsed," but radiant with
\nilluminations of knowledge and accompanied by the swift nesses of force, so
\nlavation <\/i>cannot mean "man-accompanied " or accompanied by heroes or servants
\nor sons, but rather signifies that she is attended by conquering energies or at
\nany rate is used in some kindred and symbolic sense. This becomes quite evident
\nin 1.113.16.y\u00e2 gomatir ushasah sarvavir\u00e2h…s\u00e2 a\u00e7vad\u00e2 a\u00e7nav\u00e2t somasutv\u00e2. <\/i>
\nIt does not mean "the Dawns that have cows and all men or all servants, those a
\nman, having offered the Soma, enjoys as horse-givers." The Dawn is the inner
\ndawn which brings to man all the varied fellnesses of his widest being, force,
\nconsciousness, joy ; it is radiant with its illuminations, it is accompanied by
\nall possible powers and energies, it gives\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n    * The symbolism of the horse is quite evident in
\nthe hymns of Dirge tamas to the Horse of the Sacrifice, the Hymns of various
\nRishis to the Horse Dadhikr<\/font><\/font>\u00e2<\/i><\/font>van and again in the opening of the Brihadaranyaka
\nUpanishad in which " Dawn is the head of the Horse " is the
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-81<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nman the full force of vitality so that he can enjoy the infinite delight of that
\nvaster existence.\n<\/p>\n

\n    We can no longer take gomad
\na\u00e7v\u00e2vad viravad r\u00e2dhah <\/i>in a physical sense; the very language of the Veda
\npoints us to quite another truth. Therefore the other circumstances of this
\ngod-given wealth must be taken equally in a spiritual significance ; the
\noffspring, gold, chariots are symbolical; \u00e7ravas <\/i>is not fame or food,
\nbut bears its psychological sense and means the higher knowledge which comes not
\nto the senses or the intellect, but to the divine hearing and the divine vision
\nof the Truth; rayim dirgha\u00e7ruttamam, rayim \u00e7ravasyum <\/i>is that rich state
\nof being, that spiritually opulent felicity which turns towards the knowledge,
\n(\u00e7ravasyu) <\/i>and has a far-extended hearing for’ the vibrations of the Word
\nthat comes to us from the regions (di\u00e7ah) <\/i>of the Infinite. Thus the
\nluminous figure of the Dawn liberates us from the material, ritual, ignorant
\nmisunderstanding of the Veda which would lead us stumbling from pitfall to
\npitfall in a very night of chaos and obscurity ; it opens to us the closed door
\nand admits to the heart of the Vedic knowledge.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-82<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\nThe Synthesis of Yoga<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nCHAPTER X <\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nTHE THREE MODES OF NATURE<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n    <\/b>
\n To transcend the natural action of the lower Prakriti is indispensable to the
\nsoul, if it is to be free in its works. Harmonious subjection to Nature, a
\ncondition of good and perfect work for the natural instruments, is not an ideal
\nfor the soul, which should rather lie subject to God, but master of its own
\nnature and determine as an agent of the Supreme Will the use that shall be made
\nof the storage of energy, the conditions of environment and the rhythm of
\ncombined movement which are provided by Prakriti for the labour of the natural
\ninstruments. But Nature can only be mastered if she is surmounted and used from
\nabove by the transcendence of her essential qualities and modes of action ;
\nother wife we are subject to them and helplessly dominated by her.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The idea of the three essential modes is a
\ncreation of the ancient Indian thinkers and was the result of a long and
\nprofound psychological experience. Without experience and self-observation it is
\ndifficult to grasp accurately ; but certain broad indications can be given which
\nmay help the sadhaka of the Way of Works to understand and analyse practically
\nthe combinations of his own nature. The names given to these modes in the Indian
\nbooks are, respectively, sattwaguna, rajoguna and tamoguna, <\/i>the quality
\nof good and light, the quality of passion and action, the quality of inertia and
\ndarkness. Though ordinarily used for psychological analysis these distinctions
\nare valid also
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-83<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nin physical nature ; for all things in Nature are said to contain them and to be
\nin process and form the result of their interaction.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Psychologically we must regard every form of
\nthings, whether animate or inanimate, as a poise of natural forces subject to
\nenvironing contacts from other combinations of forces that surround it. Our own
\nseparate being, our nature as distinguished from the soul, is nothing else but
\nsuch a poise and combination. In the reception of the environing contacts three
\nmodes are possible to the subject. First of all, it may suffer them inertly
\nwithout any responsive reaction, any motion of self-defense, any capacity of
\nadjustment or assimilation; this is the mode of tamas or inertia; its effect, if
\nuncorrected by other elements, can be nothing but disintegration of the form or
\nthe nature without any new creation or new equilibrium ; and at the heart of
\nthis impotence is a  principle
\nof ignorance, of obscurity, of inability to comprehend, seize and manage the
\nexperience.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    On the other hand, the subject may react; it may
\nstrive, resist, attempt to dominate or engross the contacts of its environment.
\nThis is the mode of rajas or action and passion; its effect is struggle and
\nchange and new creation, victory and defeat, joy and suffering, hope and
\ndisappointment; its nature is an imperfect or wrong knowledge which brings with
\nit effort, error, misadjustment, desire and grief. But also the subject may
\nreceive the impact with comprehension, with self-poise, with the power to
\nassimilate because it understands, sympathies, responds, but is not
\noverpowered. This is the mode of satrap or light and good; its effect is
\nhappiness and harmony; its nature is a
\nclearness of knowledge which is akin to
\nsympathy and love. In inanimate Nature these modes work mechanically without any
\nmanifestation of their innate psychological results, as inertia and disk
\nintegration, as force and reaction and creation and as poise, status, adaptation,
\nharmony and conservation. In the mental being they reveal their psychological
\nvalues.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    No natural existence is cast entirely in the
\nsingle mould of any one of these qualities; the three are
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-84<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nsent in each being in a constant combining of shifting relations and even, in a
\nway, of mutual struggle to dominate each other. Every one of us
\nhas his sattwic states of light, clearness, happiness, poise and sympathy with
\nthe environment, his raja sic moods of desire and passion and struggle, joy and
\nsorrow, work and eager creation and reaction on the environment, his tama sic
\nlapses of depression, ignorance, incapacity, obscurity, recoil from or dull
\nsubmission to the environment. Not only is this always so, but each of us is
\nsattwic in some directions of his energy or in some parts of his being, in
\nothers raja sic, in yet others tama sic. Only, according as one or other of the
\nmodes dominates in his general temperament and type of mind and action, we can
\nsay that he is the sattwic, raja sic or tama sic man.<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n    When once a man h is
\nanalysed himself and watched this play of
\nthe modes of nature within him, he sees very soon how mistaken he was in
\nthinking of himself as the doer of his works. It was his nature that was acting
\nall the while in its own modes, that is to say, the three general qualities of
\nNature disposed according to their particular combination and working in himself
\n; lie, the ego, was merely their subject and plaything; his moral qualities and
\nhutment. in powers, his anger and his forbearance, his cruelty and his mercy,
\nhis love and his hatred, his sin and his virtue, his light and his darkness, his
\npassion of joy and his anguish of sorrow were their play to which the soul,
\nattracted, won and subjected, lent its passive concurrence. Still, the soul has
\na word in the matter. It can attempt by an inner will as the lord and giver of
\nthe sanction to determine in principle the general play and combination,
\nalthough the particular act and impulse must always be Nature’s business. It may
\nattempt to dictate a harmony for Nature to execute, and the plain way seems to
\nbe to insist on the sattwic quality at the expense of the others.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    But there is this difficulty that no one of the
\nqualities can prevail by itself against its two companions. If, envisaging the
\nquality of desire and passion as
\nthe cause of disturbance, suffering, sin
\nand sorrow, we seek to quell and subdue it, rajas sinks but trams rises. For,
\nthe principle<\/font><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-85<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nof activity dulled, inertia takes its place. There may well be a quiet peace,
\nhappiness, knowledge, love, right sentiment, but the quiet in the soul tends to
\nbecome a tranquility of inaction. The man has become sattwa-tama sic; mental and
\nmoral obscurity may be absent, but so are the intense springs of action, and
\nthis is another kind of incompetence, a hampering limitation. For tamas is a
\ndouble principle; it contradicts rajas by inertia, it contradicts sattwa by
\nnarrowness and obscurity and, whichever of these is depressed, it pours in to
\noccupy its place.\n<\/p>\n

\n    If, to correct this imperfection, we call in
\nrajas again and bid it ally itself to sattwic and get rid of the dark principle
\nby a united agency, we find that we have elevated our action, but that there is
\nagain subjection to raja sic eagerness, passion, disappointment, suffering,
\nanger; these movements may be more exalted in their <\/sub>scope and spirit
\nand action than before, but they are not the peace, freedom, power and
\nself-mastery at which we are aiming. Wherever desire and ego harbour, these
\npassions harbour with them. If on the other hand we seek a compromise between
\nthe three modes with sattwa leading, we have only arrived at a more temperate
\naction of the play of the Nature. We have taken a new poise; we have not
\nachieved freedom and mastery.\n<\/p>\n

