A Conundrum

Here is a dilemma into which a rationalist falls. If the idea of an individual’s or a nation’s progress is the idea of spiritual progress, then can we have it if we do not know what is meant by progress? what progress is? And there are moments of crisis when man or a nation becomes a helpless victim to the weakness of his nature, when he loses contact with the soul, and retrograde forces take possession of things and events. Did it not happen to Germany during the dark period of Hitlerite regime, and to the Indian leadership about the same time? Worse is yet when the divine grace comes with its power of protection and it gets rejected. It is not necessary that one has to be a practitioner of conscious spirituality to receive this grace, or be its instrument in the manner of a religious or teacher-disciple relationship. There is always something deeper yet in his soul which governs his actions and movements, a kind of a response which comes from the invisible fount of being, comes perhaps he being unaware of it. It happened in recent history, not too long ago, during the Second World War. We can talk about it because the events have been disclosed to us.

This happened during the calamitous Second World War when Churchill proved to be exceptionally receptive to the force of Sri Aurobindo, he having the least notion of it. One who fought against the British Empire and who was "not merely a non-cooperator but an enemy of British Imperialism," now listened carefully to the health bulletins about Churchill when he had pneumonia, and, it can be well believed, even helped him with his Force to recover. Here was one man, notwithstanding his thousand defects and his British sense of superiority and arrogance, who could somehow put himself directly in contact with the progressive forces of life. There was another, the American President, Roosevelt, but he had to wait for his Pearl Harbor moment. When he signed at a pretty early stage, in 1941, the Lend-Lease agreement for the supply of war materials to France, United Kingdom, Russia and China, he had virtually made it clear of the American involvement in war against Hitler’s Germany. Even the programme for the development of the atomic weapon got initiated. Sri Aurobindo found in him another receptive instrument for the work that had to be done.

But here were people in India who stood dumb and deaf and mute like a wall or else people with their own fetishes who would not understand the nature of things, of the terrible war behind the war. This was in spite of Sri Aurobindo’s direct indications and recommendations. Even in the Ashram he had to explain to his disciples about his support to the British during the War-time. He had to tell them repeatedly about the danger of the Nazi victory. Nirodbaran reports:

On 29 December 1940 Savarkar gave a speech in which he said that the British could not be defeated. Sri Aurobindo commented: “Nonsense. They were saved by Divine Intervention. They would have been smashed if Hitler had invaded England at the right time after the fall of France.”

“Why didn't the Divine intervene in France?” one of us asked.

“Because the French were corrupt and had no power of resistance. The English had still some of their old virtues left, to which support could be given. The Mother says, 'The French have betrayed Czechoslovakia and thereby stand condemned.' "

The French were corrupt and the Indians laden with tamas and ignorance. We shall not try here to connect these developments and Sri Aurobindo’s direct involvement with the work of descent of Supermind with which he was yogically occupied during those crucial years. If we understand the nature of the Nazi forces, we might immediately realize how they were hostilely acting as an obstruction in the advent of the supramental objective Sri Aurobindo had put in front of him. He said: “Hitlerism is the greatest menace that the world has ever met. He is openly talking of world-empire…” That would mean doom in its ruthless triumph, the end of spirituality itself, spirituality for establishing the verities of truth and awareness and light and love and joy and strength in our life. If cherishing these ideals and working for them is the meaning and nature of spiritual progress, then that also provides us the sense of progress we envisage for an individual or a nation. If the idea of an individual’s or a nation’s progress is the idea of spiritual progress, then in the context of spiritual progress we start seeing in what lies a nation’s or an individual’s progress. In the context of the War we had therefore two powerful complementary aspects: spiritual will to promote the silently aspiring human civilization for the purposes of a more fulfilling manifestation; human elements lending themselves to it, as the “dauntless leadership of Churchill, silent support of Roosevelt, failure of Luftwaffe…” the second was lacking in the case of Independence of India. The Indian soul was ruefully asleep.

Is it to reclaim the lost land?

What Sri Aurobindo saw as a spiritual necessity of united India not only in the context of her destiny but also the destiny of the world, is interpreted by a certain intellectual element as nothing but a need to reclaim lost land, to repair the broken dream. To a multi-dimensional reality of India, it is nothing but anachronistic-chauvinistic to hail the country as Mother and raise the cry “Bande Mataram”. It is further argued that the concept of the country as a nation is alien to it, is of foreign origin; it is something which has been imported from Europe, and therefore to address it as “Mother”, and to say that it has a soul, is a typical confusion which always prevails in the Indian mind. In India the idea of statehood never existed. One can think of harmonious living of people together, people from different parts, and speaking different languages, and following different religions and customs, but to talk of them all as belonging to a single nation is nothing short of fundamentalism, fundamentalism of another kind. “The idea of nation statehood as a European social construction,” says a critic, “does not exactly come to my mind when Sri Aurobindo says partition must go.”

