{"id":91,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=91"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:51","slug":"61-passing-thoughts-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/61-passing-thoughts-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-61_Passing Thoughts.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nSECTION
\n<\/span>NINE<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\nPassing Thoughts<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nA<\/font>CHARA <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b>\u2014 is a mould in which the thing
\nitself rests and feels stable, it is not the thing itself. It is this sense
\nof stability, which is the greater value of ācāra<\/i>; it gives the thing
\nitself the śraddhā<\/i>, that it is meant to abide. It is a conservative
\nforce, it helps to preserve things as they are. But it is also a danger and a
\nhindrance, when change becomes necessary. Conservative forces are either sattwic or tamasic.
\nĀcāra<\/i> with knowledge, observance full of the spirit of the thing itself, is sattwic
\nand preserves the thing itself; ācāra<\/i> without knowledge, looking
\nto the letter of custom and observance, disregarding the spirit,
\nis tamasic and destroys the thing itself. Intelligent observance
\nand custom are always ready to change, when it is needed, for
\nthey know themselves to be important, but not essential; whereas
\nignorant observance prefers to rot rather than change. Tamasic ācāra<\/i> must be broken that the thing itself may be preserved.
\nBut if it is broken to pieces by anger or prejudice, the thing itself
\nis likely to withdraw from us. It must be loosened and split
\nasunder by the heat of knowledge. The present mould of
\nHinduism has to be broken and replaced by knowledge and Yoga
\nand not by the European spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nVicāra<\/i> \u2014 the use of vicāra<\/i> is urgent in times of transition.
\nRevolutionary periods generate a sort of minds who are avicārī<\/i>,
\n<\/i>without perception and deliberation, the mind which clings
\nfiercely to the old, because it is old, and that which runs violently
\nafter the new, because it is new. Between them rises the self-styled moderate man, who says, "Let us have something of the
\nold and something of the new." He is no less an avicārī<\/i> than
\nthe extremes. He swears by moderation as a formula and a
\nfetish and runs after an impossible reconciliation. It was this kind
\nof thought which Christ had in view, when he said, "You cannot
\nput new wine into old bottles." Vicāra<\/i> never sets up a formula,
\nnever prejudges, but questions everything, weighs everything.
\nWhen a man says \u2014 alter your notions and habits on the lines of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 437<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nEuropean enlightenment, vicāra<\/i> answers: "Let me consider it.
\nWhy should I assume Europe to be enlightened, India barbarous? It is possible that Europe may be the real barbarian,
\nIndian knowledge the true enlightened one, I must see." On the
\nother hand, if a man says, "Be an Indian and do as the Indians,"
\nvicāra<\/i> replies, "I am not sure that I must do as the Indians to be
\nan Indian. It may be that the present men of the country have
\nbecome something which the Indians were never intended to be.
\nI must see what Indians have been in the various epochs of our civilisation and
\nfind out what is eternal in it and what is temporary. It may be that Europeans have certain things really Indian,
\nwhich we have lost. It is good to be Indian, but to be Indian because of knowledge, not because of prejudice." Hinduism itself
\nis based on vicāra<\/i>, viveka<\/i> and j\u00f1ānam<\/i>, deciding what ācāra<\/i> is best
\nfor the preservation of human society and the fulfilment of our
\nindividual and associated manhood.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nViveka \u2014<\/i> Indian vicāra<\/i> guides itself by viveka<\/i>. Vichara, by
\nitself questions and considers, weighs, examines and ponders and
\nso arrives at certain perceptions and conclusions, by which it
\nguides itself. This is European vicāra<\/i> and its supreme example is
\nSocrates. The danger of vicāra<\/i> is, that if it does not start with certain
\npremises and assumptions, it will end in absolute uncertainty of the academic philosophers, who could not be sure
\nwhether they existed or not. On the other hand if it starts with
\npremises and assumptions, there is danger of these premises and
\nassumptions being erroneous and vitiating the conclusions. For
\nthis reason modern science insists on all the premises being thoroughly proved before the vicāra<\/i> commences and its method of
\nproof is experiment. Modern science is an application of this
\nprinciple of experiment to politics, society and every human
\nbelief and institution. This is a rather dangerous business. In
\nthe process of experiment, you may get an explosion, which
\nmay blow society out of existence and bring a premature end
\nto the experiment. Moreover you may easily think a premise
\nproved, when it is not. Science has had to abandon notion after notion, which it
\nthought were based on unshakably proved premises. Nothing was thought more certainly proved than that the
\nprocess of breathing was necessary to life. But we know in India<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 438<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthat a man can live without breathing. The principle of proof
\nby experiment was known to the ancient Indians, but just as the
\nEuropeans, dissatisfied with vicāra<\/i>, progressed beyond it to
\nvicāra<\/i> guided by experiment, so the Indians, dissatisfied with
\nexperiment progressed beyond it to vicāra<\/i> and experiment,
\nguided by Viveka, intuition and inspired judgment, gained by a
\nprevious purification of the organs of thought and knowledge.
\nThe modern Indians have lost this guide and are compelled to
\nrely on āptavākyam<\/i> or authority, the recorded opinions of men
\nwho had viveka<\/i>, or traditions and customs founded on an ancient enlightenment. This is unsatisfactory, because we do not
\nknow that we have the opinions correctly recorded or that the
\ntraditions and customs have not been distorted by time and
\nerror. We must recover and go back to the fountain-head.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nJ\u00f1ānam \u2014<\/i> There are four operations in the Indian method of
\nknowledge. First, the inquirer purifies his intellect by stilling
\nof passions, emotions and prejudgments and old samskāras<\/i> or
\nassociations. Secondly, he subjects received knowledge to a rigid
\nscrutiny by sceptical vicāra<\/i>, separating opinion from ascertained
\ntruth, mere conclusions from facts. Even the facts he takes as
\nonly provisionally true and is prepared to find his whole knowledge to be erroneous, misapplied or made up of half-truths.
\nThirdly, he experiments to get upalabdhi<\/i> or personal experience.
\nFourthly, he again uses vicāra<\/i> in order to ascertain how far his
\nexperiment really carries him and what he is or is not justified in
\nconcluding from it. Lastly, he turns the light of the viśuddha
\nbuddhi<\/i> on the subject and by inspired discrimination arrives
\nat j\u00f1ānam<\/i>. The conclusions of viveka<\/i> he does not question,
\nbecause he knows by experience that it is a fine and accurate
\ninstrument. Only he is on his guard against mistaking vicāra<\/i> for
\nviveka<\/i>, and is always prepared to balance and amplify his conclusions by fresh truth he had not considered and to find that
\nthere is another side to truth than the one with which he is familiar. He does not like the European scientists, wed himself to
\nprevious generalisations and theories or consider every fresh
\nenlargement of knowledge an imposture.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 439<\/font><\/p>\n

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

SECTION NINE Passing Thoughts   ACHARA \u2014 is a mould in which the thing itself rests and feels stable, it is not the thing itself….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","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=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}