Light To Superlight

APPENDIX—(A)

Sri Aurobindo to Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das

Arya Office

Pondicherry.

the 18th November, 1922.

Dear Chitta,

It is a long time, almost two years, I think, since I have written a letter to any one. I have been so much retired and absorbed in my sadhana, that contact with the outside world has till lately been reduced to a minimum. Now that I am looking outward again, I find that circumstances lead me to write first to you—I say circumstances because it is a need that makes me take up the pen after so long a disuse.

The need is in connection with the first outward work that I am undertaking after this long inner retirement. Barin has gone to Bengal and will see you in connection with it, but a word from me is perhaps necessary and therefore I send you through Barin this letter. I am also giving a letter of authority from which you will understand the immediate nature of the need for which I have sent him to raise funds. But I may add something to make it more definite.

I think you know my present ideas and attitude towards life and work to which it has brought me. I have become confirmed in a perception which I had always, less clearly and dynamically then, but which has now become more and more evident to me, that the true basis of work and life is the spiritual, that is to say, a new consciousness to be developed only by Yoga. I see more and more manifestly that man can never get out of the futile circle the race is always treading until he has raised himself on to the new foundation. I believe also that it is the mission of India to make this great victory for the world. But what precisely was the nature of the dynamic power of this greater consciousness? What was the condition of its effective truth? How could it be brought down, mobilised, organised, turned upon life? How could our present instruments, intellect, mind, life, body be made true and perfect channels for this great transformation ?

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This was the problem I have been trying to work out in my own experience and I have now a sure basis, a wide knowledge and some mastery of this secret. Not yet its fullness and complete imperative presence—therefore, I have still to remain in retirement. For I am determined not to work in the external field till 1 have got sure and complete possession of this new power of action, not to build except on a perfect foundation. But still I have gone far enough to be able to undertake one work on a larger scale than before—the training of others to receive this sadhana and prepare themselves as I have done, for without that my future work cannot even be begun. There are many who desire to come here and whom I can admit for the purpose, there are a greater number who can be trained at a distance; but I am unable to carry on unless I have sufficient funds to be able to maintain a centre and one or two at least outside. 1 need therefore much larger resources than I at present command. I have thought that by your recommendation and influence you may help Barin to gather them for me. May I hope that you will do this for me?

One word to avoid a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economic organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his Samgha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about—my own work which I must do myself and no one else can do for me.

I have been following with interest your political activities, specially, your present attempt to give more flexible and practically effective turn to the non-co-operation movement. I doubt whether you will succeed against such contrary forces, but I wish you success in your endeavour. I am most interested however, in your indications about Swaraj; for I have been developing my own ideas about the organisation of a true Indian Swaraj and I shall look forward to see how far yours will fall in with mine.

Yours

Aurobindo.

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APPENDIX—(B)

Sri Aurobindo

[ From 'Standard Bearer' Volume I, No. 8, 3rd October, 1920 ]

Mr B.C. Chatterjee, Mr A. Chaudhury and several other respectable gentlemen in their joint appeal to the people on Sept. 29 quote a long passage from Sri Aurobindo's "Political Will and Testament" published in the 'Karmo yogin' on the eve of his departure for Pondicherry. A short time before, Dr Munzee, of the Congree Reception Committee notified to the different provincial committees recommending the name of Sri Aurobindo for the presidentship of the ensuing congress. Almost simultaneously, Nagpur, Bengal, the Punjab join their voices in horus acclaiming his name at the top of the gamut. Other provinces are expected to follow suit. There is a voluminous ring of public opinion which seeks to draw out 'Aurobindo-Yogi' (we take these remarks here almost verbatim from the Janma-bhumi, last week's issue) from his 'cave' of sadhana and points him as the right man who shall be able to 'straight-course' the political current of the country, which already shows signs of running out in wayward directions. Bewildered India, in her day of trial, wistfully looks up to her dedicated son for lead and direction.

The call of the country on Sri Aurobindo is indeed a new and remarkable feature in recent Indian politics. Mahatma Gandhi, the man of the hour himself anticipated it as early back as December last, when he had launched himself in his Satyagraha campaign and like the man in Macedonia with St. Paul, sent him a message 'to come over and help'. In reply, (so far as we can recall now) Sri Aurobindo had to say that he was not ready to join in the old politics and had no new programme formed till then for a more spiritual line of work and that there would be no use of his going out till he saw his way. Since then no doubt the situation had changed a great deal, the period of his spiritual preparation too seems to be drawing towards its close and all recent political hints referred to above must be regarded as but so much external reflex of a direct spiritual call to more hurried inner completion and a new outward determination.

Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is for the three hundred millions of

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his own people first, last and ever more and eventually for all humanity. The new spiritual message which he has been given to utter is clearly and unequivocally delivered through his various organs, the 'Arya', the 'Parbartak' and latterly through our own humble instrumentality of the 'Standard Bearer'. Of recent times the 'Narayan' too under the able guardianship of our beloved brother-in-arms, Srijut Barindra Kumar Ghosh has been coming out with the same inspiration behind. The word is there for the country, daily growing clearer and clearer as we have ever and anon announced in unmistakable language, it is not merely a message of the spirit but also of life and work. The new work of Sri Aurobindo is already firmly rooted in the fine soil of Bengal, the heart and soul of New India.

We do not know what exactly Sri Aurobindo's countrymen think of his new Gospel. Perhaps it is only as the whilom political leader of vast scholarship and inimitable self-sacrifice, with a strong spiritual bent of mind, that they have known him all along and still remember, and as the political captain and political guru, they long to have him once more in their midst in their visible field of action. The country is awake, her immense heart teems with an infinite content of rolling emotions and she seeks with all the tremendous zeal of her renascent mother-soul her rightful atma-pratistha as the queen of the world. But arisen from her sleep even before the full break of dawn, she is still groping amidst the chequered gloom of the misty twilight. She pours her heart's lava-flood now over here, now over there; she turns her volcanic desire-energy in this direction and that, and thus she expends and exhausts herself in stupendous fruitless toil. Who, amongst her innumerable children has done the mighty tapasya so as to be fit to realise intimately her inner will and lead her faultlessly and triumphantly to her desired goal?

The path which Mahatma Gandhi shows today is not wholly new to Bengal. It was shown by Sri Aurobindo fourteen years and a half ago. Aurobindo was still then the man of the mind and heart, the man of the prophetic reason and intuition, and to his countrymen he was the recognized head of Nationalist Young India, the man of inspired politics. But the voice that spoke to him in Boroda before the Surat Congress, made itself felt more and more as the years advanced. In the Jail, during his period of confinement it grew clearer and he realised the message

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and sadhana of the Geeta and in his subsequent speeches and writings in the "Dharma" and the "Karmo yogin", Sri Aurobindo declared to his fellow countrymen in electrifying accents the new move of his life-sadhana.

Ten years ago, when rumour was afloat that the authorities were thinking of laying their hands even on Aurobindo, he had heard of it but cared not. Sister Nivedita who was still alive and worked by his side, warned him more than once and urged him again and again to shift from Calcutta into safer retreat. Aurobindo all along turned a deaf ear both to the threats of his opponents and to the entreaties of his friends, for the call had not come and he waited calm and cool wrapt in single-minded meditation to hear the Mother's voice in his soul. It was not until only a month before his departure that he did feel that the first chapter of his national duty was over and that ths time was ripe to close it up and dive deep into the ocean of India's spiritual Sadhana. The call in him to remove to another sphere took shape in the month's space but neither the Government nor the people could grow ready with him nor would heed to his note but they just as before went on with their ill-starred policies of action. This was what he last wrote on the then political situation "Revolution paralyses our efforts to deal peacefully but effectually with Repression. Repression refuses to allow us to cut the ground from under the feet of Revolution. Both demand a clear field for their conflict. Let us therefore stand aside........." And the Mother decided that he do stand aside. So Sri Aurobindo, obedient to the Mother's direction, had no option left, but to return into the solitude of Sadhana.

Since then another Yuga has rolled away. All the details of his great Sadhana is inexpressible in so many words. Language is too poor, too external to reveal its rich contents to any greater extent than giving the mere dry outline. We shall not attempt that impossible feat. Those, inspired from within to give themselves up to the spiritual Sadhana, feel in their heart of hearts the irresistible flow of the new tide, the universal Shakti descends like the rains of heaven on such souls of consecrated Sadhaks and fills them with new illumination and might from day to day, they already are on the path and travelling with joy and they know as doubtlessly as the existence of yourself and myself, as the truth of the planets and the suns, that they are driving through

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the straight and unerring path to the sure and immortal goal. To others it is necessary and it may be useful to indicate through the columns of the 'Standard Bearer' the new direction and turn of Sri Aurobindo's life-Sadhana—that will silence the voice of doubt in many who are quite in the dark as regards his motive and doings, as well as serve to extend his helpful reach of love to those who are eager to grasp our arm of spiritual fellowship.

