Rakesh, Interesting questions indeed. In the Human Cycle we learn that the nation like the individual has an organic life and a developing mind and soul behind it. The parallel is at every step. It is perhaps not even a parallel but an identity of nature. We might say that the nation is essentially a soul, a group-soul which is far more complex than the individual soul because while the latter is an association of cells(subconscious), the former is an association of mental beings. The purpose of the evolving nation soul is self-discovery. Its early stage is marked by identification with its physical body - the geographical boundaries and is therefore objective. But as it transcends this identity in the realization that it is the members that constitute its soul, it is on its way to a communal consciousness, a subjective one. The geography and the land is a body, a pulsating body, a living shell of the nation-soul. Like the individual, the body can keep changing yet the identity remains. I may digress to mention that in the West it is the objective view of nation that predominates in the study of nation-history and therefore it is the bodily existence, the political boundaries, economic and political factors, the institutions and laws etc that are considered the determining elements in its (nation's) evolution. The nation-soul force or the psychological element of the subjective communal consciousness expressing itself through individuals - especially those who embody the psychic being of the nation - is ignored. But it is this subjective psychological element that shapes the course of the evolution of the nation-soul, even though veiled by its subliminal influence (as in individuals) in the early stages. There are perils in this journey, moments of crisis when the call of the soul is imperative. If it is abandoned, the result is perdition. At times its survival is threatened by invading forces and the nation-soul comes forward expressing itself through individuals. Such was the case of France in Joan of Arc. She was not only the national hero of France but also the expression of its nation-soul. In 1429 when the English occupied Paris Henry VI of England lay claim to the French throne, she commanded the troops (at age 17!) to a victory over the English! About a 1000 years before this (around 422) the same nation-soul manifested itself through the shepherd girl St. Genevieve. In 451 Attila and his Huns were miraculously diverted when they were sweeping over Gaul and residents of Paris were ready to flee. Like the individual soul, the nation-soul too dies and therefore returns towards the psychic repose. I believe it(the soul in its psychic repose of light and peace) would cast the light of its quintessence on the world. What is however intriguing and perhaps the one dissimilarity between the individual and the nation-soul is that a dead or a moribund nation can resurrect and adorn a completely new garment. This we see in the case of Egypt, Greece, Rome etc.