\n    A radically different movement is necessary. We
\nmust avoid the error of accepting the action of the modes of Nature by which the
\nsoul is involved in their operations and therefore subject to their law. Sattwa
\nas well as rajas and tamas must be transcended the golden chain must be broken
\nas well as the leaden and that of a mixed alloy. The Gita therefore prescribes a
\nnew method of self-discipline. It is to stand back in oneself from their action
\nand observe it as the Witness seated above this surge of the forces of our
\nnature, watching it but impartially indifferent to it. As they rise and fall in
\ntheir waves, they have to be watched, studied, but not either accepted or
\ninterfered with by the observing soul.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The first advantage of this process is that one
\nbegins to understand oneself and to see entirely without the
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-86<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nleast blinding by egoism this play of Nature’s modes, to pursue it into all its
\nramifications, disguises, subtleties\u2014for it is full of ruse and snare and
\ntreachery–until one becomes conscious of all action as their interaction, aware
\nof all their processes and therefore incapable of being surprised or seized by
\ntheir assaults. The second advantage is that we
\nperceive the ego to be the knot of their
\ninteraction and perceiving it are delivered from illusions. We escape from the
\nsattwic egoism of the saint and the thinker and the altruist as well as from the
\nraja sic egoism of the self-seeker, the man of eager personal desires, passions
\nand self-interest and from the tama sic egoism of the ignorant or passive soul
\nattached dully and unintelligently to the common round. And the third advantage
\nis that perceiving the essential egoism of all this action, we no longer seek to
\nfind in the ego or individual personality the means of self-correction and
\nself-liberation, but look above beyond the instruments and the working of Nature
\nto the Master who alone is pure, is free and rules.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    In the progression to which this
\ndetachment leads, we
\nfirst become superior to the three modes,\u2014the soul separates itself from the
\nlower nature and takes its stand high above it. Nature continues to act; desire,
\ngrief and joy attack the heart, the instruments fall into weariness, inaction
\nand obscurity, light and peace come back to the heart and mind; but the soul
\nstands unchanged and untouched by these changes, observing and unmoved by the
\ngrief and desire of the lower members, smiling at their joys and their
\nstraining, regarding and unveil powered by the dark nesses of the mind or the
\nweaknesses of the heart and nerves and body, uncompelled by and unattached to
\nthe mind’s relief and sense of ease or of power in the return of light and
\ngladness. It throws itself into none of these things, it waits unmoved for the
\nknow Ledge of a higher will and intention. Thus doing it becomes even" tally
\nfree from the strife of the three modes and qualities. For the lower nature
\nfeels progressively a compulsion from above; its habits, because they receive no
\nfurther sanction, begin steadily to lose their frequency and force of recur<\/font><\/span>rence
\n;
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-87<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nit understands at last that it is called to a higher action and a better state
\nany , however slowly or relict, aptly, it submits, turns, prepares its-If for
\nthe change.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Matter or body is in its nature
\npredominantly tama sic, life and nervous force predominantly raja sic, mind
\npredominantly sattwic. The mixture and uneven operation of the three modes in
\nthese three instruments acting upon each other leads to a confused, troubled and
\nimproper action which is now the normal condition of man. But there is another
\naction possible, more truly right, normal and natural to the deepest relations
\nof Purusha and Prakriti although supernatural to our present imperfect nature.
\nBody should be a passive field and instrument; but capable of responding to
\nevery demand of force and of holding and supporting every variety and intensity
\nof experience. The nervous and emotional being should be capable of tireless
\naction and enjoyment of experience and relation, but self-possessed and
\nself-poised, neither harried by desire and importunate impulses nor dulled by
\nindolence and incapacity. Mind should be full of an essential light and peace,
\nnot a knowledge made up of mental constructions nor an ease that is dependent on
\nrelease from the strenuous-ness of creative and active energy. All three should
\nbe the harmonised instruments of a higher force, bliss and knowledge possessing
\nthem from a source beyond themselves.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Such a condition would be the true
\nequality and unification of the three modes of Prakriti in that perfect temper
\nof being which belongs to the divine nature. There is no inertia or
\nobscurity; tamas is replaced by a divine repose, peace and tranquility out of
\nwhich is released as if from a supreme state of calm concentration the play of
\nknowledge and action. There is no desire, striving or troubled impulse of
\naction, creation and possession; rajas is replaced by the self-possessed act of
\nforce which even in its greatest intensities does not shake the poise or stain
\nthe peace of the soul. There is no restriction of a mind-constructed and
\ntherefore insecure or else inactive light and ease ; sattwa is replaced by a
\nwide illumination and a profound bliss identical with the depth and infinite
\nexistence of the soul
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-88<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nand embracing in its amplitudes both deepest repose and in tensest action.\n<\/p>\n

\n    This supreme harmony comes by the
\ncessation of egoistic choice and action. The individual ego ceases to strive, to
\nselect its aims and means or to initiate any act. In its place the real Master
\nof all our activities from the security of His divine will and knowledge gives
\nthe sanction to a purified and exalted nature and the individual centre of
\npersonality becomes only a servant, reflector and luminous participator in His
\nlight, joy and power. Acting it acts not, nor is brand by any reaction. This is
\nthe culmination of the Way of Works toward which the transcendence of the three
\nmodes of Nature is a preparation and an important aid and condition.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-89<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\nThe Kena Upanishad<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nV<\/font><\/b> <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Upanishad, reversing the usual
\norder of our logical thought which would put Mind and Sense first or Life first
\nand Speech last as a subordinate function, begins its negative description of
\nBrahman with an explanation of the very striking phrase, Speech of our speech.
\nAnd we can see that it means a Speech beyond ours, an absolute expression of
\nwhich human language is only a shadow and as if an artificial counterfeit. What
\nidea underlies this phrase of the Upanishad and this precedence given to the
\nfaculty of speech ?\n<\/p>\n

\n    Continually, in studying the Upanishads, we
\nhave to divest ourselves of modern notions and to realise as closely as possible
\nthe associations that lay behind the early Vedantic use of words. We must
\nrecollect that in the Vedic system the Word was the creature; by the World Brahma
\ncreates the forms of\n<\/p>\n

\n    All creation is expression by the Word ;
\nbut the form which is expressed is only a symbol or representation of the thing
\nwhich is. We see this in human speech which only presents to the mind a mental
\nform of
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-90<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nhimself in the objects of sense and consciousness which constitute the universe,
\njust as the human word expresses a mental image of those objects. That Word is
\ncreative in a deeper and more original sense than human speech and with a power
\nof which the utmost creativeness of human speech can be only a far-off and
\nfeeble analogy.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The word used here for utterance means literally
\na raising up to confront
\nthe mind. Brahman, says the Upanishad, is that which cannot be so raised up
\nbefore the mind by speech.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    Human speech, as we see, raises up only the
\npresentation of a presentation, the mental figure of an object which is itself
\nonly a figure of the sole Reality, Brahman. It has indeed a power of new
\ncreation, but even that power only extends to the creation of new mental images,
\nthat is to say of adaptive formations based upon previous mental images. Such a
\nlimited power gives no idea of the original creative puissance which the old
\nthinkers attributed to the divine Word.\n<\/p>\n

\n    If, however, we go a little deeper below the
\nsurface, we shall arrive at a power in human speech which does give us a remote
\nimage of the original creative .Word. We know that vibration of sound has the
\npower to create\u2014and to destroy\u2014forms; this is a commonplace of modern Science.
\nLet us suppose that behind all forms there has been a creative vibration of
\nsound.<\/p>\n

\n    Next, let us examine the relation of human speech
\nto sound in general. We see at once that speech is only a
\nparticular application of the principle of
\nsound, a vibration made by pressure of the breath in its passage through the
\nthroat and mouth. At first, beyond doubt, it must have been formed naturally and
\nspontaneously to express the emotions created by an object or occurrence and
\nonly afterwards seized upon by the mind to express first the idea of the object
\nand then ideas about the object. The value of speech would therefore seem to be
\nonly representative and not creative.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    But, in fact, speech is creative. It
\ncreates forms of emotion, mental images and impulses of action. The ancient
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-91<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nVedic theory and practice extended this creative action of speech by the use of
\nthe Mantra. The theory of the Mantra is that it is a word of power born out of
\nthe secret depths of our being where it has been brooded upon by a deeper
\nconsciousness than the mental, framed in the heart and not constructed by the
\nintellect, held in the mind, again concentrated on by the waking mental
\nconsciousness and then thrown out silently or vocally\u2014the silent word is perhaps
\nheld to be more potent than the spoken\u2014 precisely for the work of creation. The
\nMantra can not only create new subjective states in ourselves, alter our
\npsychical being, reveal knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can
\nnot only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can
\nproduce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects,
\nin actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane.\n<\/p>\n

\n    As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily
\nand hourly we do produce by the word within us thought-vibrations, thought-forms
\nwhich result in corresponding vital and physical vibrations, act upon ourselves,
\nact upon others, and end in the indirect creation of actions and of forms in the
\nphysical world. Man is constantly acting -upon man both by the silent and the
\nspoken word and he so acts and creates though less directly and powerfully even
\nin the rest of Nature. But because we are stupidly engrossed with the external
\nforms and phenomena of the world and do not trouble to examine its subtle and
\nnon-physical processes, we remain ignorant of all this field of science behind.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Vedic use of the Mantra is only a conscious
\nutilisation of this secret power of the word. And if we take the theory that
\nunderlies it together with our previous hypothesis of a creative vibration of
\nsound behind every formation, we shall begin to understand the idea of the
\noriginal creative Word. Let us suppose a conscious use of the vibrations of
\nsound which will produce corresponding forms or changes of form. But Matter is
\nonly, in the ancient view, the lowest of the planes of existence. Let us realise
\nthen
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-92<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthat a vibration of sound on the material plane presupposes a corresponding
\nvibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play ; that
\nagain presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the mental ; the
\nmental presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the supramental at
\nthe very root of things. But a mental vibration implies thought and perception
\nand a supramental vibration implies a supreme vision and discernment. All
\nvibration of sound on that higher plane is, then, instinct with and expressive
\nof this supreme discernment of a truth in things and is at the same time
\ncreative, instinct with a supreme power which casts into forms this truth
\ndiscerned and eventually, descending from plane to plane, reproduces it in the
\nphysical form or object created in Matter by enteric sound. Thus we see that the
\ntheory of creation by the Word which is the absolute expression of the Truth,
\nand the theory of the material creation by sound-vibration in the ether
\ncorrespond and are two logical poles of the same idea. They both belong to the
\nsame ancient Vedic system.\n<\/p>\n