The Gospel of Aurobindo is the gospel of "New Construction". The Self expresses itself by creating itself spiritually as well as materially. On the one hand, we have to stand on a solid bedrock of economic foundation, we have to build mainly and entirely a self-reliant life-structure. For that we need only self-help and self-support. We have to till our own fields, manufacture our own clothes, we have to earn a free national livelihood through trade and commerce, through industry and agriculture, through a re-organisation of the indigenous arts and crafts, but a re-organisation of all on the communal basis of economic solution, avoiding as we have repeatedly warned the poisonous principle of European industrialism.

On the other hand, we have to incarnate in our soul the great life-message of Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo is no longer the man of the mind or the intellect or the prana or the body, he has long left the half-ripe sattwa-rajasic man in him far behind him in Bengal. The shadow Aurobindo is no more. The Mother has made him forget his ego so completely, that it is no longer A-u-r-o-b-i-n-d-o, but his only last vestige, the faintest echo, of his 'Auro' alone, that remains of the old being in his new consciousness. The old is no more. He is altogether a changed being, a new man. The new is born even in the marrows of his soul. This new 'Auro' will return to Bengal, return to his field of work in his visible form. The silent leader of the new seed-commune, will come and take the field once more as the visible captain of the larger Commune of People. But before he returns, the country has to prepare herself. The flesh and bone of Aurobindo is nothing, it is his mighty spirit, his yoga, his mission, faith and work, which the nation must know, understand, and realise in their soul of souls. That preparation is not politics, but spiritual consecration. 'Auro' is the Mother's child, lost in Her, one with Her and to receive him, they must consecrate to Her, in the full spirit of Divine "Utsarga". It is high time that

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the nation be spiritually ready, to get 'Auro' back to work; he-will be back, yet none but the Mother knows when or where. But meanwhile, is India really ready?

APPENDIX—(C)

Sreejut Aravinda Ghose.

[From "Swaraj", Edited by Bipin Chandra Pal. Reprinted from 'Karmayogin', Volume I, Nos. 7 & 8, 22nd & 29th Shravan 1316 B.S.—August 1909]

The youngest in age among those who stand in the forefront of the nationalist propaganda in India but in endowment, education and character, perhaps, superior to them all—Aravinda seems distinctly marked out by Providence to play in the future of this movement a part not given to any of his colleagues and contemporaries. The other leaders of the movement have left their life behind them: Aravinda has his before him. Nationalism is their last love: it is Aravinda's first passion. They are burdened with the cares and responsibilities of large families or complex relations: Aravinda has a small family and practically no cumulative obligations. His only care is for his country—the Mother, as he always calls her. His only recognised obligations are to her. Nationalism, at the best, a concern of the intellect with some, at the lowest a political cry and aspiration with, others, is with Aravinda the supreme passion of his soul. Few, indeed, have grasped the full force and meaning of the Nationalist ideal as Aravinda has done. But even of these very few— though their vision may be clear, their action is weak. Man cannot, by a fiat of his will, at once recreate his life, OUR Karma follows us with relentless insistence from day to day and from death to death. To see the vision of truth and yet not to be possessed by that supreme passion for it which burns up all other desires and snaps a sunder, like aspen bands, all other ties and obligations-this is the divine tragedy of most finer natures . They have to cry out with St. Paul at every turn of life's tortuous path-"The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak". But blessed are they for whom this tragic antithesis between the ideal and the real has been cancelled: for whom to know the truth is to love it, to love the truth is to strive after it, and to

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strive after the truth is to attain it: in whom there is no disparity, either in time or degree, between the idea and its realisation— in whom the vision of the ideal, by its own intrinsic strength at once attunes every craving of the flesh, every movement of the mind, every emotion of the heart, and every impulse of the will— to itself: who have to strive for its realisation, not within, but without: who have to struggle not with their own Self but with the Not-Self, who have to fight and conquer not themselves but others, in order to establish the Kingdom of God realised by them in the relations of their own inner life, in the outer actualities and appointments of the life of their own people or of humanity at large. These are, so to say, the chosen of God. They are born leaders of men. Commissioned to serve special ends affecting the life and happiness of large masses of men, they bear a charmed life. They may be hit, but cannot be hurt. They may be struck, but are never stricken. Their towering optimism, and the Grace of God, turn every evil into good, every opposition into a help, every loss into a gain. By the general verdict of his countrymen, Aravinda stands today among these favoured sons of God.

