March 6, 02
(by Karmayogi)
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One who is
fully informed and inspired by the views of Sri Aurobindo can certainly
visualize all these abundant opportunities.
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He can also
trace the history of all
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Assuming the
national and governmental leadership would listen to such a diagnosis, what
will its solution be?
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Sri Aurobindo
says Nature resorted to foreign invasion in order to give
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Human perversity
managed to split the nation again.
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Is it soluble
now? Is it necessary to unite
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Today we see
corruption everywhere, conscious flaming of communal passions and the GDP has
been ranked 134/190.
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Until 1947, the
Congress party was really the Freedom Movement.
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After 1947, a
movement cannot suddenly become a party nor acquire efficiency in
administration, or particularly create an administration for development.
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We see Gandhi
was outstanding, but it is equally true that he stood outside the emotions of
the party as well as the population.
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Nehru was of
the same type, if to a lesser extent.
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Why were Gandhi
and Nehru so isolated from the masses in this sense?
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The foreign
policy was the creation of one man virtually.
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What was the
value of non-alignment in practice?
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How do we
assess these things? and how to proceed
further?
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It is true a
movement for Freedom cannot settle down as a strong administration for
development. What should have been done for us in independent
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If there could
have been something like that in the past which the country missed, is there
something that can be done now to compensate that loss?
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Sri Aurobindo
desired armed revolution for Freedom. Had it been there in the twenties and
freedom won at the point of a gun, those who had died in 1947 in communal riots
would have died as heroes on the battlefield earlier. Still, it could not have
given us an administration for development.
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The direct
cause of corruption today is widespread poverty and the lure of dishonest
earnings from the newly developing industries. If corruption is inevitable,
communal riots are inevitable, it will not be an argument, as it can be given
as the final argument of the fatalists.
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Suppose in 1930
or at least after 1947 the youth had been mobilized as a Prosperity Brigade and
some token efforts of vocational training had been given, or a fling at rural
industries had been there or at least the talk of industrializing the country
had been there, there would have been some hope. But Gandhiji took the
inconceivable view of Khadhi spinning for rural
prosperity. He put the clock backwards.
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If the Muslims
came 800 years ago to unite
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The Englishman
who united
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The final
refusal of the Brahmin which Sri Aurobindo speaks of can be seen as the
spiritual seed a few thousand years ago for Gandhi shunning armed revolution.
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The afflatus
moved away from
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To preserve the
Spirit, the Indian context resorted to Falsehood as a preservative. Hence
poverty, a corollary of falsehood, is widespread.
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We see the
phenomenon of Indians and Americans working together as if the circle of the
evolutionary movement at both ends is meeting. But this is a silver lining, not
a full dawn of glory.
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To Sri
Aurobindo two things are possible.
1) To bring the distant future
now, &
2) To correct all past errors.
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When there is a
conflict between two and it remains unreconciled,
after a time circumstances change and they come together. Foreknowledge can
offer the parties before the conflict precipitates. It happens in many ways.
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The communal
carnage in 1947 subsided when law and order was enforced. As there was no
enmity originally, powerful law and order restored the original harmony.
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The Cold War
gave way because the Russians, having come to know of Western prosperity,
longed for it.
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Jealousy of a
rising man gives way to a desire for his patronage.
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Prosperous
modern Western life is too strong a lure to be resisted by Muslims or Hindus even where higher ideals of
freedom fail. The freedom in the abstract may not attract, but the inherent,
innate freedom offered by the Internet and computer never fails in its charm.
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Sam Petrodia’s STD booths wrought a telecommunication
revolution in
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In every
field--education, agriculture--such a powerful change can be brought about by
small projects, but we shall think of the overall plan.
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The government
is NOT interested in such a plan even when one is offered. The society cannot
be easily stirred without the government coming in in
a big way.
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More than the
lack of interest in the government, the obstacle is the government’s active
self-interest. Should we wait for the wave of corruption to lose its momentum
or are we to confront it?
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How does this
active self-interest, a euphemism for corruption, rise in terms of social
energy organising itself into a viable activity? Here we move from moral
considerations to political process and from there the first principles of
energy organising themselves through direction into viable power, viable in its
pristine pure state of amoral existence.