\n    This, then, is the supreme Word, Speech of our speech.
\nIt is vibration of pure Existence, instinct with the perceptive and originative
\npower of infinite and omnipotent consciousness, shaped by the Mind behind mind
\ninto the inevitable word of the Truth of things; out of whatever substance on
\nwhatever plane, the form or physical expression emerges by its creative agency.
\nThe Supermind using the Word is the creative Logos.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Word has its seed-sounds\u2014suggesting the eternal syllable
\nof the Veda, A U M, and the seed-sounds of the Tantrums\u2014which carry in them the
\nprinciples of things; it has its forms which stand behind the revelatory and
\ninspired speech that comes to man’s supreme faculties, and these compel the
\nforms of things in the universe ; it has its rhythms,\u2014for it is no disordered
\nvibration, but moves out into great cosmic measures,\u2014and according to the rhythm
\nis the law, arrangement, harmony, processes of the world it builds. Life itself
\nis a rhythm of God.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But what is it that is expressed or raised up before
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-93<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthe consciousness by the Word in the world r Not Brahman, but forms and
\nphenomena of Brahman. Brahman is not, cannot be expressed by the Word; he does
\nnot use the word to express himself, but is known to his own self-awareness and
\neven the truths of himself that stand behind the forms of cosmic things are
\nalways self-expressed to his eternal vision. Speech creates, expresses, but is
\nitself only a creation and expression. Brahman is not expressed by speech, but
\nspeech is itself expressed by Brahman.\n<\/p>\n

\nTherefore it is not the happenings and phenomena of the world that we have to
\naccept finally as our object of pursuit, but That which brings out from itself
\nthe Wood by which they were thrown into form for our observation by the
\nconsciousness and for our pursuit by the will. In other words, the supreme
\nExistence that has originated all.\n<\/p>\n

\nHuman speech is only a secondary expression and at its highest a shadow of the
\ndivine Word, of the seed-sounds, the satisfying rhythms, the revealing forms of
\nsound that are the omniscient and omnipotent speech of the eternal Thinker,
\nHarmonist, Creator. The highest inspired speech to which the human mind can
\nattain, the word most unanalysably expressive of supreme truth, the most
\npuissant syllable or mantra can only be its far-off representation.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-94<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\nThe Eternal Wisdom.<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nTHE CONQUEST OF TRUTH<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nTO KNOW THE IMPERMANENCE OF THINGS.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n1 Things mortal change their aspect daily; they are nothing but a lie.\n<\/p>\n

\n2 The disciple should
\nthink that all things in this world are subject to a constant
\ntransformation…that all things in the past are like a dream, that all in the
\npresent are like a flash of lightning and all in the future like images that
\narrive spontaneously into existence. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n3 Matter is like a stream in perpetual flow; the actions of Nature manifest by
\ncontinual mutations and endless transformations. There is hardly anything that
\nis stable. Behold near thee this immense abyss of the times that no longer are
\nand the future in which all\n<\/p>\n

\n4 things will disappear.\u2014All is movement and nothing is fixed; we cannot cross
\nover the same stream twice.\n<\/p>\n

\n5 Everything that is composite is soon destroyed and, like the lightning in
\nheaven, does not last for long.\n<\/p>\n

\n6 What desolates my heart, is this sort of continual destruction throughout
\nNature; she has created nothing which does not destroy its neighbour or destroy
\nitself. Thus, staggering and bewildered in the midst of these oscillating forces
\nof earth and heaven, I move\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n1) Hermes: On Rebirth. \u20142) A\u00e7waghosha.\u2014 3) Marcus Aurelius.\u2014 4) Heraclitus.
\n58.\u20145) Lalita-Vistara\u2014 6) Goethe<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-95<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nforward seeing nothing but a world in which all devours and ruminates eternally.\n<\/p>\n

\n7 It is a horrible thing to feel continually passing away everything which one
\npossesses or to which one can attach oneself and yet to have no desire to seek
\nout\n<\/p>\n

\n8 whether there is not something permanent.\u2014Therefore seek one thing only,\u2014the
\nkingdom of the permanent.\n<\/p>\n

\n9 <\/i>The contemplation of impermanence is a door which leads to liberation
\nand dissolves the formations of\n<\/p>\n

\n10 Illusion.\u2014If one ponders well, one finds that all that passes has never truly
\nexisted.\n<\/p>\n

\n11 With the comprehension of the nature, impermanent, void of reality in itself
\nand subject to grief, of all things the sun of the true wisdom rises. Without
\nthis com-\n<\/p>\n

\n12 pretension there can be no real light.\u2014All aggregations are transient, all
\naggregations are subject to sorrow, all aggregations are without any substantial
\nreality; when one is entirely penetrated with this fact, one is delivered from
\nsorrow. This is the way of purification.\n<\/p>\n

\n13 When thou hast recognised the impermanence of all formations, thou halt
\ncontemplate that which does\n<\/p>\n

\n14 not perish and remains for ever.\u2014The external forms are alone subject to
\nchange and destruction; for these\n<\/p>\n

\n15 forms are not the things themselves.\u2014Deliver thyself from the inconstancy of
\nhuman things.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n7) Pascal. \u20148) id.\u20149) Abhidhammatthasangaha.\u201410) Schopenhauer.\u2014 11)
\nFo-sho-hing-tsan-king.\u201412) Dhammapada.\u201414) Giordano Bruno.\u2014 15) Seneca: De
\nProvidentia. <\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-96<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\nThe Hymns of the Atris.<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nTHE DOCTRINE OF THE MYSTICS.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n    <\/b>
\n  The Veda possesses the high spiritual substance of the Upanishads, but
\nlacks their phraseology ; it is an inspired knowledge as yet insufficiently
\nequipped with intellectual and philosophical terms. We find a language of poets
\nand illuminates to whom all experience is real, vivid, sensible, even concrete,
\nnot yet of thinkers and system tiers to whom the realities of the mind and soul
\nhave become abstractions. Yet a system, a doctrine there is ; but its structure
\nis supple, its terms are concrete, the cast of its thought is practical and
\nexperimental, but in the accomplished type of an old and sure experience, not of
\none that is crude and uncertain because yet in the making. Here we have the
\nancient psychological science and the art of spiritual living of which the
\nUpanishads are the philosophical outcome and modification and Vedanta, Sankhya
\nand Yoga the late intellectual result and logical dogma. But like all life, like
\nall science that is still vital, it is free from the armored rigidities of the
\nreasoning intellect ; in spite of its established symbols and sacred formulae it
\nis still large, free, flexible, fluid, supple and subtle. It has the movement of
\nlife and the large breath of the soul. And while the later philosophies r. re
\nbooks of Knowledge and make liberation the one supreme good, the Veda is a Book
\nof Works and the hope for which it spurns our present
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-97<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nbonds and littleness is perfection, self-achievement, immortality.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The doctrine of the Mystics recognise an
\nUnknowable, Timeless and Unnameable behind and above all things and not
\nsizable by the studious pursuit of the mind. Impersonally, it is That, the One
\nExistence; to the pursuit of our personality it reveals itself out of the
\nsecrecy of things as the God or Deva,\u2014nameless though he has many names,
\nimmeasurable and beyond description, though he holds in himself all description
\nof name, and knowledge and all measures of form and substance, force and
\nactivity.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Deva or Godhead is both the original cause and the
\nfinal result. Divine Existent, builder of the worlds, lord and begetter of all
\nthings, Male and Female, Being and Consciousness, Father and Mother of the
\nWorlds and their inhabitants, he is also their Son and ours : for he is the
\nDivine Child born into the Worlds who manifests himself in the growth of the
\ncreature. He is Rudra and Vishnu, Parapets and Hiranyagarbha, Surya, Agni,
\nIndia, Vayu, Soma, Brihaspati,\u2014Varuna and Mitra and Bhaga and Aryaman, all the
\ngods. He is the wise, mighty and liberating Son born from our works and our
\nsacrifice, the Hero in our warfare and Seer of our knowledge, the White Steed in
\nthe front of our days who gallops towards the upper Ocean.,\n<\/p>\n

\n    The soul of man soars as the Bird, the Hans, past the
\nshining firmaments of physical and mental consciousness, climbs as the traveler
\nand fighter beyond earth of body and heaver of mind by the ascending path of the
\nTruth to find this Godhead waiting for us, leaning down to us from the secrecy
\nof the highest supreme where it is seated in the triple divine Principle and the
\nsource of the Beatitude. The Deva is indeed, whether attracting and exalted
\nthere or here helpful to us in the person of the greater Gods, always the Friend
\nand Lover of man, the pastoral Master of the Herds who gives us the sweet milk
\nand the clarified butter from the udder of the shining Cow of the infinitude. He
\nis the source and out pourer of the ambrosial Wine of divine delight and we
\ndrink it drawn from the sevenfold waters of existence or pressed out
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-98<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nfrom the luminous plant on the hill of being and uplifted by its raptures we
\nbecome immortal. \n<\/p>\n

\n    Such are some of the images of this ancient
\nmystic adoration.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Godhead has built this universe in a complex
\nsystem of worlds which we find both within us and without, subjectively cognised
\nand objectively sensed. It is a rising tier of earths and heavens ; it is a
\nrising tier of earths and heavens ; it is a <\/i><\/span>stream of diverse waters; it is a Light of seven rays, or of eight or nine or <\/sup>ten; it is a Hill of many plateaus. The seers often image it in a series of trios; there are three earths and three heavens. More, there is a triple world below,\u2014Heaven, Earth and the intervening mid-region; a triple world between, the shining heavens of the Sun ; a triple world above, the supreme and rapturous abodes of the Godhead. <\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n    But other principles intervene and
\nmake the order of the worlds yet more complex. These principles are
\npsychological ; for since all creation is a formation of the Spirit, every
\nexternal system of worlds must in each of its planes be in material
\ncorrespondence with some power or rising degree of consciousness of which it is
\nthe objective symbol and must house a kindred internal order of things. To
\nunderstand the Veda we must seize this Vedic parallelism and distinguish the
\ncosmic gradations to which it leads. We rediscover the same system behind the
\nlate Puranic symbols and it is thence that we can derive its tabulated series
\nmost simply and clearly. For there are seven principles of existence and the
\nseven Puranic worlds correspond to them with sufficient precision, thus :\u2014 .\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n