Birth is not an accident. "Accident of birth"—is the language of infidel empiricism. Nature has no room for accidents in her schemes. It is only man's inability to trace her secrets that has coined this word to cover his ignorance. Man's birth is no more an accident than the rise and fall of tides. There can really be no accidents in evolution, the law of natural selection has killed their chance altogether. But does the operation of natural selection start only after the birth of the organism or does it precede it? Is it only a biological, or also a psychological law? Like the problems of biology, those of psychology also are inexplicable, except on this theory. The inference is irresistible that there is such a thing as natural selection even in the psychic plane. The spirit, by the impulse of its own needs, must choose and order the conditions of its own life even as the physical organism does. This is the psychic significance of heredity. Life from this point of view is not a lottery, but a matter really of determined choice. The needs of the organism supply the organs in the lower kingdom: the desires of the heart collect and create their necessary equipment and environment for the human being. On no other hypothesis can the riddle of the human life be explained more satisfactorily.

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It may not explain everything, but it explains many things absolutely un-understandable and inexplicable on any other hypothesis. This at least has been the Hindu view from time immemorial. A crude intuition at first, it became a settled conviction with the people subsequently, with a fundamental philosophy of causation behind it. And this theory stands curiously verified in Aravinda Ghose.

Two strong currents of thoughts, ideals, and aspirations met together and strove for supremacy in Bengal, among the generation to which Aravidada's parents belonged. One was the current of Hindu Nationalism—of the revived life, culture and ideals of the nation that had lain dormant for centuries and had been discarded as lower and primitive by the first batch of English-educated Hindus, especially in Bengal. The other was the current of Indo-Anglicism—the onrushing life, culture and ideals of the foreign rulers of the land which, expressing themselves through British law and administration on the one side, and the new schools and universities on the other, threatened to swamp and drown the original culture and character of the people. The two stocks from which Aravinda sprang represented these two conflicting forces in the country. His maternal grandfather, Raj Narayan Bose was one of the makers of modern Bengal. A student of David Hare, a pupil of De Rozario, an alumnus of the Hindu College, the first English college that had the support of both the Hindu community and the British rulers of the Province, Raj Narayan Bose started life as a social and religious reformer. But while he caught as fully as any one else among his contemporaries, the impulse of the new illumination, he did not lose so completely as many of them did, his hold on the fundamental spirit of the culture and civilisation of his race. He joined the Brahma-Samaj, under Maharshi Devendra Nath Tagore, but felt repelled by the denational spirit of the later developments in that movement under Keshub Chandra Sen. In fact, it is difficult to say, to which of its two leaders—Devendra Nath or Raj Narayan, the Adi or the older Brahma Samaj, as it came to be called after Keshub Chandra Sen seceded from it and established the Brahma-Samaj of India—was more indebted for its intense and conservative nationalism. But it may be safely asserted that while Devendra Nath's nationalism had a dominating theological note, Raj Narayan's had both a theological and

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social, as well as a political emphasis. In him, it was not merely the spirit of Hinduism that rose up in arms against the onslaught of European Christianity but, the whole spirit of Indian culture and manhood stood up to defend and assert itself against every form of undue foreign influence and alien domination. While Keshub Chandra Sen pleaded for the recognition of the truths in the Hindu scriptures side by side with those in the Bible, Raj Narayan Bose proclaimed the superiority of Hinduism to Christianity. While Keshub Chandra was seeking to reconstruct Indian, and specially Hindu, social life, more or less after the British model, Raj Narayan's sturdy patriotism and national self-respect rebelled against the enormity, and came forward to establish the superiority of Hindu social economy to the Christian social institutions and ideals. He saw the onrush of European goods into Indian markets, and tried to stem the tide by quickening what we would now call the Swadeshi spirit, long before any one else had thought of it. It was under his inspiration that a Hindu Mela, or National Exhibition, was started a full quarter of a century before the Indian National Congress thought of an Indian Industrial Exhibition. The founder of this Hindu Mela was also the first Bengalee who organised gymnasia for the physical training of the youths of the nation. Stick and sword plays, and other ancient but decadent sports and pastimes of the people that have come into vogue recently, were originally revived at the Hindu Mela, under Raj Narayan Bose's inspiration and instruction. Raj Narayan Bose did not openly take any part in politics, but his writings and speeches did a good deal to create that spirit of self-respect and self-assertion in the educated classes that have since found such strong expression in our recent political activities.