Clearly, there cannot be two opinions about the idea of harmonious confederation, not only in the context of regional affiliations of people, but also among the present nation-states in the subcontinent. European nations, we see in our own times, were driven by strong internal and external pressures and saw the necessity of mutuality for making any progress. “Without harmony, there is no perfection, even though there could be maximization of one or more elements in our nature. When illumination and heroism join and engender relations of mutuality and unity, each is perfected by the other and creativity is endless.” That is the utterance which comes from a fully realized life-instinct that has its secret contact with the soul within. What is required is that political and social maturity in the people concerned. That is sadly lacking in the Indian subcontinent. In the present hazardous context, certainly not war but a kind of dependable confederate organization could be the possible way forward.

Considering the earlier failures, this was a solution the Mother herself had suggested after the swift 1971 event in the subcontinent, the appearance of Bangla Desh. The question is: how is it going to be effected? And yet it must be kept perfectly in mind that Sri Aurobindo never took India merely as a lump of matter, just a piece of land marked somewhere by geographical lines, a digitally created Google map—she was living-breathing Motherland for him. While her well-etched latitudes and longitudes belong to occult and psycho-spiritual dimensions, there is also something of them projected on the physical. Sri Aurobindo considered India as a mighty Shakti and hailed her so, she a great embodiment of spiritual Power in the cosmic working. Naturally, therefore, one cannot accept her as a person cut up into bits and pieces, and this is precisely the sense of his Independence Day Message. And this sense had remained with him throughout, through all the difficult and trying decades. Let us read the exact passage he wrote in answer to the question What is a Nation?

…what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shakti of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people; but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of Tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons. To get rid of Tamas we have but to wake the Brahma within.

This was written a hundred years ago, and this he held all through. Therefore to say that he would have revised his opinion about the Partition of India after fifty years is not to enter into the Aurobindonian spirit. The question is not of Partition going which it must; it is the question of mutuality and harmony which is the only mechanism for perfection and progress. There are differences, and of course there are differences; but the solution is not divisions, endless fragmentation, differences becoming divisive, paradoxically as if each differing group, each fragment will have its own harmony within it. Differences can be healthy but disruptive tendencies must be dismissed.

Mahomedan Representation

The issue of Mahomedan representation in national life was never new and it had popped up at every important stage of the independence movement. Sri Aurobindo writes in Karmayogin dated 6 November 1909:

The question of separate representation for the Mahomedan community is one of those momentous issues raised in haste by a statesman unable to appreciate the forces with which he is dealing, which bear fruit no man expected and least of all the ill-advised Frankenstein who was first responsible for its creation. The common belief among Hindus is that the Government have decided to depress the Hindu element in the Indian people by raising the Mahomedan element, and ensure a perpetual preponderance in their own favour by leaning on a Mahomedan vote purchased by a system of preference. … No provision at all has been made for the safeguarding of Hindu minorities, for the Parsis, the Sikhs, the Christians and other sections which may reasonably declare that they too are Indians and citizens of the Empire no less than the Mahomedans. … At present irritation, heart-burning, a sullen gloom and a growing resolve to assert and organise their separate existence and work for their own hand are the first results of the separatist policy. … A certain section with Syed Hyder Reza at their head, have considered it and are against the separate representation altogether. Another section represented by Mr Alt Imam are for a compromise between the full Moslem demand for separate electorates and the Hindu demand for equal treatment of all communities. Unfortunately, this compromise is merely the Government scheme which Hindu sentiment has almost unanimously condemned as unfair and partial. …  It will cast all India into the melting-pot and complete the work of the Partition. Our own attitude is clear. We will have no part or lot in reforms which give no popular majority, no substantive control, no opportunity for Indian capacity and statesmanship, no seed of democratic expansion. We will not for a moment accept separate electorates or separate representation, not because we are opposed to a large Mahomedan influence in popular assemblies when they come but because we will be no party to a distinction which recognises Hindu and Mahomedan as permanently separate political units and thus precludes the growth of a single and indivisible Indian nation. We oppose any such attempt at division whether it comes from an embarrassed Government seeking for political support or from an embittered Hindu community allowing the passions of the moment to obscure their vision of the future.

Sri Aurobindo was categorical a hundred years ago, and he stood by the principles which he valued always. Let us mark again his statement: “It [Reform] will cast all India into the melting-pot and complete the work of the Partition. Our own attitude is clear. We will have no part or lot in reforms which give no popular majority, no substantive control, no opportunity for Indian capacity and statesmanship, no seed of democratic expansion. We will not for a moment accept separate electorates or separate representation, not because we are opposed to a large Mahomedan influence in popular assemblies when they come but because we will be no party to a distinction which recognizes Hindu and Mahomedan as permanently separate political units and thus precludes the growth of a single and indivisible Indian nation.”

And yet people say Sri Aurobindo was claiming lost land and that, decades later, he would have revised his stand upon the 1947 Partition. The question is, to repeat, finding a solution for mutuality and progressive self-perfection in the diversity of national composition which yet should be a rich asset for working out a new and acceptable offer nature is perhaps making to us. If this is the Aurobindonianism, the bona fide Aurobindonian ethos then we cannot speak of it as breeding fundamentalist jingoism and restrictive doctrines with prejudicial philosopy.