\n\t\t\t
\n
\n\t\t\tPrinciple.<\/font><\/i><\/td>\n

\n

World<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n


\n\t\t\t
\n
\n\t\t\t1.<\/font><\/i>Pure
\n\t\t\tExistence Sat<\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWorld of the
\n\t\t\thighest truth of being (Satyaloka) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t2. Pure Consciousness <\/font><\/span>
\n\t\t\tChit <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWorld of
\n\t\t\tinfinite Will or conscious<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tforce
\n\t\t\t(Tapoloka) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t3. Pure Bliss\u2014Ananda <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWorld of
\n\t\t\tcreative delight of <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nPage-99<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/td>\n
\n\t\t\texistence
\n\t\t\t(Janaloka) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t4. Knowledge or Truth\u2014 <\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n
\n\t\t\tWorld of the
\n\t\t\tVastness (Ma- <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t    
\n\t\t\tVijnana <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t    
\n\t\t\tharloka) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t5. Mind <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\tWorld of
\n\t\t\tlight (Swar) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t6. Life (nervous being) <\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n
\n\t\t\tWorlds of
\n\t\t\tvarious becoming <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\t(Bhuvar) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t7. Matter <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\tThe material
\n\t\t\tworld (Bhur) <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

\n    Now this system which in the Purina is simple
\nenough, is a good deal more intricate in the Veda. There the three highest
\nworlds are classed together as the triple divine Principle,\u2014for they dwell
\nalways together in a Trinity; infinity is their scope, bliss is their
\nfoundation. They are supported by the vast regions of the Truth whence a divine
\nLight radiates out towards our mentality in the three heavenly luminous worlds
\nof Swar, the domain of India. Below is ranked the triple system in which we
\nlive.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe have the same cosmic gradations as in the Purina’s but they are differently
\ngrouped,\u2014seven worlds in principle, five in practice, three in their general
\ngroupings :\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n\t\t\t1. The
\n\t\t\tSupreme Sat-Chit- <\/font><\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tAnanda <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe triple divine worlds.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t2. The
\n\t\t\tLink-World <\/font><\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tSupermind <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Truth, Right, Vast, <\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tmanifested in Swar, with<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tits three luminous heavens <\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\tThe triple
\n\t\t\tlower world Pure Mind <\/font><\/td>\n		 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
   
\n\t\t\tPure Mind<\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tHeaven (Dyaus, the three
\n\t\t\theavens)<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tLife-force <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Mid-Region (Antariksha)<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n\t\t\t   
\n\t\t\tMatter <\/font><\/td>\n
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tEarth (the three earths)
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

\n    And as each principle can be modified by
\nthe subordinate manifestation of the others within it, each world is divisible
\ninto several provinces according to different arrangements and self-orderings of
\nits creative light of consciousness. Into this framework, then, we must place
\nall the complexities of the subtle vision and fertile imagery of the seers down
\nto the hundred cities which are now in the
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-100<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\npossession of the hostile kings, the Lords of division and evil. But the gods
\nshall break them open and give them for his free possession to the Aryan
\nworshipper !\n<\/p>\n

\n    But where are these worlds and whence are they created ? Here we have one of
\nthe profoundest ideas of the Vedic sages. Man dwells in the bosom of the
\nEarth-Mother and is aware of this world of mortality only ; but there is a
\nsuperconscient high beyond where the divine worlds are seated in a luminous
\nsecrecy ; there is a Subconscient or inconscient below his surface waking
\nimpressions and from that pregnant Night the worlds as he sees them are born.
\nAnd these other worlds between the luminous upper and the tenebrous lower ocean
\n? They are here. Man draws from the life-world his vital being, from the
\nmind-world his mentality ; he is ever in secret communication with them ; he can
\nconsciously enter into them, be born into them, if he will. Even into the solar
\nworlds of the Truth he can rise, enter the portals of the Superconscient, cross
\nthe threshold of the Supreme. The divine doors shall swing open to his
\nincreasing soul.\n<\/p>\n

\n    This human ascension is possible because every being really holds in himself
\nall that his outward vision perceives as if external to him. We have subjective
\nfaculties hidden in us which correspond to all the tiers and strata of the
\nobjective cosmic system and these form for us so many planes of our possible
\nexistence. This material life and our narrowly limited consciousness of the
\nphysical world are far from being the sole experience permitted to man,\u2014be he a
\nthousand times the Son of Earth. If maternal Earth bore him and retains him in
\nher arms, yet is Heaven also one of his parents and has a claim on his being. It
\nis open to him to become awake to profounder depths and higher heights within
\nand such awakening is his intended progress. And as he mounts thus to higher and
\never higher planes of himself, new worlds open to his life and his vision and
\nbecome the field of his experience and the home of his spirit. He lives in
\ncontact and union with their powers and godheads and remould himself in their
\nimage. Each ascent is thus a new birth of the soul, and
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-101<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthe Veda calls the worlds " births " as well as seats and dwelling-places.\n<\/p>\n

\n    For as the Gods have built the series of the cosmic worlds, even so they
\nlabour to build up the same series of ordered states and ascending degrees in
\nman’s consciousness from the mortal condition to the crowning immortality. They
\nraise him from the limited material state of being in which’ our lowest manhood
\ndwells contented and subject to the Lords of Division, give him a life rich and
\nabundant with the many and rapid shocks and impulsions from the dynamic worlds
\nof Life and Desire where the Gods battle with the demons and raise him yet
\nhigher from those troubled rapid ties and intensities into the steadfast purity
\nand clarity of the high mental existence. For pure thought and feeling are man’s
\nsky, his heaven ; this whole vitality existence of emotion, passions,
\naffections of which desire is the pivot, forms for him a mid-world ; body and
\nmaterial living are his earth.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But pure thought and pure psychic state are not the highest height of the
\nhuman ascension. The home of the Gods is an absolute Truth which lives in solar
\nglories beyond mind. Man ascending thither strives no longer as the thinker but
\nis victoriously the seer ; he is no longer this mental creature but a divine
\nbeing. His will, life, thought, emotion, sense, act are all transformed into
\nvalues of an all-puissant Truth and remain no longer an embarrassed or a
\nhelpless tangle of mixed truth and falsehood. He moves lamely no more in our
\nnarrow and grudging limits but ranges in the unobstructed Vast ; toils and
\nzigzags no longer amid these Crooked nesses, but follows a swift and conquering
\nstraightness; feeds no longer on broken fragments, but is suckled by the teats
\nof Infinity. Therefore he has to break through and out beyond these firmaments
\nof earth and heaven ; conquering firm possession of the solar worlds, entering
\non to his highest Height he has to learn how to dwell in the triple principle of
\nImmortality.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-102<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n    <\/b>
\n This contrast of the mortality’ we are and the immortal condition to which we
\ncan aspire is the key of the Vedic thought and practice. Veda is the earliest
\ngospel we have of man’s immortality and these ancient stanzas conceal the
\nprimitive discipline of its inspired discoverers.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Substance of being, light of consciousness, active force and possessive
\ndelight are the constituent principles of existence ; but their combination in
\nus may be either limited, divided, hurt, broken and obscure or infinite,
\nenlightened, vast, whole and unhurt. Limited and divided being is ignorance; it
\nis darkness and-weakness, it is grief and pain; in the Vast, in the integral, in
\nthe infinite we abuts seek for the desirable riches of substance, light, force
\nand joy. Limitation is mortality ; immortality comes to us as an accomplished
\nself-possession in the infinite and the power to live and move in firm
\nvastnesses. Therefore it is in proportion as he widens and on condition that he
\nincreases constantly in substance of his being, brightens an ever loftier flame
\nof will and vaster light of knowledge, advances the boundaries of his
\nconsciousness, raises the degrees and enlarges the breadth of his power, force
\nand strength, confirms an intense beatitude of joy and liberates his soul into
\nimmeasurable peace that man becomes capable of immortality.\n<\/p>\n

\n    To widen is to acquire new births. The aspiring material creature becomes the
\nstraining vital man ; he in turn transmutes himself into the subtle mental and
\npsychical being ; this subtle thinker grows into the wide, multiple and cosmic
\nman open on all sides of him to all the multitudinous in flowing of the Truth ;
\nthe cosmic soul rising in attainment strives as the spiritual man for a higher
\npeace, joy and harmony. These are the five Aryan types, each of them a great
\npeople occupying its own province or state of the total human nature. But there
\nis also the absolute Aryan who would conquer and. pass beyond these states to
\nthe transcendental harmony of them all. It is the supramental Truth that is the
\ninstrument of
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-103<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthis great inner transfiguration. That replaces mentality by luminous vision
\nand the eye of the gods, mortal life by breath and force of the infinite
\nexistence, obscure and death-possessed substance by the free and immortal
\nconscious-being. The progress of man must be therefore, first, his
\nself-expanding into a puissant vitality capable of sustaining all vibrations of
\naction and experience and a clear mental and psychical purity ; secondly, an
\noutgrowing of this human light and power and its transmutation into an infinite
\nTruth and an immortal Will.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Our normal life and consciousness are a dark or at best a starlit Night. Dawn
\ncomes by the arising of the Sun of that higher Truth and with Dawn there comes
\nthe effective sacrifice. By the sacrifice the Dawn itself and the lost Sun are
\nconstantly conquered out of the returning Night and the luminous herds rescued
\nfrom the darkling cave of the Pains ; by the sacrifice the rain of the abundance
\nof heaven is poured out for us and the sevenfold waters of the higher existence
\ndescend impetuously upon our earth because the coils of the obscuring Python,
\nthe all-enfolding and all withholding Virtual, have been cloven asunder by the
\nGod-Mind’s flashing lightning’s ; in the sacrifice the Soma wine is distilled and
\nuplifts us on the stream of its immortalising ecstasy to the highest heavens.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Our sacrifice is the offering of all our gains and works to the powers of the
\nhigher existence. The whole world is a dumb and helpless sacrifice in which the
\nsoul is bound as a victim self-offered to unseen Gods. The liberating Word must
\nbe found, the illuminating hymn must be framed in the heart and mind of man and
\nhis life must be turned into a conscious and voluntary offering in which the
\nsoul is no longer the victim, but the master of the sacrifice. By right
\nsacrifice and by the all-creative and all-expressive Word that shall arise out
\nof his depths as a sublime hymn to the Gods man can achieve all things. He shall
\nconquer his perfection ; Nature shall come to him as a willing and longing
\nbride; he shall become her seer and rule her as her King.\n<\/p>\n