A strong conservatism, based upon a reasoned appreciation of the lofty spirituality of the ancient culture and civilisation of the country, a sensitive patriotism, born of a healthy and dignified pride of race ; and a deep piety expressing itself through all the varied practical relations of life—these were the characteristics of the life and thought of Raj Narayan Bose. He represented the high-water-mark of the composite culture of his country— Vedantic, Islamic, and European. When he discoursed on Brahma-Jnana or Knowledge of the God, brought to mind the ancient Hindu Gnostics of the Upanishads. When he cited

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verses from the Persian poets, filling the ear with their rich cadence with his eyes melting in love and his mobile features aglow with a supreme spiritual passion—he reminded one of the old Moslem devotees. And when he spoke on the corruptions of current religion, or the soulless selfishness of modern politics, he appeared as a nineteenth century rationalist and iconoclast of Europe. In his mind and life he was at once a Hindu Maharishi, a Moslem Sufi, and a Christian theist of the Unitarian type ; and like Ram Mohan Roy, the founder of the Brahma-Samaj, of which Raj Narayan Bose was for many years the honoured president, he also seems to have worked out a synthesis in his own spiritual life between the three dominant world cultures that have come face to face in modern India. Like Ram Mohan, Raj Narayan also seems to have realised in himself, intellectually and spiritually, that ideal of composite nationhood in India, which the present generation has been called upon to actualise in the social, economic, and political relations of their country. Raj Narayan Bose was also an acknowledged leader in Bengalee literature. A writer in the "Modern Review" (Calcutta) calls Raj Narayan Bose the "Grandfather of Indian Nationalism." He was Aravinda's maternal grandfather ; and Aravinda owes not only his rich spiritual nature, but even his very superior literary capacity to his inherited endowments from his mother's line.

If his maternal grandfather represented the ancient spiritual forces of his nation, Aravinda's father, Dr Krishnadhan Ghose, represented to a very large extent the spirit of the new illumination in his country. Dr Ghose was essentially a product of English education and European culture. A man of exceptional parts, he finished his education in England, and taking his degree in medicine, entered the medical service of the Indian Government. He was one of the most successful Civil Surgeons of his day, and, had his life been spared, he would have assuredly risen to the highest position in his service open to any native of India. Like the general body of Indian young men who came to finish their education in England in his time, Krishnadhan Ghose was steeped in the prevailing spirit of Anglicism. Like all of them, he was a thoroughly Anglicised Bengalee, in his ways of life. But unlike many of them, underneath his foreign clothing and ways he had a genuine Hindu heart and soul. Anglicism distorts

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Hindu character, cripples, where it cannot kill, the inherited altruism of the man, and makes him more or less neglectful of the numerous family and social obligations under which every Hindu is born. Like the original Anglo-Saxon, his Indian imitation also lives first and foremost for himself, his wife and children, and though he may recognise the claims of his relations to his charity, he scarcely places his purse at their service as an obligation. But Krishnadhan Ghose was an exception. Though he affected the European's way of living, he never neglected the social obligations of the Hindu. His purse was always open for his needy relations. The poor of the town, where he served and lived, had in him a true friend and a ready help. In fact, his regard for the poor frequently led him to sacrifice to their present needs the future prospects of his own family and children. He had his sons educated in England ; and so great was his admiration for English life and English culture that he sent them out here even before they had received any schooling in their own country. But his charities made such constant and heavy inroad into his tolerably large income, that he could not always keep his own children living in England, provided with sufficient funds for their board and schooling. Sons of comparatively rich parents they were brought up almost in abject poverty in a friendless country where wealth counts so much, not only physically, but also intellectually and morally. Keen of intellect, tender of heart, impulsive and generous almost to recklessness, regardless of his own wants, but sensitive to the suffering of others—this was the inventory of the character of JDr Krishnadhan Ghosh. The rich blamed him for his recklessness, the man of the world condemned him for his absolute lack of prudence, the highest virtue in his estimation. But the poor, the widow and the orphan loved him for his selfless piety, and his soulful benevolence.

