{"id":3152,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3152"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","slug":"30-diversity-in-oneness-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/30-diversity-in-oneness-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-30_Diversity in Oneness.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER XXVIII<\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nDIVERSITY IN ONENESS<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI<\/font>T<\/font> is essential to keep constantly in view the fundamental powers and realities of life if we are not to be betrayed by
\nthe arbitrary rule of the logical reason and its attachment to the rigorous and
\nlimiting idea into experiments which, however convenient in practice and however captivating to a unitarian and
\nsymmetrical thought, may well destroy the vigour and impoverish the roots of life. For that which is perfect and satisfying to the
\nsystem of the logical reason may yet ignore the truth of life and
\nthe living needs of the race. Unity is an idea which is not at all
\narbitrary or unreal; for unity is the very basis of existence. The
\noneness that is secretly at the foundation of all things, the evolving spirit in Nature is moved to realise consciously at the top.
\nThe evolution moves through diversity from a simple to a complex oneness. Unity the race moves towards and must one day
\nrealise. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut uniformity is not the law of life. Life exists by diversity; it insists that every group, every being shall be, even while one
\nwith all the rest in its universality, yet by some principle
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>ordered detail of variation unique. The over-centralisation which
\nis the condition of a working uniformity, is not the healthy
\nmethod of life. Order is indeed the law of life, but not an artificial regulation. The sound order is that which comes from
\nwithin, as the result of a nature that has discovered and found
\nits own law and the law of its relations with others. Therefore
\nthe truest order <\/b> is that which is founded on the greatest possible <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-255<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nliberty; for liberty is at once the condition of vigorous variation
\nand the condition of self-finding. Nature secures variation by
\ndivision into groups and insists on liberty by the force of individuality in the members of the group. Therefore, the unity of
\nthe human race to be entirely sound and in consonance with the
\ndeepest laws of life must be founded on free groupings, and the
\ngroupings again must be the natural association of free individuals. This is an ideal which it is certainly impossible to realise
\nunder present conditions or perhaps in any near future of the
\nhuman race; but it is an ideal which ought to be kept in view,
\nfor the more we can approximate to it, the more we can be sure
\nof being on the right road. The artificiality of much in human
\nlife is the cause of its most deep-seated maladies; it is not faithful
\nto itself or sincere with Nature and therefore it stumbles and
\nsuffers. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe utility, the necessity of natural groupings may be seen
\nif we consider the purpose and functioning of one great principle
\nof division in Nature, her insistence on diversity of language.
\nThe seeking for a common language for all mankind was very
\nstrong at the close of the last and the beginning of the present
\ncentury and gave rise to several experiments, none of which
\ncould get to any vital permanence. Now, whatever may be the
\nneed of a common medium of communication for mankind and
\nhowever it may be served by the general use either of an artificial
\nand conventional language or of some natural tongue, as Latin,
\nand later on to a slight extent French, was for some time the
\ncommon cultural tongue of intercourse between the European
\nnations or Sanskrit for the Indian peoples, no unification which
\ndestroyed or overshadowed, dwarfed and discouraged the large
\nand free use of the varying natural languages of humanity, could
\nfail to be detrimental to human life and progress. The legend of
\nthe Tower of Babel speaks of the diversity of tongues as a curse
\nlaid on the race; but whatever its disadvantages, and they tend
\nmore and more to be minimised by the growth of civilisation and
\nincreasing intercourse, it has been rather a blessing than a curse,
\na gift to mankind rather than a disability laid upon it. The purposeless <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-256<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nexaggeration of anything is always an evil, and an excessive pullulation of varying tongues that serve no purpose in the
\nexpression of a real diversity of spirit and culture is certainly a
\nstumbling-block rather than a help: but this excess, though it
\nexisted in the past,* is hardly a possibility of the future. The
\ntendency is rather in the opposite direction. In former times,
\ndiversity of language helped to create a barrier to knowledge and
\nsympathy, was often made the pretext even of an actual antipathy
\nand tended to a too rigid division. The lack of sufficient interpenetration kept up both a passive want of understanding and a
\nfruitful crop of active misunderstandings. But this was an inevitable evil of a particular stage of growth, an exaggeration of
\nthe necessity that then existed for the vigorous development of
\nstrongly individualised group-souls in the human race. These
\ndisadvantages have not yet been abolished, but with closer intercourse and the growing desire of men and nations for the knowledge of each other’s thought and spirit and personality, they have
\ndiminished and tend to diminish more and more and there is no
\nreason why in the end they should not become inoperative. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nDiversity of language serves two important ends of the human spirit, a use of unification and a use of variation. A language
\nhelps to bring those who speak it into a certain large unity of
\ngrowing thought, formed temperament, ripening spirit. It is an
\nintellectual, aesthetic and expressive bond which tempers division where division exists and strengthens unity where unity has
\nbeen achieved. Especially it gives self-consciousness to national
\nor racial unity and creates the bond of a common self-expression
\nand a common record of achievement. On the other hand, it is a
\nmeans of national differentiation and perhaps the most powerful
\nof all, not a barren principle of division merely, but a fruitful
\nand helpful differentiation. For each language is the sign and
\npower of the soul of the people which naturally speaks it. Each
\ndevelops therefore its own peculiar spirit, thought-temperament,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* In India the pedants enumerate I know not how many hundred languages. This is a stupid misstatement; there are about a dozen great tongues; the rest are either dialects or aboriginal survivals of tribal speech that are
\nbound to disappear. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-257<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nway of dealing with life and knowledge and experience.