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Studying the
growth or evolution of the human collective from this perspective Sri Aurobindo
wrote The Human Cycle and later extended it to world politics in The
Ideal of Human Unity.
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The idealistic
Freedom Movement after the transfer of power in 1947 found no expression for
its energy and has gone moribund. These are changes at the level of pure
energy and take place in a trice according to the famous dictum of Sri
Aurobindo that when the best is corrupted it becomes the worst.
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Such changes
take place inside and await the social sanction for outer expression. The
significance of the insignificant is from this phenomenon. The peeping of a
great behaviour into our lives amidst unseemly appearances shows greatness is
fully organized below. The rule is true in good as well as bad contexts.
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In the
Congress, it appeared as unexpressed covetousness for power. Thereafter
degeneration was the rule as there was no ORGANISED political party, nor had it any programme of action. Gandhiji’s
constructive programme was like a car driver carrying
a whip. He did worse than that, he drove a Rolls Royce car by two bullocks in
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Except in
Nehru’s mind, the idea of economic upliftment was not there in anyone’s mind.
It was not on the agenda.
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How did Nehru
come to have this idealism? Why only he, and not others? The Indian Freedom
Movement was not a freedom movement in the original sense of the word. In that
sense, it should have been an armed revolution. It is characteristic that no kshatriya was at the top.
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Gandhiji was a
great leader, unsurpassed in his ability to command obedience. His inspiration
was moral, the field he chose was political. No wonder the best of men fighting
for freedom implicitly obeyed him on meeting him. Politics has never been
moral. Politics is a field of effective self-interest with a touch of
idealism. Henry Kissinger is an advocate of this approach. He pronounces that
it is dangerous to place moral leaders at the head of political movements. That
was his analysis of Nehru. It is true politics does need a strong dose of
morality. It will work for him who is strong enough for that. Nehru and Patel
who implicitly obeyed Gandhiji in Salt Satyagraha, Khilafat
movement, Quit India call, etc., ceased to listen to him when real freedom was
on the agenda. Worse still, they started listening to Lord Mountbatten, a
military leader of the British Raj and accepted his
leadership, against his will, in handling the most momentous crisis weeks after
independence.
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The Indian
freedom movement had no warrior as its leader. Gandhiji’s
mission was an exercise in pious wishful thinking. Still Patel retained at the
next level his capacity for action which was expressed in integration of the
princely states. Nehru’s patriotism found greater expression in prosperity than
anything else. The mass following was genuine, but genuinely blind in following
the greatest of men whose presence in the Freedom Movement was an anachronism
or beside the point. Therefore, Nehru was the sole soul after development. He
had no field in which he could express his urges. The Community Development Programme
of which he was in raptures had no real life in it. Still it made commendable
progress until it became a victim to a deficit in the plan outlays.
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Of any
developmental inspiration, the only thing that surfaced as an idea was Rajaji’s ORIGINAL idea of transforming the village into a polytechnic. His idea
excels even the resourcefulness of Napoleon in that it is a vibration of a
genius in the widest context of collective evolution. It was not mooted at
the All-India level. It was a stillborn child vitiated by its malicious motive
born out of traditional ignorance.
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Here is a gem
of a suggestion which when combined with the modern resources of Western
technology will render each village into a veritable powerhouse that avails of
the latest tools for the exercise of ancient spiritual skills.
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Similarly, ways
and means can be devised to draw entirely upon the reservoir of Indian
spirituality. If the above relates to skill and the totality embraces the
complete personality of Bharat Mata, in every sector
such a strategy is available to unleash the infinite energies of the field.
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It is not wrong
to attempt progress in isolation wherever it is possible. However, a wider
attempt at progress or the widest possible effort at prosperity may meet with
one of the following two possibilities.
1) It may be a non-starter.
2) It may be a great success
with attendant undesirable effects.
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In a society
for a work to be successful, it must have the sanction of its will, support of
energy, endorsement of its organisation and that society must have use for the
results of that work – a usable product.
