{"id":3512,"date":"2013-07-13T01:49:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3512"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:49:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:03","slug":"06-the-discovery-of-the-nation-soul-vol-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-human-cycle\/06-the-discovery-of-the-nation-soul-vol-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-06_The Discovery of the Nation-Soul.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER IV<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTHE DISCOVERY OF THE NATION-SOUL<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE<\/b> primal law and purpose of the individual life is to
\nseek its own self-development. Consciously or halt-consciously or
\nwith an obscure unconscious groping it strives always and rightly
\nstrives at self-formulation,\u2014to find itself, to discover within itself the law and power of its own being and to fulfil it. This aim
\nin it is fundamental, right, inevitable because, even after all qualifications have been made and caveats entered, the individual is
\nnot merely the ephemeral physical creature, a form of mind and
\nbody that aggregates and dissolves, but a being, a living power
\nof the eternal Truth, a self-manifesting spirit. In the same way
\nthe primal law and purpose of a society, community or nation is
\nto seek its own self-fulfilment; it strives rightly to find itself, to
\nbecome aware within itself of the law and power of its own being
\nand to fulfil it as perfectly as possible, to realise all its potentialities, to live its own self-revealing life. The reason is the same; for
\nthis too is a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a self-
\nmanifestation of the cosmic Spirit, and it is there to express and
\nfulfill in its own way and to the degree of its capacities the special truth and
\npower and meaning of the cosmic Spirit that is within it. The nation or society,
\nlike the individual, has a body, an organic life, a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind
\nand a soul behind all these signs and powers for the sake of which
\nthey exist. One may see even that, like the individual, it essentially<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 37<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n is a soul rather than has one; it is a group-soul that, once
\nhaving attained to a separate distinctness, must become more
\nand more self-conscious and find itself more and more fully as it
\ndevelops its corporate action and mentality and its organic self-expressive life. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe parallel is just at every turn because it is more than a
\nparallel; it is a real identity of nature. There is only this difference that the group-soul is much more complex because it has a
\ngreat number of partly self-conscious mental individuals for the
\nconstituents of its physical being instead of an association of
\nmerely vital subconscious cells. At first, for this very reason, it
\nseems more crude, primitive and artificial in the forms it takes; for it has a more difficult task before it, it needs a longer time to
\nfind itself, it is more fluid and less easily organic. When it does
\nsucceed in getting out of the stage of vaguely conscious self-formation, its first definite self-consciousness is objective much
\nmore than subjective. And so far as it is subjective, it is apt to be
\nsuperficial or loose and vague. This objectiveness comes out
\nvery strongly in the ordinary emotional conception of the nation
\nwhich centres round its geographical, its most outward and
\nmaterial aspect, the passion for the land in which we dwell, the
\nland of our fathers, the land of our birth, country, patria, vater- land, janma
\nbhumi.<\/i> When we realise that the land is only the
\nshell of the body, though a very living shell indeed and potent in
\nits influences on the nation, when we begin to feel that its more
\nreal body is the men and women who compose the nation-unit, a
\nbody ever changing, yet always the same like that of the individual man, we are
\non the way to a truly subjective communal consciousness. For then we have some chance of realising that even
\nthe physical being of the society is a subjective power, not a mere
\nobjective existence. Much more is it in its inner self a great corporate soul with all the possibilities and dangers of the soul-life. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe objective view of society has reigned throughout the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 38<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nhistorical period of humanity in the West; it has been sufficiently
\nstrong though not absolutely engrossing in the East. Rulers, people and thinkers alike have understood by their national existence
\na political status, die extent of their borders, their economic well-being and
\nexpansion, their laws, institutions and the working of these things. For this
\nreason political and economic motives have everywhere predominated on the
\nsurface and history has been a record of their operations and influence. The one