\nIf it receives and welcomes the thought, the life-experience, the
\nspiritual impact of other nations, still it transforms them into
\nsomething new of its own and by that power of transmutation it
\nenriches the life of humanity with its fruitful borrowing and
\ndoes not merely repeat what had been gained elsewhere. Therefore it is of the utmost value to a nation, a human group-soul, to
\npreserve its language and to make of it a strong and living cultural
\ninstrument. A nation, race or people which loses its language,
\ncannot live its whole life or its real life. And this advantage to the
\nnational life is at the same time an advantage to the general life
\nof the human race. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nHow much a distinct human group loses by not possessing
\na separate tongue of its own or by exchanging its national self-expression for an alien form of speech can be seen by the examples of the British colonies, the United States of America and
\nIreland. The colonies are really separate peoples in the psychological sense, although they are not as yet separate nations.
\nEnglish, for the most part or at the lowest in great part, in their
\norigin and political and social sympathy, they are yet not replicas
\nof England, but have already a different temperament, a bent of
\ntheir own, a developing special character. But this new personality can only appear in the more outward and mechanical parts of
\ntheir life and even there in no great, effective and fruitful fashion. The British colonies do not count in the culture of the
\nworld, because they have no native culture, because by the fact
\nof their speech they are and must be mere provinces of England.
\nWhatever peculiarities they may develop in their mental life
\ntend to create a type of provincialism and not a central intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual life of their own with its distinct importance for mankind. For the same reason the whole of America, in
\nspite of its powerfully independent political and economic being,
\nhas tended to be culturally a province of Europe, the south and
\ncentre by their dependence on the Spanish, and the north by its
\ndependence on the English language. The life of the United
\nStates alone tends and strives to become a great and separate <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-258<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

cultural existence, but its success is not commensurate with its
\npower. Culturally, it is still to a great extent a province of England. Neither its literature, in spite of two or three great names,
\nnor its art nor its thought, nor anything else on the higher levels
\nof the mind, has been able to arrive at a vigorous maturity independent in its soul-type. And this because its instrument of
\nself-expression, the language which the national mind ought to
\nshape and be in turn shaped by it, was formed and must continue
\nto be formed by another country with a different mentality and
\nmust there find its centre and its law of development. In old
\ntimes, America would have evolved and changed the English
\nlanguage according to its own need until it became a new speech,
\nas the mediaeval nations dealt with Latin, and arrived in this
\nway at a characteristic instrument of self-expression; but under
\nmodern conditions this is not easily possible.* <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n. Ireland had its own tongue when it had its own free nationality and culture and its loss was a loss to humanity as well as to
\nthe Irish nation. For what might not this Celtic race with its fine
\npsychic turn and quick intelligence and delicate imagination,
\nwhich did so much in the beginning for European culture and
\nreligion, have given to the world through all these centuries
\nunder natural conditions? But the forcible imposition of a foreign tongue and the turning of a nation into a province left Ireland for so many centuries mute and culturally stagnant, a dead
\nforce in the life of Europe. Nor can we count as an adequate
\ncompensation for this loss the small indirect influence of the
\nrace upon English culture or the few direct contributions made
\nby gifted Irishmen forced to pour their natural genius into a foreign mould of thought. Even when Ireland in her struggle for
\nfreedom was striving to recover her free soul and give it a voice,
\nshe has been hampered by having to use a tongue which does not
\nnaturally express her spirit and peculiar bent. In time she may <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* It is affirmed that now such an independent development is taking
\nplace in America; it has to be seen how far this becomes a truly vigorous
\nreality: at present it has amounted only to a provincial turn, a sort of national
\nslang or a racy oddity. Even in the farthest development it would only be a
\nsort of dialect, not a national language. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-259<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nconquer the obstacle, make this tongue her own, force it to express her, but it will be long, if ever, before she can do it with
\nthe same richness, force and unfettered individuality as she
\nwould have done in her Gaelic speech. That speech she had tried
\nto recover, but the natural obstacles have been and are likely
\nalways to be too heavy and too strongly established for any complete success in that endeavour. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nModem India is another striking example. Nothing has
\nstood in the way of the rapid progress in India, nothing has more
\nsuccessfully prevented her self-finding and development under
\nmodern conditions than the long overshadowing of the Indian
\ntongues as cultural instruments by the English language. It is