\nBy she hymn of prayer and God-attraction, by the
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-104<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nhymn of praise and God-affirmation, by the hymn of God-attainment and
\nself-expression man can house in himself the Gods, build in this gated house of
\nhis being the living image of their deity, grow into divine births, form within
\nhimself vast and luminous worlds for his soul to inhabit. By the word of the
\nTruth the all-engendering Surya creates ; by that rhythm Brahmanaspati evokes
\nthe worlds and Twister fashions them ; finding the all-puissant Word in his
\nintuitive heart, shaping it in his mind the human thinker, the mortal creature
\ncan create in himself all the forms, all the states and conditions he desires
\nand, achieving, can conquer for himself all wealth of being, light, strength and
\nenjoyment. He builds up his integral being and aids his gods to destroy the evil
\narmies ; the hosts of his spiritual enemies are slain who have divided, torn and
\nafflicted his nature.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The image of this sacrifice is sometimes that of a journey or voyage ; for it travels, it ascends ; it has a goal\u2014the vastness, the true existence, the light, that felicity\u2014and it is called upon to discover and keep the good, the straight and the happy path to the goal, the arduous, yet joyful road of the Truth. It has to climb, led by the flaming strength of the divine Will, from plateau to plateau as of a mountain, it has to cross as in a ship the waters of existence, traverse its rivers, overcome their deep pits and rapid currents; its aim is to arrive at the far-off ocean of light and infinity.<\/p>\n

\n    And this is no easy or peaceful march; it is for long seasons a fierce and
\nrelentless battle. Constantly the Aryan man has to labour and to fight and
\nconquer; he must be a tireless toiler and traveler and
\na stern warrior*, he must force open and storm and sack city after city, win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the Python, Aryan and
\nDasyus. Aryan adverse arise even he has to face.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-105<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nin the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings
\nof Aryan states he would conquer and overpass join themselves to the Dasyus and
\nare leagued against him in supreme battle to prevent his free and utter passing
\non.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But the Dasyus is the natural enemy. These dividers, plunderers, harmful
\npowers, these Donavan, sons of the Mother of division, are spoken of by the
\nRishis under many general appellations. There are Rachises; there are Eaters
\nand Devourers, Wolves and Teasers; there are hurters and haters; there are
\ndalliers; there are confiners or censurers. But we are given also many specific
\nnames. Virtual, the Serpent, is the grand Adversary; for he obstructs with his
\ncoils of darkness all possibility of divine existence and divine action. And
\neven when Virtual is slain by the light, fiercer enemies arise out to him.
\nSusana
\nafflicts us with his impure and ineffective force, Mabuchi fights man by his
\nweaknesses, and others too assail, each with his proper evil. Then there -are
\nVala and the Pains, miser traffickers in the sense-life, stealers and congealers
\nof the higher Light and its illuminations which they can only darken and
\nmisuse,\u2014an impious host who are jealous of their store and will not offer
\nsacrifice to the Gods. These and other personalities\u2014they are much more than
\npersonifications\u2014 of our ignorance, evil, weakness and many limitations make
\nconstant war upon man; they encircle him from near or they shoot their arrows at
\nhim from afar or even dwell in his gated house in the place of the Gods and with
\ntheir shapeless stammering mouths and their. insufficient breath of force mar his
\nself-expression. They must be expelled, overpowered, slain, thrust down into
\ntheir nether darkness by the aid of the mighty and helpful deities.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Vedic deities are names, powers, personalities of the universal Godhead
\nand the}’ represent each some essential puissance of the Divine Being. They
\nmanifest the cosmos and are manifest in it. Children of Light, Sons of the
\nInfinite, they recognise in the soul of man their brother and ally and desire to
\nhelp and increase him by themselves increasing in him so as to possess his world
\nwith their light,
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-106<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nstrength and beauty. The Gods call man to a divine companionship and
\nalliance; they attract and uplift him to their luminous fraternity, invite his
\naid and offer theirs against the Sons of Darkness and Division-. Man in return
\ncalls that Gods to his sacrifice, offers to them his swift nesses and his
\nstrengths, his clarities and his sweet nesses,\u2014 milk and butter of the shining
\nCow, distilled juices of the Plant of Joy, the Horse of the Sacrifice, the cake
\nand the wine, the grain for the God-Mind’s radiant coursers. He receives them
\ninto his being and their gifts into his life, increases them by the hymn and the
\nwine and forms perfectly\u2014as a smith forges iron, says the Veda\u2014their great and
\nluminous godheads.\n<\/p>\n

\n    All this Vedic imagery is easy to understand when once we have the key, bat
\nit must not be mistaken for mere imagery. The Gods are not simply poetical
\npersonifications of abstract ideas or of psychological and physical functions of
\nNature. To the Vedic seers they are living realities; the vicissitudes of the
\nhuman soul represent a cosmic struggle not merely of principles and tendencies
\nbut of the cosmic Powers which support and embody them. These are the Gods and
\nthe Demons. On the world-stage and in the individual soul the same real drama
\nwith the same personages is enacted.\n<\/p>\n

\n    To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered ? Who shall be invoked to
\nmanifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead ?\n<\/p>\n

\n    Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of
\nthe soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of
\nGod instinct with knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal
\nguest in our mortality, a pure priest and a-divine worker, the mediator between
\nearth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back
\nin return their force and light and joy into our humanity.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-107<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n    Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested
\nas the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that
\nsends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of
\nLight instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down
\ninto our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and
\ndivision with his lightning’s, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds
\nin the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes
\nthe Sun of Truth mount high <\/i>in the heaven of our mentality.<\/p>\n

\n    Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, \u2014truth of
\nbasing, truth
\nof knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is
\ntherefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things\u2014for creation is
\nout bringing, expression by the Truth and Will\u2014and the father, fosterer,
\nenlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun
\nwho comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us
\nnight-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy
\nis concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in
\nour physical being are his immortalising juices and <\/b>they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.<\/p>\n

\n    Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who
\nfulfill
\nfunctions that arise-from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be
\nestablished firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are
\nindispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and
\ncrooked falsehood,\u2014and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and
\ncomprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and
\nimpulses,\u2014this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration
\nand endeavor,\u2014this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of
\nall things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering,\u2014this is
\nBhaga. These four
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-108<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nare powers of the Truth of Surya.\n<\/p>\n

\n    For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy
\nand enlightened and unnamed condition of mind, vitality and body are
\nnecessary. This condition is given to us by the twin A\u00e7wins; wedded to the
\ndaughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers
\nof maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and
\nprepare our mental, vital and physical lying for an easy and victorious
\nascension.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants,
\nhis artisans, the Rebus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their
\nbrilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to
\nimmortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind
\nIndri’s horses, the A\u00e7wins, chariot, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of
\nthe journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of truth and as
\nVritra slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous
\nor vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of
\nself-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and
\nthey battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.\n<\/p>\n

\n    There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the
\ngods also are either activating souls or passively executive and methodising
\nenergies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the gods, comes first; and there are
\nbesides five powers of the Truth-consciousness,\u2014Maui or Bahrain, the vast Word
\nthat brings us all things out of the divine source; Ilea, the strong primal word
\nof the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current
\nand the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who
\ndescends into the cavern of the Subconscient and finds there the concealed
\nilluminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the
\naction and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its
\nportion. Each god, too, has his female energy.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-109<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n    <\/b>
\nAll this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father
\nand Earth our Mother, Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely
\nmental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is
\nthe condition of our achievement. Vayu, Master of life, links them together by
\nthe mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities,\u2014Pajama,
\ngiver of the join of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine warhorse, a power of Agni;
\nthe mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trite Apatya who on the third plane of
\nexistence consummates our triple being; and more besides.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And
\nthat perfection must be attained on all our levels,\u2014in the wideness of earth,
\nour physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and
\naction and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be
\nbrought forward to up bear our Endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of
\nemotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual
\nand psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the
\nSun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so
\ncomes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the
\nBliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Three great Gods, origin of the Puranic Trinity, largest
\npuissance of the
\nsupreme Godhead, make possible this development and upward evolution; they
\nsupport in its grand lines and fundamental energies all these complexities of
\nthat? cosmos. Brahmanaspati is the Creator; by the word, by his cry he creates,\u2014that
\nis to say, he expresses, he brings out all existence and conscious knowledge and
\nmovement of life and eventual forms from the darkness of the Inconscient. Rudra,
\nthe Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, presides over the struggle of life to
\naffirm itself; he is the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts
\nforcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs
\nand resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers and complains and submits.
\nVishnu
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-110<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nof the vast pervading motion holds in ‘his triple stride all these worlds; it
\nis he that makes a wide room for the action of Indra in our limited mortality;
\nit is by him and with him that we rise into his highest seat3 where we find
\nwaiting for us the Friend, the Beloved, the Beatific Godhead.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Our earth shaped out of the dark inconscient ocean of existence lifts its
\nhigh formations and ascending peaks heavenward; heaven of mind has its own
\nformations, clouds that give out their lightning’s and their waters of life; the
\nstreams of the clarity and the honey ascend out of the sub-conscient ocean below
\nand seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends
\ndownward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical
\nbeing. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our
\nspiritual ascension.\n<\/p>\n

\n    That ascension has already been effected by the Ancients, the human
\nforefathers, and the spirits of these great Ancestors still assist their
\noffspring; for the new dawns repeat the old and lean forward in light to join
\nthe dawns of the future. Kanwa, Kutsa, Atri, Kakshiwan, Goatama, \u00e7una\u00e7epa have
\nbecome types of certain spiritual victories which tend to be constantly repeated
\nin the experience of humanity. The seven sages, the Angirasas, are waiting still
\nand always, ready to chant the word, to rend the cavern, to find the lost herds,
\nto recover the hidden Sun. Thus the’ soul is a battlefield full of helpers and
\nhurters, friends and enemies. All this lives, teems, is personal, is conscious,
\nis active. We create for ourselves by the sacrifice and by the word shining
\nseers, heroes to fight for us, children of our works. The Rishis and the Gods
\nfind for lies our luminous herds; the Rebus fashion by the mind the chariots of
\nthe gods and their horses and their shining weapons. Our life is a horse that
\nneighing and galloping bears us onward and upward; its forces are swift -hooded
\nsteeds, the liberated powers of the mind are wide-winging birds; this mental
\nbeing or this soul is the up soar-ring Swan or the Falcon that breaks out from a
\nhundred iron walls and wrests from the jealous guardians of felicity
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-111<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthe wine of the Soma. Every shining god ward Thought that arises from the
\nsecret abysses of the heart is a priest and a creator and chants a divine hymn
\nof luminous realisation and puissant fulfillment. We seek for the shining gold of
\nthe Truth; we lust after a heavenly treasure.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The soul of man is a world full of beings, a kingdom in which armies clash to
\nhelp or hinder a supreme conquest, a house where the gods are our guests and
\nwhich the demons strive to possess ; the fullness of its energies and wideness
\nof its being make a seat of sacrifice spread, arranged and purified for a
\ncelestial session.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Such are some of the principal images of the Veda and a very brief and
\ninsufficient outline of the teaching of the Forefathers. So understood the Rig
\nVeda ceases to be an obscure, confused and barbarous hymnal; it becomes the
\nhigh-aspiring Song of Humanity; its chants are episodes of the lyrical epic of
\nthe soul in its immortal ascension.\n<\/p>\n