When death overtook him, in the very prime of life, there was desolation in many a poor home in his district. It not only left his own children in absolute poverty, but destroyed the source of ready relief to many helpless families among his relations and neighbours. His quick intellectual perceptions, his large sympathies, his self-less ness, characterised by an almost absolute lack of what man of world, always working with an eye to the

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main chance, calls prudence, as a matter of personal calculation —these are Aravinda's inheritance in his father's line.

As a boy, Aravinda received his early education in a public school in England. The old head-master of this school is reported to have said, when Aravinda's name came prominently before the British public in connection with the State trial of which he was made the principal accused, this time last year—that of all the boys who passed through his hands during the last twenty-five or thirty years, Aravinda was by far and above the most richly endowed in intellectual capacity.

From this school he went to Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a student of European classics, and passed the Indian Civil Service Examination with great credit. Failing, however, to stand the required test in horsemanship he was not allowed to enter the Covenanted Service of the Indian Government. But returning to India, he found employment in the Native State of Baroda, where his endowments and scholarship soon attracted the notice of the authorities, leading to his appointment to the post of Vice-Principal of the State College. Had Aravinda cared for earthly honours or wealth, he had a very splendid opening for both in Baroda. He was held in great respect by the Maharaja. He was loved by the educated classes in the State. He was exceedingly popular with the general public. All these opened very large possibilities of preferment before him in the service of this premier Native State in India.

But there was a new awakening in the country. A new school of thought had arisen, demanding a thorough reconsideration of the old and popular political, economic, and educational ideas and ideals of the people. It abjured the old mendicant methods of prayer, protest and petition. It proclaimed a new gospel of self-help and self-reliance. It called out to the spirit of India to come to its own, to stand upon its own inner strength, and put forth its own native efforts, for the realisation of its true native life. It called aloud for leaders and workers—for the poet, the prophet, the philosopher, the statesman, the organiser and man of action, to help the sacred cause. It laid on all who would accept the call, the heaviest self-sacrifice yet demanded of any public man in modern India. It wanted men who would not only, as hitherto, give to their country their leisure moments and their idle pennies, but who would consecrate

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all their working hours and their hard earnings to the service of the Motherland. The call went home to the heart of Aravinda. His own native Province called for him. It laid on him the vow of poverty. It offered him the yoke of the saviours of their people and the up lifters of humanity—the yoke of calumny, persecution, imprisonment and exile. Aravinda obeyed the Mother's call, accepted her stern conditions, and cheerfully took up her chastening yoke. He gave up his place in Baroda worth £560 a year, to take up the duties of Principal in the College started at Calcutta under the new National Council of Education on a bare subsistence of £10 a month.

This movement of National Education owed its origin to the latest education-policy of the Indian Government, who sought to turn the institutions of public instruction in the country to distinctly political ends. The old education had given birth to wide-spread disaffection. It had called into being "the discontented B.A.'s." The new educational policy initiated by Lord Curzon was directed towards curing this evil. Its aim was to manufacture citizens—men who would be eternally content to remain loyal to the autocratic government in their country, without any desire for free citizenship. The movement of National Education was the people's reply to this official policy. It took definite shape and form as a result of the persecution of school-boys, by the Executive in Bengal, for their participation in the new political movements in the country. But it had a more fundamental need. The officially-controlled education had been condemned by both friends and foes alike. It was shallow and rootless. It imparted the shadow, but not the substance, of modern culture to the youths of the nation. It was artificial, because foreign in both its spirit and form. It led to a fearful waste of youthful time and energy by imposing the necessity of learning a foreign language, to receive instructions through its medium in all the higher branches of study. It was controlled by an alien Bureaucracy, in the interests, mainly, of their own political position, and only secondarily in those of the real intellectual life of the pupils. It was excessively literary, and detrimental to the industrial and economic life of the country. The movement of National Education was started to counteract these evils of the officially-controlled system of public instruction. It proposed to promote—"Education, scientific, literary, and

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technical, on National lines, and under National control." But though owing its initiation to the threats of the Government to close the doors of the official schools and colleges and universities against those who would take any part—even to the extent of simply attending—in any political meeting or demonstration—the National Education Movement in Bengal sought to avoid all open causes of friction with the authorities, and professed to work independent of but not in opposition to the Government. Political in its origin, it tried to avoid all conflicts with the authorities by assuming an absolutely non-political attitude.