\nsignificant that the one sub-nation in India which from the first
\nrefused to undergo this yoke, devoted itself to it the development
\nof its language, made that for long its principle preoccupation,
\ngave to it its most original minds and most living energies, getting
\nthrough everything else perfunctorily, neglecting commerce,
\ndoing politics as an intellectual and oratorical pastime,\u2014that it is
\nBengal which first recovered its soul, respiritualised itself, forced
\nthe whole world to hear of its great spiritual personalities, gave it
\nthe first modern Indian poet and Indian scientist of world-wide
\nfame and achievement, restored the moribund art of India to life
\nand power, first made her count again in the culture of the
\nworld, first, as a reward in the outer life, arrived at a vital political consciousness and a living political movement not imitative
\nand derivative in its spirit and its central ideal.* For so much
\ndoes language count in the life of a nation; for so much does it
\ncount to the advantage of humanity at large that its group-souls
\nshould preserve and develop and use with a vigorous group individuality their natural instrument of expression. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nA common language makes for unity and therefore it might
\nbe said that the unity of the human race demands unity of language; the advantages of diversity must be foregone for this
\ngreater good, however serious the temporary sacrifice. But it <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* Now, of course, everything has changed and
\nthese remarks are no
\nlonger applicable to the actual state or things in India. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-260<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmakes for a real, fruitful, living unity, only when it is the natural expression of the race or has been made natural by a long
\nadaptation and development from within. The history of universal tongues spoken by peoples to whom they were not natural,
\nis not encouraging. Always they have tended to become dead
\ntongues, sterilising so long as they kept their hold, fruitful only
\nwhen they were decomposed and broken up into new derivative
\nlanguages or departed leaving the old speech, where that still persisted, to revive with this new stamp and influence upon it.
\nLatin, after its first century of general domination in the West,
\nbecame a dead thing, impotent for creation, and generated no
\nnew or living and evolving culture in the nations that spoke it; even so great a force as Christianity could not give it a new life.
\nThe times during which it was an instrument of European
\nthought, were precisely those in which that thought was heaviest, most traditional and least fruitful. A rapid and vigorous new
\nlife only grew up when the languages which appeared out of the
\ndetritus of dying Latin, or the old languages which had not been
\nlost took its place as the complete instruments of national culture. For, it is not enough that the natural language should be
\nspoken by the people; it must be the expression of its higher life
\nand thought. A language that survives only as a patois or a provincial tongue like Welsh after the English conquest or Breton or
\nProvencal in France or as Czech survived once in Austria or
\nRuthenian and Lithuanian in imperial Russia, languishes, becomes sterile and does not serve all the true purpose of survival. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nLanguage is the sign of the cultural life of a people, the
\nindex of its soul in thought and mind that stands behind and
\nenriches its soul in action. Therefore, it is here that the phenomena and utilities of diversity may be most readily seized more
\nthan in mere outward things; but these truths are important
\nbecause they apply equally to the thing which it expresses and
\nsymbolises and serves as an instrument. Diversity of language is
\nworth keeping because diversity of cultures and differentiation
\nof soul-groups are worth keeping and because without that diversity life cannot have full play; for, in its absence there is a <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-261<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ndanger, almost an inevitability of decline and stagnation. The
\ndisappearance of national variation into a single, a uniform human unity,\u2014of which the systematic thinker dreams as an ideal
\nand which we have seen to be a substantial possibility and even
\na likelihood, if a certain tendency becomes dominant,\u2014might lead
\nto political peace, economic well-being, perfect administration,
\nthe solution of a hundred material problems, as did on a lesser
\nscale the Roman unity in old times; but to what eventual good if
\nit leads also to an uncreative sterilisation of the mind and the
\nstagnation of the soul of the race? In laying this stress on culture,
\non the things of the mind and the spirit there need be no intention of undervaluing the outward material side of life: it is
\nnot at all my purpose to belittle that to which Nature always
\nattaches so insistent an importance. On the contrary, the inner
\nand the outer depend upon each other. For we see that in the
\nlife of a nation a great period of national culture and vigorous
\nmental and soul life is always part of a general stirring and movement which has its counterpart in the outward political, economic and practical life of the nation. The culture brings about
\nor increases the material progress but also it needs it that it may
\nitself flourish with an entirely full and healthy vigour. The
\npeace, well-being and settled order of the human world is a thing
\neminently to be desired as a basis for a great world-culture in