\nsubjective and psychological force consciously admitted and
\nwith difficulty deniable has been that of the individual. This
\npredominance is so great that most modern historians and some
\npolitical thinkers have concluded that objective necessities are
\nby law of Nature the only really determining forces, all else is
\nresult or superficial accidents of these forces. Scientific history
\nhas been conceived as if it must be a record and appreciation
\nof the environmental motives of political action, of the play of
\neconomic forces and developments and the course of institutional evolution. The few who still value the psychological element have kept their eye fixed on individuals and are not far
\nfrom conceiving of history as a mass of biographies. The truer
\nand more comprehensive science of the future will see that these
\nconditions only apply to the imperfectly self-conscious period
\nof national development. Even then there was always a greater
\nsubjective force working behind individuals, policies, economic
\nmovements and the change of institutions; but it worked for
\nthe most part subconsciously, more as a subliminal self than as a
\nconscious mind. It is when this subconscious power of the group-
\nsoul comes to the surface that nations begin to enter into possession of their subjective selves; they set about getting however
\nvaguely or imperfectly at their souls. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nCertainly, there is always a vague sense of this subjective
\nexistence at work even on the surface of the communal mentality. But so far as
\nthis vague sense becomes at all definite, it concerns<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 39<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n itself mostly with details and unessentials, national idiosyncrasies,
\nhabits, prejudices, marked mental tendencies. It is, so to speak, an objective
\nsense of subjectivity. As man has been accustomed to look on himself as a body
\nand a life, the physical animal with a certain moral or immoral temperament, and
\nthe things of the mind have been regarded as a fine Rower and attainment of the physical life rather than themselves anything
\nessential or the sign of something essential, so and much more
\nhas the community regarded that small part of its subjective self
\nof which it becomes aware. It clings indeed always to its idiosyncrasies, habits, prejudices, but in a blind objective fashion,
\ninsisting on their most external aspect and not at all going behind
\nthem to that for which they stand, that which they try blindly
\nto express. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis has been the rule not only with the nation, but with
\nall communities. A church is an organised religious community
\nand religion, if anything in the world, ought to be subjective; for
\nits very reason for existence\u2014where it is not merely an ethical
\ncreed with a supernatural authority\u2014is to find and realise the
\nsoul. Yet religious history has been almost entirely, except in the
\ntime of the founders and their immediate successors, an insistence on things objective, rites, ceremonies, authority, church.
\ngovernments, dogmas, forms of belief. Witness the whole external religious history of Europe, that strange sacrilegious tragic
\ncomedy of discords, sanguinary disputations, "religious" wars
\npersecutions, State churches and all else that is the very negation
\nof the spiritual life. It is only recently that men have begun
\nseriously to consider what Christianity, Catholicism, Islam really
\nmean and are in their soul, that is to say, in their very reality
\nand essence. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut now we have, very remarkably, very swiftly coming to
\nthe surface this new psychological tendency of the communal
\nconsciousness. Now first we hear of the soul of a nation and,
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 40<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhat is more to the purpose, actually see nations feeling for their
\nsouls, trying to find them, seriously endeavouring to act from
\nthe new sense and make it consciously operative in the common
\nlife and action. It is only natural that this tendency should have
\nbeen, for the most part, most powerful in new nations or in those
\nstruggling to realise themselves in spite of political subjection or
\ndefeat. For these need more to feel the difference between themselves and others so that they may assert and justify their individuality
\nas against the powerful super-life which tends to absorb or efface it. And
\nprecisely because their objective life is feeble and it is difficult to affirm
\nit by its own strength in the adverse circumstances, there is more chance of
\ntheir seeking for their individuality and its force of self-assertion in that
\nwhich is subjective and psychological or at least in that which has a subjective
\nor a psychological significance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore in nations so circumstanced this tendency of self-
\nfinding has been most powerful and has even created in some of
\nthem a new type of national movement, as in Ireland and India.