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Then we say the
society is ready for progress.
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This is true of
any organisation or individual.
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The rule is
negatively stated as no society can be made to progress against its will.
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According to
the above rule, I feel the following can be done if it is delivered through
appropriate strategies.
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The rule
that can accomplish this goal is to take initiative for everything we would do
if there were external compulsion or opportunity.
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What Sam Petrodia did for STD booths, what Farm schools can do for
farmers are only two of the 200 small, isolated projects. The NGOs, interested
individuals, universities and even the government must decide to do at once
what can be done.
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The present
prosperity that is witnessed in the urban areas suggests that.
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Incidentally,
when this move is successful it will absorb all the energies of the nation and
offer some economic progress to all sections so that there will be no energy
for the communal agitations, labour trouble, public hartal,
etc.
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Surely no
project for which social infrastructure is not there can now be attempted. It
depends upon the success of persuading the government to create them.
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If all high
level industries are encouraged to raise themselves one or two
levels--technologically and institutionally--their growth will induce
commensurate growth all over the nation.
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To exhaust
the resources of Insurance by extending it to fresh areas and more fully
utilizing the existing schemes, the country can come alive at a level 7 or 8
levels above the present.
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To study the
present in the light of Sri Aurobindo's theories of the past, one can see
1) the frontier
2) the potentials for progress
3) the half-utilised
potentials
4) how every performance can be
bettered.
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That will
enable us to activate the nation, sap the energies of the negative activities
and push up the frontier further.
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This is an
idea, even if it is conceded validity.
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Can this idea
be REAL at any level at all?
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He who is
seized of this idea must make it real in his life or in the life of his
organization, if he presides over one.
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In his own
personal life, he does represent national life at one level--subtle physical or
subtle vital or subtle mental or mental or vital planes. To receive the Force
in that plane where he is in tune with the national life, the Force will
activate that plane with his ideas.
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The measure
of evolutionary truth that he is able to receive into him will be the measure
of his effectivity.
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Sri Aurobindo
called him a pure Aryan type.
His eminence in the
international life and what he sought there are a reconciliation of the very
opposites.
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He was an
aristocrat sympathizing with the poor.
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A democrat
attracted to Socialism.
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A Gandhian who managed the national armies.
In this broad quest for
reconciliation Nehru evinced the pure Spirit of
Indian religious inheritance.
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Leadership has
always acted on its own strength. No leader has ever attempted successfully in
practice to reconcile wisdom and strength in action. That quest has to this day
remained a quest. If any nation can do it,
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He had no grip
of life’s realism.
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He unwisely
accepted moral ideas in politics.
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He was
sentimental.
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He presided
over a militarily weak nation.
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In spite of
Patel having had total success in integrating the princely states, the one
state he took charge of rewarded him with failure. Here his personal emotional
weakness betrayed him.
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It is characteristic that he was unfamiliar with Sri Aurobindo’s ideology
in spite of having a disciple of His around.
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He was aware of
the essential truth of Development well, but could not deliver it in a fashion
that could benefit the nation. He was a hero of the freedom struggle, not the
architect of economic advancement.
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Nehru’s quest
was great, sensitive, serious and sincere, but he never tried to approach
life’s realities in the context of national political exigencies. He handled
the issues as and when they arose, but never developed a theoretical approach.
So, his great work lay in the field of preserving
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For centuries,
Indian Muslims lived in perfect amity with their neighbours. There was
absolutely no religious reason for the holocaust of communal flare up. This
shows that the ultimate truth of life is not how long peace and amity prevailed
and how sweetly but how powerful the negative excitement can prove if the
occasion arises. Similar flare- ups were built up to the verge of explosion in
the South among castes that lived peacefully. One sure way of bypassing this
intentional political mischief, as was done in
The prosperity of the nation
keeps the strife away. Hard work needed to sustain high income leaves no energy
to feed fanaticism based on biological truths of the bygone past.