\nwhich all humanity must be united; but neither of these unities,
\nthe outward or inward, ought to be devoid of an element even
\nmore important than peace, order and well-being,\u2014freedom and
\nvigour of life, which can only be assured by variation and by the
\nfreedom of the group and of the individual. Not then a uniform
\nunity, not a logically simple, a scientifically rigid, a beautifully
\nneat and mechanical sameness but a living oneness full or
\nhealthy freedom and variation is the ideal which we should keep
\nin view and strive to get realised in man’s future. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut how is this difficult end to be secured? For if an excessive uniformity and centralisation tends to the disappearance
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>necessary variations and indispensable liberties, a vigorous diversity and strong group individualism may lead to an incurable <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-262<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

persistence or constant return of the old separatism which will
\nprevent human unity from reaching completeness or even will
\nnot allow it to take firm root. For it will not be enough for the
\nconstituent groups or divisions to have a certain formal administrative and legislative separateness like the States of the American union if, as there, there is liberty only in mechanical
\nvariations and all vivid departures from the general norm proceeding from a profounder inner variation are discouraged or
\nforbidden. Nor will it be sufficient to found a unity plus local
\nindependence of the German type; for there the real overriding
\nforce was a unifying and disciplined Prussianism and independence survived only in form. Nor will even the English colonial
\nsystem give us any useful suggestion; for there is there local independence and a separate vigour of life, but the brain, heart and
\ncentral spirit are in the metropolitan country and the rest are at
\nthe best only outlying posts of the Anglo-Saxon idea*<\/i> The Swiss
\ncantonal life offers no fruitful similitude; for, apart from the
\nexiguity of its proportions and frame, there is the phenomenon
\nof a single Swiss life and practical spirit with a mental dependence on three foreign cultures sharply dividing the race; a common Swiss culture does not exist. The problem is rather, on a
\nlarger and more difficult scale and with greater complexities, that
\nwhich offered itself for a moment to the British Empire, how if
\nit is at all possible to unite Great Britain, Ireland, the Colonies,
\nEgypt, India in a real oneness, throw their gains into a common
\nstock, use their energies for a common end, help them to find the
\naccount of their national individuality in a supranational life,
\nyet preserve that individuality,\u2014Ireland keeping the Irish soul
\nand life and cultural principle, India the Indian soul and life
\nand cultural principle, the other units developing theirs, not
\nunited by a common Anglicisation, which was the past empire-building ideal, but held together by a greater as yet unrealised
\nprinciple of free union. Nothing was suggested at any time in
\nthe way of a solution except some sort of bunch or rather bouquet <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n* This may be less so than before, but the improvement does not go
\nvery far. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-263<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nsystem, unifying its clusters not by the living stalk of a
\ncommon origin or united past, for that does not exist, but by an
\nartificial thread of administrative unity which might at any moment be snapped irretrievably by centrifugal forces. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut after all, it may be said, unity is the first need, and
\nshould be achieved at any cost, just as national unity was
\nachieved by crushing out the separate existence of the local
\nunits; afterwards a new principle of group variation may be
\nfound other than the nation unit. But the parallel here becomes
\nillusory, because an important factor is lacking. For the history
\nof the birth of the nation is a coalescence of small groups into a
\nlarger unit among many similar large units. The old richness of
\nsmall units which gave such splendid cultural, but such unsatisfactory political results in Greece, Italy and India was lost, but
\nthe principle of life made vivid by variative diversity was preserved with nations for the diverse units and the cultural life of
\na continent for the common background. Here nothing of the
\nkind is possible. There will be a sole unity, the world-nation, all
\nouter source of diversity will disappear. Therefore the inner
\nsource has to be modified indeed, subordinated in some way, but
\npreserved and encouraged to survive. It may be that this will not
\nhappen, the unitarian idea may forcefully prevail and turn the
\nexisting nations into mere geographical provinces or administrative departments of a single well-mechanised State. But in that
\ncase the outraged need of life will have its revenge, either by a
\nstagnation, a collapse and a detrition fruitful of new separations
\nor by some principle of revolt from within. A gospel of Anarchism might enforce itself, for example, and break down the world-order for a new creation. The question is whether there is not
\nsomewhere a principle of unity in diversity by which this
\nmethod of action and reaction, creation and destruction, realisation and relapse cannot be, if not altogether avoided, yet mitigated in its action and led to a more serene and harmonious
\nworking. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-264<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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