If there is one place on the face of the earth…

Let us read here two passages from Romain Rolland:

If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began to dream of existence, it is India. Her unique privilege... has been that of a great elder sister, whose spiritual development, an autonomous flower continuously growing throughout the Methuselah-long life of the peoples, has never been interrupted. For more than thirty centuries the tree of Vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from that torrid land, the burning womb of the gods. It renews itself tirelessly, showing no signs of decay; all kinds of fruit ripen upon its boughs at the same time; side by side are found all kinds of gods from the most savage to the highest—o the formless God, the Unnamable, the Boundless One... always the same tree.

[Life of Ramakrishna]

The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.

[Life of Vivekananda]

It is expected of us to be worthy of this “unique privilege” offered to us by India. These are the glowing prospects and these are the acceptable methodologies for a life based on fundamental truths of life. These are the things which matter and the tough challenge thrown by circumstances of time has to be met in their enduring validity.

To the Awakened India

(Awakened India or Prabuddha Bharata was composed by Vivekananda in August 1898)

Once more awake!

For sleep it was, not death, to bring thee life

Anew, and rest to lotus-eyes for visions

Daring yet. The world in need awaits, O Truth!

No death for thee!

Resume thy march,

With gentle feet that would not break the

Peaceful rest even of the roadside dust

That lies so low. Yet strong and steady,

Blissful, bold, and free. Awakener, ever

Forward! Speak thy stirring words.

Thy home is gone,

Where loving hearts had brought thee up and

Watched with joy thy growth. But Fate is strong—

This is the law—all things come back to the source

They sprung, their strength to renew.

Then start afresh

From the land of thy birth, where vast cloud-belted

Snows do bless and put their strength in thee,

For working wonders new. The heavenly

River tune thy voice to her own immortal song;

Deodar shades give thee eternal peace.

And all above,

Himalaya's daughter Umā, gentle, pure,

The Mother that resides in all as Power

And Life, who works all works and

Makes of One the world, whose mercy

Opens the gate to Truth and shows

The One in All, give thee untiring

Strength, which is Infinite Love.

They bless thee all,

The seers great, whom age nor clime

Can claim their own, the fathers of the

Race, who felt the heart of Truth the same,

And bravely taught to man ill-voiced or

Well. Their servant, thou hast got

The secret—'tis but One.

Then speak, O Love!

Before thy gentle voice serene, behold how

Visions melt and fold on fold of dreams

Departs to void, till Truth and Truth alone

In all its glory shines—

And tell the world—

Awake, arise, and dream no more!

This is the land of dreams, where Karma

Weaves unthreaded garlands with our thoughts,

Of flowers sweet or noxious,—and none

Has root or stem, being born in naught, which

The softest breath of Truth drives back to

Primal nothingness. Be bold, and face

The Truth! Be one with it! Let visions cease.

Or, if you cannot, dream but truer dreams,

Which are Eternal Love and Service Free.

The Vedantist’s “Primal Nothingness” has the precious wonderful quality of giving to us the gifts of Himalaya’s daughter, she the Power and Life working all works and making of One the world. It is from her that shall come the untiring Strength, Strength who is at once infinite Love also. People will at once say that this is a Hindu ideology, asking everyone to worship a Hindu goddess. Nothing can be more misleading than that. If there is a universal power and someone who has contact with her gives her a name, calls her Uma, another having contact with her can give another name, and yet she will remain the same. She is Maheshwari in India and Pallas Athene in Greek. We should get in contact with her, and receive wisdom and strength from her which are universal. Wisdom and Strength—that has been the prayer to the Almighty.

It is in this awakened dream-vision we can say that “…a new India would combine science and spirituality in a global perspective, combining the wisdom of ancient rishis with that of modern creative thinkers. It would set forth a new spiritual or yogic path showing us how to realize the consciousness that is the foundation of the entire universe and the basis of universal law. It would develop our material potentials for the greater glory of the Spirit, the Self of all beings.” This is not a Hindu aspiration, not of a Sikh, a Mahomedan, a Christian, Buddhist, Jainist aspiration, no exclusive aspiration, hope and longing with a will to work for its realization in any narrow restricted manner; it is the aspiration of the soul of India, the aspiration it carried through long and toiling millennia and for which it survived in spite of the most trying times. The call—Awake! Arise!—was given a hundred and ten years ago and we have to come out of our degrading slumber of the Inconscient tamas and inertia. That is what the renaissance in India should mean to us. Not quarelling and quibbling and cutting each other’s throat in the manner of medievalists, but by rising to the stature of our authentic spirit we must live and progress in its intended greatness. It is for that purpose that the independence of India was god-ordained. Let us be true to that freedom. If there has to be a spiritual destiny for India then India must recover her soul. Freedom is meant for that purpose, so that it expresses itself in its trueness. That is the expectation, and to attend to it should be our sole preoccupation.