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Princes ruling
over small patches of territories were the obstacle for Nature to unite
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In 1942 when Rajaji
was able to see the international issues rightly, Nehru the born
internationalist succumbed to his own sentimental attachment to Gandhiji and
went on a tirade against the communist. He was not
personally touched by them. In 1947, as he was personally touched by
materially important events, he discarded Gandhiji. Here we see the reality of
concrete events.
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One good result of the Gandhian fad of ahimsa
is seen in non-alignment. It requires extraordinary
mental and moral courage NOT to take sides when the whole world is divided into
warring camps. It really went far, giving Nehru, not
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Nehru vacillated when issues did not face him squarely. When they did, he
decided, like anyone else, as his strength permitted. Gandhi was a man of quick
decisions. So also Lord Mountbatten. But Nehru never was. The reality behind Nehru’s indecision was his decisions were emotional,
not moral, involving great commitments, which is not easy.
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Gandhiji’s
mind was clear about his line of action. So also was Mountbatten’s mind. He was
of the military and had his work cut out for him. Nehru was grappling with the
eternal question before the world from the time of Buddha and the issue
remained unresolved. The question is to practise the
warm sympathies of a noble aristocrat, how the poor could be uplifted. He knew
the theoretical answer--develop their consciousness--but as the world could not
resolve it, he was in an eternal dilemma. Gandhiji could
believe in Khadi, Rajaji
trusted in the status quo, but for Nehru the issue was real and there was no
answer. To this day, the world has evolved no answer.
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It is possible to be dissociated from religious worship. One sees in the
West that hard work is prosperity.
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The answer to that question is the answer to the
question the rishis dared not ask and avoided.
It is the question of reconciling Matter and Spirit.
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The USA wants to know. Having
achieved material prosperity, the
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It is reasonable to think that Peace and Food along with guaranted employment and law and order in the newly
emerging totalitarian regimes will awaken the spiritual individual, if the
world comes by the Theory of Social Evolution. It is not impossible that
evolution follow a reasonable course. But the evolutionary urge is too fast to
confine itself to the path of reason as the path is too slow for its journey.
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Between the hurricane of the Force and the well laid out royal paths of
reason, we see another phenomenon where the mental advances in science have
learnt to organise themselves in matter as technology. Its latest version is
the Internet made possible by the advent of computer technology. This being an
organisation, it is integrating itself with all the existing organisations such
as money, communication, education, and entertainment. It does everything necessary to create a subtle organisation. The
world knows several subtle organisations. All institutions are in one sense
subtle organisations. Internet is creating a subtle organisation through the
medium of technology which is Mind expressing itself in Matter.
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The study of the Spirit becoming Matter in creation, Matter evolving
Spirit in life and mind will help one see this process in the most modern
technological advance.
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To take the Internet to any field is progress.
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To see the Spiritual Individual emerging in this process is to mentally
participate in the evolution of the earth.
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To study the historical path Nature’s forces have traveled these few
thousand years and evaluate our present issues in that light is enlightenment.
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To start from now and trace the causes of the two world wars, the
liberation of 45 Asian, African countries, the formation of UN and a host of
its agencies to pure energy of Nature and how it flounders at the level of
force, power and skills is an eminent spiritual study of history.
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One can more easily do it in his own life, assuming his
own personal life is a precise representative of the life of the world.
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The broad outlines are in the writings of Sri Aurobindo.
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The practices in Individual life are in the writings of The Mother.
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A practicing yogi stations himself at a higher perch of consciousness and
lets that indirectly influence life in the subtle plane.
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A patriot who loves the well being of his people who cannot raise himself
to yogic heights can also participate in this movement in ORGANISING his own
consciousness in his own life along these lines. In that measure, he serves.
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He becomes an instrument for the Force in the subtle plane.
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One who progresses in his own life according to the
Force is the instrument of it in his own domain.
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The prosperity of the West is due to Individuality and work.
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Spiritual Prosperity is that of the Spiritual Individual who lives the
Spirit in his life.
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It cannot be a life of smallness or falsehood.
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A Life of Truth Consciousness is Divine Life.
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That Divine Life can have its potent seeds in the life of a devotee who
has ushered himself into luck.
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Luck that is Spiritual Luck in human life
converts human life into a potential field for Divine Life.
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