Footprints of God

The Pilot Through the Passage

Transiting through turbulent times

The Iron Age is ended. Only now

The last fierce spasm of the dying past

Shall shake the nations, and when that has passed,

Earth washed of ills shall raise a fairer brow.

Sri Aurobindo

His [Sri Aurobindo's] retirement from political activity was complete, just as was his personal retirement into solitude in 1910.

But this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he had retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid of any further interest in the world or in the fate of India. It could not mean that, for the very principle of his Yoga was not only to realise the Divine and attain to a complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take all life and all world activity into the scope of this spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are other forces and powers that can act and do act from behind and from above; there is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness, though all do not care to possess or, possessing, to use it, and this power is greater than any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he had attained to it, he used, at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world forces. He had no reason to be dissatisfied with the results or to feel the necessity of any other kind of action. Twice, however, he found it advisable to take in addition other action of a public kind. The first was in relation to the Second World War. At the beginning he did not actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene. He declared himself publicly on the side of the Allies, made some financial contributions in answer to the appeal for funds and encouraged those who sought his advice to enter the army or share in the war effort. Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German victory

Page 41

almost immediately arrested and the tide of war begin to turn in the opposite direction. This he did, because he saw that behind Hitler and Nazism were dark Asuric forces and that their success would mean the enslavement of mankind to the tyranny of evil, and a set-back to the course of evolution and especially to the spiritual evolution of mankind : it would lead also to the enslavement not only of Europe but of Asia, and in it of India, an enslavement far more terrible than any this country had ever endured, and the undoing of all the work that had been done for her liberation. It was this reason also that induced him to support publicly the Cripps' offer and to press the Congress leaders to accept it. He had not, for various reasons, intervened with his spiritual force against the Japanese aggression until it became evident that Japan intended to attack and even invade and conquer India. He allowed certain letters he had written in support of the war affirming his views of the Asuric nature and inevitable outcome of Hitlerism to become public. He supported the Cripps' offer because by its acceptance India and Britain could stand united against the Asuric forces and the solution of Cripps could be used as a step towards independence. When negotiations failed, Sri Aurobindo returned to his reliance on the use of spiritual force alone against the aggressor and had the satisfaction of seeing the tide of Japanese victory, which had till then swept everything before it, change immediately into a tide of rapid, crushing and finally immense and overwhelming defeat. He had also after a time the satisfaction of seeing his previsions about the future of India justify themselves so that she stands independent with whatever internal difficulties.

Sri Aurobindo

India's freedom: A birthday gift

August 15th is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But it has a significance not only for us, but for Asia and the whole world; for it signifies the entry into the comity of nations of a new power with untold potentialities which has a great part to play in determining the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity. To me personally it must naturally be gratifying that this date which was notable only for me because it was my own birthday celebrated annually by those who have accepted my gospel of life, should have acquired this vast significance. As a mystic, I take this identification, not as a coincidence or fortuitous accident, but as a sanction and seal of the Divine Power which guides my steps on the work with which I began life. Indeed almost all the world movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though at that time they looked like impossible dreams, I can Observe on this day either approaching fruition or initiated and on the way to their achievement....

*

Page 42

The dreams Divine

I have always held and said that India was arising , not to serve her own material interests only, to achieve expa nsion, greatness, power and prosperity, - though
these too she must not neglect, - and certainly not like others to acqu ire domination of other peoples , but to live also for God and the world as a helper and leader of the whole human race. Those aims and ideals were in their natural order these : a revolution which would achieve India's freedom and her unity; the resurgence and liberation of Asia and her return to the great role which she had played in the progress of human civilisation; the rise of a new, a greater, brighter and nobler life for mankind which for its ent ire realisat ion would rest outwardly on an international unification of the separate existence ofthe peoples , preserving and securing their national life but drawing them together into an overr iding and consummating oneness ; the gift by India of her spiritual knowledge and her means for the spiritualisation of life to the whole race ; finally , a new step in the evolution which , by uplifting the consc iousness to a higher level, would begin the solution of the many problems of existence which have perplexed and vexed humanity, since men began to think and to dream of individual perfect ion and a perfect society....

*

East and West: A common hope, a common destiny

East and West have the same human nature , a common human destiny, the same aspirat ion after a greate r perfect ion, the same seeking after something higher
than itself , something towards which inwardly and even outwardly we move . There has been a tendency in some minds to dwell on the spiritual ity or mysticism of the East and the mater ialism of the West; but the West has had no less than the East its spiritual seek ings and , though not in such profusion , its saints and sages and mystics , the East has had its mater ialist ic tendencies, its material splendours, its similar or ident ical dealings with life and Matter and the world in which we live. East and West have always met and mixed more or less closely , they have powerfully influenced each other and at the present day are under an increas ing compuls ion of Nature and Fate to do so more than ever before . There is a common hope, a common destiny, both spiritual and material , for which both are needed as co-workers . It is no longer towards divis ion and difference that we should turn our minds, but on unity, union, even oneness necessary for the pursuit and realisation of a common ideal , the destined goal , the fulfilment towards which Nature in her beginning obscurely set out and must in an increasi ng light of knowledge replacing her first ignorance constantly persevere.

Sri Aurobindo

Page 43