\nThis and no other was the root-meaning of Swadeshism in
\nBengal and of the Irish movement in its earlier less purely political stages. The emergence of Bengal as a sub-nation in India
\nwas throughout a strongly subjective movement and in its later
\ndevelopment it became very consciously that. The movement of
\n1905 in Bengal pursued a quite new conception of the nation
\nnot merely as a country, but a soul, a psychological, almost a spiritual being and, even when acting from economical and political
\nmotives, it sought to dynamise them by this subjective conception and to make them instruments of self-expression rather than
\nobjects in themselves. We must not forget, however, that in the first stages these movements followed in their superficial thought
\nthe old motives of an objective and mostly political self-consciousness. The
\nEast indeed is always more subjective than the West wd we can see the subjective
\ntinge even in its political movements<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 41<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n whether in Persia, India or China, and even in the very
\nimitative movement of the Japanese resurgence. But it is only
\nrecently that this subjectivism has become self-conscious. We
\nmay therefore conclude that the conscious and deliberate subjectivism of certain nations was only the sign and precursor of
\na general change in humanity and has been helped forward by
\nlocal circumstances, but was not really dependent upon them
\nor in any sense their product. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis general change is incontestable; it is one of the capital
\nphenomena of the tendencies of national and communal life at
\nthe present hour. The conception to which Ireland and India
\nhave been the first to give a definite formula, "to be ourselves,"
\n\u2014so different from the impulse and ambition of dependent or
\nunfortunate nations in the past which was rather to become like
\nothers,\u2014is now more and more a generally accepted motive of
\nnational life. It opens the way to great dangers and errors, but it
\nis the essential condition for that which has now become the demand of the Time-Spirit on the human race, that it shall find
\nsubjectively, not only in the individual, but in die nation and in
\nthe unity of the human race itself, its deeper being, its inner law,
\nits real self and live according to that and no longer by artificial
\nstandards. This tendency was preparing itself everywhere and
\npartly coming to the surface before the war, but most prominently, as we have said, in new nations like Germany or in dependent nations like Ireland and India. The shock of the war
\nbrought about from its earliest moments an immediate\u2014and for
\nthe time being a militant\u2014emergence of the same deeper self-consciousness everywhere. Crude enough were most of its first
\nmanifestations, often of a really barbarous and reactionary crudeness. Especially it tended to repeat the Teutonic lapse, preparing not only "to be oneself," which is entirely right, but to live
\nsolely for and to oneself, which, if pushed beyond a certain point,
\nbecomes a disastrous error. For it is necessary if the subjective
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 42<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nage of humanity is to produce its best fruits, that the nations
\nshould become conscious not only of their own but of each
\nother’s souls and learn to respect, to help and to profit, not only
\neconomically and intellectually but subjectively and spiritually
\nby each other. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe great determining force has been the example and the
\naggression of Germany; the example because no other nation has
\nso self-consciously, so methodically, so intelligently, and from
\nthe external point of view so successfully sought to find, to dynamise, to live itself and make the most of its own power of being; its aggression because the very nature and declared watchwords
\nof the attack have tended to arouse a defensive self-consciousness
\nin the assailed and forced them to perceive what was the source
\nof this tremendous strength and to perceive too that they themselves must seek consciously an answering strength in the same
\ndeeper sources. Germany was for the time the most remarkable
\npresent instance of a nation preparing for the subjective stage
\nbecause it had, in the first place, a certain kind of vision\u2014unfortunately intellectual rather than illuminated\u2014and the courage
\nto follow it\u2014unfortunately again a vital and intellectual rather
\nthan a spiritual hardihood,\u2014and, secondly, being master of its
\ndestinies, was able to order its own life so as to express its self-
\nvision. We must not be misled by appearances into thinking
\nthat the strength of Germany was created by Bismarck or directed
\nby the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Rather the appearance of Bismarck
\nwas in many respects a misfortune for the growing nation because his rude and powerful hand precipitated its subjectivity
\ninto form and action at too early a stage; a longer period of incubation might have produced results less disastrous to itself, if less
\nviolently stimulative to humanity. The real source of this great
\nsubjective force which has been so much disfigured in its objective action, was not in Germany’s statesmen and soldiers\u2014for the