\n    This at least; what more there may be in the Veda of ancient science, lost
\nknowledge, old psycho-physical tradition remains yet to be discovered.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-112<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe Inconscient. <\/a> <\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n    The first or superficial view which the observing mind takes of any object of
\nknowledge is always an illusory view; all science, all true knowledge comes by
\ngoing behind the superficies and discovering the inner truth and the hidden law.
\nIt is not that the thing itself is illusory, but that it is not what it
\nsuperficially appears to be; nor is it that the operations and functioning’s we
\nobserve on the surface do not take place, but that we cannot find their real
\nmotive-power, process, relations by the simple study of them as they offer
\nthemselves to the observing senses.\n<\/p>\n

\n    In the realm of physical science this is obvious enough and universally
\nadmitted. The earth is not flat but round, not still but constant to a double
\nmotion; the sun moves but not round the earth; bodies that seem to us luminous
\nare in themselves non-luminous; things that are part of our daily experience,
\ncolor, sound, light, air are quite other in their reality than what they
\npretend to be. Our senses give us false views of distance, size, shape,
\nrelation. Objects which seem to them self-existent forms are aggregations and
\nconstituted by subtler constituents which our ordinary faculties are unable to
\ndetect. These material constituents again are merely formulations of a Force
\nwhich we cannot describe as material and of which the senses have no evidence.
\nYet the mind and the senses can live quite satisfied and convinced in this world
\nof illusions and accept them as the practical truth\u2014for to a certain extent they
\nare the practical truth and sufficient for an initial, ordinary and limited
\nactivity.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut only to a certain extent; for there are possibilities of a wider life, a
\nmore mastering action, a greater practicality
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-113<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nwhich can only be achieved by going behind these surfaces and
\nutilising a truer knowledge of objects and forces. The discovery of the secret
\noperations of Nature leads to a contingent discovery, the possibility of a
\nfarther use of her forces to which she herself has not proceeded, not finding
\nthem necessary for the mere preservation of existence and its ordinary workings,
\nbut has left to man, her mental being, to discover and utilise for the
\namelioration of existence and for the development of its possibilities.\n<\/p>\n

\n    All this is easy to see in the realm of Matter; but mankind is not yet
\nentirely ready to recognise the same truth and follow up the same principle in
\nthe realm of Mind. It is true that psychology has made an advance and has begun
\nto improve its method. Formerly’, it was a crude, scholastic and superficial
\nsystematisation of man’s ignorance of himself. The surface psychological
\nfunctioning’s, will, mind, senses, reason, conscience, etc., were arranged in a
\ndry and sterile classification; their real nature and relation to each other
\nwere not fathomed nor any use made of them which went beyond the limited action
\nNature had found sufficient for a very superficial mental and psychic life and
\nfor very superficial and or dial ‘workings. Because we do not know ourselves,
\ntherefore we are unable to ameliorate radically our subjective life or develop
\nwith mastery, with rapidity, with a sure science the hidden possibilities of our
\nmental capacity and our moral nature. The new psychology seeks indeed to
\npenetrate behind superficial appearances, but it is encumbered by initial errors
\nwhich prevent a profounder knowledge,\u2014the materialistic error which bases the
\nstudy of mind upon the study of the body; the sceptical error which prevents any
\nbold and clear-eyed investigation of the hidden profundities of our subjective
\nexistence; the error of conservative distrust and recoil which regards any
\nsubjective state or experience that departs from the ordinary operations of our
\nmental and psychical nature as a morbidity or a hallucination,\u2014just as the
\nMiddle Ages regarded all new science as magic and a diabolical departure from
\nthe sane and right limits of human capacity; finally, the error
\nof
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-114<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\npsychologist to study others from outside instead of seeing his true field of
\nknowledge and laboratory of experiment in himself. Psychology is necessarily a
\nsubjective science and one must proceed in it from the knowledge of oneself to
\nthe knowledge of others.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But whatever the crudities of the new science, it has at least taken the
\nfirst capital step without which there can be no true psychological knowledge;
\nit has made the discovery which is the beginning of self-knowledge and which all
\nmust make who deeply study the facts of consciousness,\u2014that our waking and
\nsurface existence is only a small part of our being and does not yield to us the
\nroot and secret of our character, our mentality or our actions. The sources lie
\ndeeper. To discover them, to know the nature and the processes of the
\ninconscient or Subconscient self and, so far as is possible, to possess and
\nutilise them as physical science possesses and utilise the secret of the forces
\nof Nature ought to be the aim of a scientific psychology.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But here the first difficulty confronts us, the problem whether this other
\nand greater self of which our waking existence is only a surface and a
\nphenomenon, is Subconscient or inconscient. And thereon hinges the whole destiny
\nof the human being. For if it is inconscient in its very nature, then we cannot
\nhope to illuminate ourselves with the hidden light of these depths\u2014for light
\nthere is none\u2014 or to find and to possess ourselves of the secret of its power.
\nOn the other hand if it is Subconscient, that is to say a concealed
\nconsciousness deeper, greater, more powerful then our superficial self, an
\nendless vista of self-enlargement opens out before us and the human race marches
\ntowards infinite possibilities.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Modern psychological experiment and observation have proceeded on two
\ndifferent lines which have hot yet found their point of meeting. On the one hand
\npsychology has taken for its starting-point the discoveries and the fundamental
\nthesis of the physical sciences and has worked as a continuation of physiology.
\nThe physical sciences are the study of inconscient Force working in inconscient
\nMatter
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-115<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nand a psychology which accepts this formula as the basis of all existence
\nmust regard consciousness as a phenomenal result of the Inconscient working on
\nthe inconscient. Mind is only an outcome and as it were a record of nervous
\nreactions. The true self is the inconscient; mental action is one of its
\nsubordinate phenomena. The Inconscient is greater than the conscient; it is the
\ngod, the magician, the creator whose action is far more unerring than the
\nambitious but blundering action of the conscious mentality. The tree is more
\nperfectly guided than man in its more limited action, precisely because it lives
\nunambitiously according to Nature and is passive in the hands of the
\nInconscient. Mind enters in to enlarge the field of activity, but also to
\nmultiply errors, perversities, revolts against Nature, departures from the
\ninstinctive guiding of the Inconscient Self which generate that vast element of
\nignorance, falsehood and suffering in human life,\u2014that ”much falsehood in us"
\nof which the Vedic poet complains.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Where then lies the hope that mind will repair its errors and guide itself
\naccording to the truth of things? The hope lies in Science, in the intelligent
\nobservation, utilising, initiation of the forces and workings of the
\nInconscient. To take only one instance,\u2014the Inconscient operates by the law of
\nheredity and, left to itself, works faultlessly to in sure the survival of good
\nand healthy types. Man misuses heredity in the false conditions of his social
\nlife to transmit and perpetuate degeneracy. We must study the law of heredity,
\ndevelop a science of Eugenics and use it wisely and remorselessly\u2014with the
\nremorseless wisdom of Nature\u2014so as to ensure by intelligence the result that the
\nInconscient assures by instinctive adaptation. We can see where this idea and
\nthis spirit will lead us,\u2014 to the replacement of the emotional and spiritual
\nidealism which the human mind has developed by a cold sane materialistic
\nidealism and an amelioration of mankind attempted by the rigorous mechanism of
\nthe scientific expert, no longer by the profound inspiration of genius and the
\nsupple aspiration of puissant character and personality. And yet what if this
\nwere only another error of the
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-116<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nconscient mind? What if the mistaking and the disease, the revolt and
\ndeparture from Nature were itself a part, a necessary part of the w se and
\nunerring plan of the profound Inconscient Self and all the much falsehood a
\nmeans of arriving at a greater truth and a more exalted capacity? The fact that
\ngenius itself, the highest result of our developing consciousness, flowers so
\nfrequently on a diseased branch is a phenomenon full of troubling suggestions.
\nThe clear way of ascertained science need not always be the best way; it may
\nstand often in the path of development of a yet greater and deeper Knowledge.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The other line of psychological investigation is still frowned |upon by
\northodox science, but it thrives and yields its results in spite of the anathema
\nof the doctors. It leads us into by-paths of psychical research, hypnotism,
\nmesmerism, occultism and all sorts of strange psychological groupings. Certainly,
\nthere is nothing here of the assured clearness and firmly-grounded positivism of
\nthe physical method. Yet facts emerge and with the facts a momentous
\nconclusion,\u2014the conclusion, that there is a "subliminal" self behind our
\nsuperficial waking mind, not inconscient but conscient, greater than the waking
\nmind, endowed with surprising faculties and capable of a much surer action and
\nexperience, conscient of the superficial mind though of it the superficial mind
\nis inconscient. And then a question rises. What if there were really no
\nInconscient at all, but a hidden Consciousness everywhere perfect in power and
\nwisdom of which our mind is the first slow, hesitating and imperfect disclosure,
\nand into the image of which the human mentality is destined progressively to
\ngrow ? It" would at least be no less valid a generalisation and it would explain
\nall the facts that we now know considerably better than the blind and
\npurposeless determinism of the materialistic theory.\n<\/p>\n