\nroost part poor enough types of men\u2014but came from her great <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 43<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nphilosophers, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Nietzsche, from <\/b> her great
\nthinker and poet Goethe, from her great musicians, Beethoven
\nand Wagner, and from all in the German soul and temperament
\nwhich they represented. A nation whose master achievement
\nhas lain almost entirely in the two spheres of philosophy and
\nmusic, is clearly predestined to lead in the turn to subjectivism
\nand to produce a profound result for good or evil on the beginnings of a subjective age. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis was one side of the predestination of Germany; the
\nother is to be found in her scholars, educationists, scientists,
\norganisers. It was the industry, the conscientious diligence,
\nthe fidelity to ideas, the honest and painstaking spirit of work
\nfor which the nation has been long famous. A people may be
\nhighly gifted in the subjective capacities, and yet if it neglects to
\ncultivate this lower side of our complex nature, it will fail to
\nbuild that bridge between the idea and imagination and the world
\nof facts, between the vision and the force, which makes realisation possible; its higher powers may become a joy and inspiration to the world, but it will never take possession of its own
\nworld until it has learned the humbler lesson. In Germany the
\nbridge was there, though it ran mostly through a dark tunnel
\nwith a gulf underneath; for there was no pure transmission from
\nthe subjective mind of the thinkers and singers to the objective mind of the scholars and organisers. The misapplication by
\nTreitschke of the teachings of Nietzsche to national and international uses which would have profoundly disgusted the philosopher himself, is an example of this obscure transmission. But still
\na transmission there was. For more than a half-century Germany
\nturned a deep eye of subjective introspection on herself and
\nthings and ideas in search of the truth of her own being and of
\nthe world, and for another half-century a patient eye of scientific research on the objective means for organising what she had
\nor thought she had gained. And something was done, something <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 44<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nindeed powerful and enormous, but also in certain directions,
\nnot in all, misshapen and disconcerting. Unfortunately, those
\ndirections were precisely the very central lines on which to go
\nwrong is to miss the goal. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt may be said indeed that the last result of the something
\ndone\u2014the war, the collapse, the fierce reaction towards the rigid,
\narmoured, aggressive, formidable Nazi State\u2014is not only discouraging enough, but a clear warning to abandon that path and
\ngo back to the older and safer ways. But the misuse of great powers is no argument against their right use. To go back is impossible; the attempt is always, indeed, an illusion; we have all to do
\nthe same thing which Germany has attempted, but to take care
\nnot to do it likewise. Therefore we must look beyond the red
\nmist of blood of the War and the dark fuliginous confusion and
\nchaos which now oppress the world to see why and where was
\nthe failure. For her failure which became evident by the turn her
\naction took and was converted for the time being into total collapse, was clear even then to the dispassionate thinker who seeks
\nonly the truth. That befell her which sometimes befalls the
\nseeker on the path of Yoga, the art of conscious self-finding,\u2014a
\npath exposed to far profounder perils than beset ordinarily the
\naverage man,\u2014when he follows a false light to his spiritual ruin.
\nShe had mistaken her vital ego for herself; she had sought for her
\nsoul and found only her force. For she had said like the Asura
\n"I am my body, my life, my mind, my temperament" and become
\nattached with a Titanic force to these; especially she had said,
\n"I am my life and body," and than that there can be no greater
\nmistake for man or nation. The soul of man or nation is something more and diviner than that; it is greater than its instruments and cannot be shut up in a physical, a vital, a mental or
\na temperamental formula. So to confine it, even though the false
\nsocial formation be embodied in the armour-plated social body
\nor a huge collective human dinosaurus, can only stifle the growth<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 45<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the inner Reality and end in decay or the extinction that overtakes all that is unplastic and unadaptable. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is evident that there is a false as well as a true subjectivism and the errors to which the subjective trend may be liable are
\nas great as its possibilities and may well lead to capital disasters.
\nThis distinction must be clearly grasped if the road of this stage
\nof social evolution is to be made safe for the human race.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 46<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER IV THE DISCOVERY OF THE NATION-SOUL   THE primal law and purpose of the individual life is to seek its own self-development. Consciously or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-human-cycle","wpcat-81-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3512","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=3512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}