\n    In pursuing psychological investigation upon this line we shall only be
\nresuming that which had already been done by our remote forefathers. For they
\ntoo, the moment they began to observe, to experiment, to look below the surface
\nof things, were compelled to perceive that
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-117<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthe surface man is only a form and appearance and that the real self is
\nsomething infinitely greater and more profound. They too must have passed
\nthrough the first materialistic stages of science and philosophy. For we read in
\nthe Aitareya Upanishad that even in entering upon possession of the material
\nworld and the body, the Purusha, the Conscious Soul asks himself, " If utterance
\nis by speech and life by the breath, vision by the eye, hearing by the ear,
\nthought by the mind," if in short all the apparent activities of the being can
\nbe accounted for by the automatic functioning of Nature, " then what am I ? "
\nAnd the Upanishad says farther, " He being born distinguished only the working
\nof the material elements, for what else was there of which he should discuss and
\nconclude ? " Yet in the end " he beheld this conscious being which is Brahman
\nutterly extended and he said to himself, Now I have really seen." So too in the
\nTaittiriya Upanishad Bhrigu Varuna meditating on the Brahman comes first to the
\nconclusion that " Matter is Brahman " and only afterwards discovers Life that is
\nBrahman,\u2014so rising from the materialistic to the vitalistic theory of existence
\nas European thought is now rising,\u2014then Mind that is Brahman and then Knowledge
\nthat is Brahman,\u2014so rising to the sensational and the idealistic realisation of
\nthe truth\u2014and at last Bliss of Existence that is Brahman. There he pauses in the
\nultimate spiritual realisation which is the highest formulation of knowledge
\nthat man can attain.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Conscient therefore and not the Inconscient was the Truth at which the
\nancient psychology arrived ; and it distinguished three strata of the conscient
\nself, the waking, the dream and the sleep selves of Man,\u2014in other words the
\nsuperficial existence, the Subconscient and the superconscient which to us seems
\nthe inconscient because its state of consciousness is the reverse of ours: for
\nours is limited and based on division and multiplicity, but this is " that which
\nbecomes a unity"; ours is dispersed in knowledge, but in this other self
\nconscious knowledge is self-collected and concentrated ; ours is balanced
\nbetween dual
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-118<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nexperiences, but this is all delight, it is that which in the very heart of
\nour being fronts everything with a pure all- possessing consciousness and enjoys the delight of existence. *Therefore, although its seat is that stratum of consciousness which to us is a deep sleep,\u2014for the mind there cannot maintain its accustomed functioning and becomes inconscient,\u2014yet its name is He who knows, Prajna. "This" says the Mandukya Upanishad, " is omniscient, omnipotent, the inner control, the womb of all and that from which creatures are born and into which they depart." It answers, therefore, closely enough to the modern idea of the Inconscient corrected by the other modern idea of the subliminal self ; for it is inconscient only to the waking mind precisely because it is superconscient to it and the mind is therefore only able to seize it in its results and not in itself. And what better proof can there be of the depth and truth of the ancient psychology than the fact that when modern thought in all its pride of exact and careful knowledge begins to cast its fathom into these depths, it is obliged to repeat in other language what had already been written nearly three thousand years ago ?<\/p>\n

\n    We find the same idea of this inner control repeated in the Gita; for it is
\nthe Lord who " sits in the hearts of all creatures and turns all creatures
\nmounted on an engine by his Maya." At times the Upanishad seems to describe this
\nSelf as the " mental being leader of the life and the body," which is really the
\nsubliminal mind of the psychical investigators ; but this is only a relative
\ndescription. The Vedantic psychology was aware of other depths that take us
\nbeyond this formula and in relation to which the mental being becomes in its
\nturn as superficial as is our waking to our subliminal mind. And now once more
\nin the revolutions of human thought these depths have to be sounded; modern
\npsychology will be led perforce, by the compulsion of the truth that it is
\nseeking, on\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n* See the Mandukya Upanishad for these brief and profound definition*.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-119<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nto the path that was followed by the ancient. The new dawns, treading the
\neternal path of the Truth, follow it to the goal of the dawns that have gone
\nbefore,\u2014how many, who shall say ?\n<\/p>\n

\n    For this knowledge was not first discovered in the comparatively late
\nantiquity that gave us the Upanishads which we now possess. It is already there
\nin the dateless verses of the Rig Veda, and the Vedic sages speak of it as the
\ndiscovery of yet more ancient seers besides whom they themselves were new and
\nmodern. Emerging from the periods of eclipse and the nights of ignorance which
\novertake humanity, we assume always that we are instituting a new knowledge. In
\nreality, we are continually rediscovering the knowledge and repeating the
\nachievement of the ages that have gone before us,\u2014receiving again out of the
\n"Inconscient" the light that it had drawn back into its secrecies and now
\nreleases once more for a new day and another march of the great journey.\n<\/p>\n

\n    And the goal of that journey cannot be other than the "highest good" which
\nthe ancient psychologists’ proposed to the life and growth of the soul, Man, the
\nmental being once aware that there is this deep, great and hidden self, the real
\nreality of his being, must necessarily seek to enter into it, to become
\nconscious in it, to make there his centre instead of dwelling on the surface,
\nto win and apply its diviner law and supreme nature and capacity, to make
\nhimself one with it so that he shall become the Real instead of the Apparent
\nMan. And the sole debate that remains is whether this great conquest can be
\nachieved and enjoyed in this human life and terrestrial body or is only possible
\nbeyond\u2014whether in fact the human consciousness is the chosen instrument for the
\nprogressive self-revelation of this "Inconscient", this real self within us, or
\nonly a
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-120<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nLOVE-MAD. <\/a> <\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Realisation of God in all things by the <\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\nVision of Divine Love.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n( TRANSLATED FROM THE TAMIL LINES OF NAMMALWAR )\n<\/p>\n

\n    <\/b> [ The poetic image used in the following verses is characteristically Indian.
\nThe mother of a love-stricken girl ( symbolising the human soul yearning to
\nmerge into the Godhead ) is complaining to her friends of the sad plight of her
\nchild whom love for Krishna has rendered "mad"\u2014the effect of the "madness" being
\nthat in all things she is able to see nothing but forms of Krishna\u2014, the
\nultimate Spirit of the universe. ]<\/p>\n

\nSeated, she caresses Earth and cries "This Earth is\n<\/p>\n

\nVishnu’s;"\n<\/p>\n

\nSalutes the sky and bids us " behold the Heaven He\n<\/p>\n

\nrunlet ;"\n<\/p>\n

\nOr standing with tear-filled eyes cries aloud " O sea\n<\/p>\n

\nhued Lord !"\n<\/p>\n

\nAU helpless am I, my friends, my child He has\n<\/p>\n

\n    rendered mad.    ( 1 )\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nOr joining her hands she fancies "the Sea where my\n<\/p>\n

\nLord reposes !"\n<\/p>\n

\nOr hailing the ruddy Sun she cries: "Yes, this is His\n<\/p>\n

\nform,"\n<\/p>\n

\nLanguid, she bursts into tears and mutters Narayan’s\n<\/p>\n

\nname.\n<\/p>\n

\nI am dazed at the things she is doing, my gazelle, my\n<\/p>\n

\np;    child shaped
\ngod-like.;    (2)
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-121<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\n<\/b>
\nKnowing, she embraces red Fire, is scorched and,\n<\/p>\n

\ncries " O Deathless ! "\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd she hugs the Wind; "’This my own Govinda," she\n<\/p>\n

\ntells us.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe smells of the honied Tulsi, my gazelle-like child.\n<\/p>\n

\nAh-me !\n<\/p>\n

\nHow many the pranks’ she plays for my sinful eyes\n<\/p>\n

\n to behold.    (3)\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nThe rising moon she showed, "’This the shining\n<\/p>\n

\ngem-hued Krishna!"\n<\/p>\n

\nOr, eyeing the standing hill, she cries: "O come, high\n<\/p>\n

\nVishnu"!\n<\/p>\n

\nIt rains; and she dances and cries out ”He hath come,\n<\/p>\n

\nthe God of my love !"\n<\/p>\n

\nO the mad conceits He hath given to my tender,\n<\/p>\n

\n    dear one !    (4)\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nThe soft-limbed calf she embraces, for "Such did\n<\/p>\n

\nKrishna tend,"\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd follows the gliding serpent, explaining " That is\n<\/p>\n

\nHis couch "\n<\/p>\n

\nI know not where this will end, this folly’s play in my\n<\/p>\n

\nsweet one\n<\/p>\n

\nAfflicted, ay, for my sins, by Him, the Divine\n<\/p>\n

\n Magician’s; (5)\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nWhere tumblers dance with their pots, she runs and\n<\/p>\n

\ncries ‘;<\/sup> Govinda ; "\n<\/p>\n

\nAt the charming notes of a flute she faints, for \n<\/p>\n

\n"Krishna, He played."\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen cowherd dames bring butter, she is sure it was\n<\/p>\n

\ntasted by Him,\u2014\n<\/p>\n

\nSo mad for the Lord who sucked out the Demoness’\n<\/p>\n

\nlife through her bosom ! (6)\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nIn rising madness she raves, " All worlds are by\n<\/p>\n

\nKrishna made "\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nPage-122<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nAnd she runs after folk ash-smeared; forsooth, they\n<\/p>\n

\nserve high Vishnu !\n<\/p>\n

\nOr she looks at the fragrant Tulsi and claims \n<\/p>\n

\nNarayan’s garland.\n<\/p>\n

\nShe is ever for Vishnu, my darling, or in, or out of\n<\/p>\n

\nher wits. (7)\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nAnd in all your wealthy princes she but sees the Lord\n<\/p>\n

\nof Lakshmi.\n<\/p>\n

\nAt the sight of beautiful colours, she cries, " O my\n<\/p>\n

\nLord world-scanning " !\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd all the shrines in the land, to her, are shrines\n<\/p>\n

\nof Vishnu.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn awe and in love, unceasing, she adores the feet of\n<\/p>\n

\nthat Wizard. (8)\n<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nAll Gods and saints are Krishna\u2014Devourer of\n<\/p>\n

\ninfinite Space!\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd the huge, dark clouds are Krishna; all fain would\n<\/p>\n

\nshe fly to reach them.\n<\/p>\n

\nOr the kine, they graze on the meadow and thither\n<\/p>\n

\nshe runs to find Him.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Lord of Illusions, He makes my dear one pant\n<\/p>\n

\nand rave.(9)<\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nLanguid she stares around her or gazes afar into\n<\/p>\n

\nspace ;\n<\/p>\n

\nShe sweats and with eyes full of tears she sighs and\n<\/p>\n

\nfaints away;\n<\/p>\n

\nRising, she speaks but His name and cries, " Do\n<\/p>\n

\ncome, O Lord."\n<\/p>\n

\nAh, what shall I do with my poor child o’erwhelmed\n<\/p>\n

\nby this maddest love ?(10)\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nPage-123<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n
\nThe Ideal of Human Unity.<\/font><\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n    The surfaces of life are easy to understand; their laws, characteristic
\nmovements, practical utilities are ready to our hand and we can seize on them
\nand turn them to account with a sufficient facility and rapidity. But they do
\nnot carry us very far. They suffice for an active superficial life from day to
\nday, but they do not solve the great problems of existence. On the other hand,
\nthe knowledge of life’s profundities, its potent secrets, its great hidden
\nall-determining laws is exceedingly difficult to us. We have found no plummet
\nthat can fathom these depths; they seem to us a vague indeterminate movement, a
\nprofound obscurity from which the mind recoils willingly to play with the fret
\nand foam and facile radiances of the surface. Yet it is these depths that we
\nmust know if we would understand existence; on the surface we get only Nature’s
\nsecondary rules and practical byelaws which help us to tide over the
\ndifficulties of the moment and to organise empirically without understanding
\nthem her continual transitions.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Nothing is more obscure to humanity or less seized by its understanding,
\nwhether in the power that moves it or the sense of the aim towards which it
\nmoves, than its own communal and collective life. Sociology does not help us,
\nfor it only gives us the history of the past and the external conditions under
\nwhich communities have survived. History teaches us nothing; it is a confused
\ntorrent of events and personalities or a kaleidoscope of changing institutions.
\nWe do not seize the real sense of all this change and this continual streaming
\nforward of human life in the channels of Time. What we do seize are current or
\nrecurrent phenomena, facile generalisations, partial ideas. We talk of
\ndemocracy, aristocracy and autocracy, collectivism and individualism,
\nimperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour;
\nwe advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively
\nannounced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and
\nardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then
\nforsake them for others, perhaps for those
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-124<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthat we have taken so much trouble to destroy. For a whole century mankind
\nthirsts and battles after liberty and earns it with a bitter expense of toil,
\ntears and blood; the century that enjoys without having fought for it, turns
\naway as from a puerile illusion and is ready to renounce the depreciated gain as
\nthe price of some new good. And all this happens because our whole thought and
\naction with regard to our collective life is shallow and empirical; it does not
\nseek for, it does not base itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge.
\nThe moral is not the vanity of human life, of its ardors and enthusiasms and of
\nthe ideals it pursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search
\nafter its true law and aim.\n<\/p>\n

\n    To-day the ideal of human unity is more or less vaguely making its way to the
\nfront of our consciousness. The emergence of an ideal in human the might is always
\nthe sign of an intention in Nature, but not always of an intention to accomplish
\n; sometimes, she means only an attempt which is predestined to temporary
\nfailure. For Nature is slow and patient in her methods. She takes up ideas and
\nhalf carries them out, then drops them by the wayside to resume them in some
\nfuture era with a better combination. She tempts humanity, her thinking
\ninstrument, and tests how far it is ready for the harmony she has imagined; she
\nallows and incites man to attempt and fail so that he may learn and succeed
\nbetter another time. Still the ideal having once made its way to the front of
\nthought must certainly be attempted, and this ideal of human unity is likely to
\nfigure largely among the determining forces of the future; for the intellectual
\nand material circumstances of the age have prepared and almost impose it,
\nespecially the scientific discoveries which have made our earth so small that
\nits vastest kingdoms seem now no more than the provinces of a single country.\n<\/p>\n

\n    But this very commodity of the material circumstances may bring about the
\nfailure of the ideal ; for when material circumstances favor a great change,
\nbut the heart and mind of the race are not really ready\u2014especially the
\nheart\u2014failure may be predicted, unless indeed men are wise in time and accept
\nthe inner change along with
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-125<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nthe external readjustment. 13ut at present the human intellect has born so
\nmuch mechanised by physical science that it is likely to attempt the revolution
\nit is beginning to envisage principally or solely through mechanical means,
\nthrough social and political adjustments. Now it is not by social and political
\ndevices, or at any rate not by these chiefly or only, that the unity of the
\nhuman race can be enduringly or fruitfully accomplished.\n<\/p>\n

\n    It must be" remembered that a greater social or political unity is not
\nnecessarily a boon in itself; it is only worth pursuing in so far as it provides
\na means and a framework for a better, richer, more happy and puissant individual
\nand collective life. But hitherto the experience of mankind has not favored the
\nview that huge aggregations of mankind closely united and strictly organised are
\nfavorable to a rich and puissant human life. It would seem rather that
\ncollective life is more at ease with itself, more genial, varied, fruitful when
\nit can concentrate itself in small spaces and simpler organisms.\n<\/p>\n

\n    If we consider the past of humanity so far as it is known to us, we find that
\nthe in tensest periods of human life, the scenes in which it has been most richly
\nlived and has left behind it the most precious fruits, were precisely those ages
\nand countries in which humanity was able to organise itself in little
\nindependent centers acting intimately upon each other but not fused into a
\nsingle unity. Modern Europe owes two thirds of its civilisation to three such
\nsupreme moments of human history, the religious life of the congeries of tribes
\nwhich called itself Israel and, subsequently, of the little nation of the Jews,
\nthe many-sided life of the small Greek city states, the similar though more
\nrestricted artistic and intellectual life of mediaeval Italy. Nor was any age in
\nAsia so rich in energy, so well worth living in, so productive of the best and
\nmost enduring fruits as that heroic period of India when she was divided into
\nsmall kingdoms many of them no larger than a modern district. Her most wonderful
\nactivities, her most vigorous and enduring work, that which, if we had to make a
\nchoice, we should keep at the sacrifice of all else, belonged to that period ;
\nthe second best
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-126<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\ncame afterwards in larger, but still comparatively small nations and kingdoms
\nlike those of the Pallavas, Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras. In comparison she
\nreceived little from the greater empires that rose and fell within her borders,
\nthe Mogul, the Gupta or the Maura,\u2014little indeed except political and
\nadministrative organisations and a certain amount of lasting work not always of
\nthe best quality.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Nevertheless, in this regime of the small city state or of regional cultures,
\nthere was always a defect which compelled a tendency towards large
\norganisations. The defect was a characteristic of impermanence, often of
\ndisorder, especially of de fencelessness against the onslaught of larger
\norganisations, even of an insufficient capacity for wide-spread material
\nwell-being. Therefore this earlier form of collective life tended to disappear
\nand give place to the organisations of nations, kingdoms and empires.\n<\/p>\n

\n    And here we notice first, that it is the
\ngourmets of smaller nations which
\nhave had the richest life and not the huge states and colossal empires.
\nCollective life diffusing itself in too vast spaces seems to lose intensity and
\nproductiveness. Europe has lived in England, France, the Netherlands, Spain,
\nItaly, the small states of Germany\u2014 all her later civilisation and progress
\nevolved itself there, not in the huge mass of the Holy Roman or the Russian
\nEmpire. We see the same truth again when we compare the intense life and
\nactivity of Europe in its many nations acting richly upon each other with the
\ngreat masses of Asia, her long periods of immobility in which great wars and
\nrevolutions seem to be small, temporary and usually unproductive episodes, her
\ncenturies of reverie, her tendency towards an increasing isolation and a final
\nstagnancy.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Secondly, we note that in this organisations of nations and kingdoms those
\nwhich have had the most vigorous life have gained it by a sort of artificial
\nconcentration of the vitality into some head, centre or capital, London, Paris,
\nRome. By this device Nature, while acquiring the benefits of a larger
\norganisations and more perfect unity, preserves to some extent that equally
\nprecious power of fruitful concentration in a small space and into a closely
\npacked activity which she had possessed in her more primitive
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-127<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nsystem of the city state or petty kingdom. But this advantage was
\npurchased by the condemnation of the rest of the organisation, the district, the
\nprovincial town, the village to a dull petty and somnolent life in strange
\ncontrast with the vital intensity of the urbs <\/i>or metropolis.\n<\/p>\n

\n    The Roman Empire is the historic example of an organisation of unity which
\ntranscended the limits of the nation and its advantages and disadvantages are
\nthere perfectly typified. The advantages are admirable organisation, peace,
\nwidespread security, order and material well-being; the disadvantage is that the
\nindividual, the city, the region sacrifice their independent life and become
\nmechanical parts of a machine; life loses its colors, richness, variety, freedom
\nand victorious impulse towards production. The organisation is great and
\nadmirable, but the individual dwindles and is overpowered and overshadowed; and
\neventually by the smallness and feebleness of the individual the huge organism
\nslowly loses even its great conservative vitality and dies of an increasing
\nstagnation. Even while outwardly whole and untouched, the structure has become
\nrotten and begins to crack and dissolve at the first shock from outside. Such
\norganisations, such periods are immensely useful for conservation, even as the
\nRoman Empire served to consolidate the gains of the rich centuries that preceded
\nit. But they arrest life and growth.\n<\/p>\n

\n    We see, then, what would be likely to happen if there were a social,
\nadministrative and political unification of mankind such as some have begun to
\ndream of now a days. A tremendous organisation would be needed under which both
\nindividual and regional life would be crushed, dwarfed, deprived of their
\nnecessary freedom like a plant without rain and wind and sunlight and this would
\nmean for humanity, after perhaps one first outburst of satisfied and joyous
\nactivity, a long period of mere conservation, progressive stagnancy and eventual
\ndecay.\n<\/p>\n

\n    Yet, the unity of mankind is evidently a part of Nature’s eventual scheme and
\nmust come about. Only it must be under other conditions and with safeguards
\nwhich will keep the race intact in the roots of its vitality.
\n\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-128<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  THE LIFE DIVINE CHAPTER XIV. THE SUPERMIND AS CREATOR     All things are self expanding of the Idea.     Vishnu Purana.     A principle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-philosophical-review-vol-2","wpcat-61-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109","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=3109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}