The school of thought to which Aravinda belonged did not support this declaration of the National Council of Education, and could not appreciate this needless dread, as they thought, of offending official susceptibilities. But they had to accept the verdict of the majority. One of the most unfortunate things in modern public life is the dependence of all large public movements on the help and support of the wealthy classes in the community. Large and organised movements in our times cannot be carried on without large and substantial financial support ; and the rich are not willing, as they were in the more primitive times, to lend their support to any institution without seeking to control it. This unfortunate condition lowers the intellectual and moral tone of many a public institution, which, though financed with the monies of the richer classes, would have been able, without their personal intervention or control, to keep up a very superior intellectual or moral standard. This is particularly injurious in comparatively primitive communities, where realised wealth has not yet had time to ally itself with high culture, and where, owing to the absence of a vigorous and free national life, it has but little incentive and lesser opportunities for cultivating such an alliance.

The Nationalists are a poor party in India, and the National Council of Education, though it owed its initiation to their efforts, passed, almost from the very beginning, beyond their sphere of influence, and Aravinda's position as the nominal head of the National College, practically controlled by men of different views and opinions, became almost from the very beginning more or less anomalous.

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This was, from some point of view, very unfortunate. Aravinda had received the best modern education that any man of his country and generation could expect to have. He had for some years been a teacher of youth in Baroda, and had acquired considerable practical experience in his art. He had clearly realised the spirit and actualities of the life of his nation, and knew how the most advanced principles of modern pedagogy could be successfully worked into a thoroughly national system of education in India. He went to Calcutta as an educationist. He knew that the foundations of national independence and national greatness must be laid in a strong and advanced system of national education. He had a political ideal, no doubt ; but politics meant to him much more than is ordinarily understood by the term. It was not a game of expediency but a school of human character, and, in its turn, reacting upon it, should develop and strengthen the manhood and womanhood of the nation. Education could no more be divorced from politics than it could be divorced from religion or morals. Any system of education that helps such isolation and division between the various organic relations of life, is mediaeval, and not modern. It is the education of the cloister—abstract and unreal; not the education of the modern man, eager to realise his fullest manhood in and through every relation of life. Aravinda is an apostle of modern education. Indeed, his ideal of modern education is even higher than what is understood by modern education ordinarily in Europe. It is a supremely spiritual ideal. Its aim is to actualise the highest and deepest God-consciousness of the human soul, in the outer life and appointments of human society. It was the temptation of having an open field for the realisation of this lofty educational ideal which brought Aravida to Calcutta. Had he been given a free hand in the new National College there, that institution would have opened an altogether new chapter not only in the history of modern education in India, but perhaps in the whole world. To work the realism of the spirit of modern culture into the mould of the idealism of ancient theosophy, would not only secure for India her lost position as teacher of humanity, but would, perchance, even save modern civilisation from total collapse and destruction under the pressure of a gross and greedy industrialism.

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But, unfortunately, neither individuals nor communities can easily break away from their own past, Most of the members of the new National Council of Education in Bengal were products of the old university. Some of the leading men in the new organisation had been closely associated, for many years, with the actual working out of the old vicious system. Steeped in the traditions of this old education, they could hardly be expected to thoroughly enter into the spirit of modern pedagogy. They were willing to give fair room to the new principles, as an experiment ; but could hardly give them their absolute and wholehearted support, as truths. It seemed to them like jumping into the unknown. While accepting the principle of National Education as education "on national lines" and "under national control" and, consequently, pledged not to accept any official aid, they were not free from the fear of possible official opposition, which, if once aroused, would make their work, they thought, absolutely impossible. They had a real dread of the Bureaucracy, and no strong confidence, really, in their own people. The dominating and declared ideal of the new Council, consequently, came to be not in any way to supplant, but only to supplement, the existing Government-and-University-system of education in the country. A timid, temporising spirit, so galling to the reformer and the man with new visions and large ideas, generally guided the work of the National Council, and it made it almost impossible for Aravinda to throw himself heart and soul into his educational work in Calcutta. His place in the National College, though he was its nominal Principal, was not really that of organiser and initiator, but simply of a teacher of language and history, even as it had been in the Maharajah's College at Baroda. He had left Baroda in the hope of finding a wider scope of beneficent and patriotic activity in the new college in Calcutta. That hope was not realised. Almost from the very beginning he saw the hopelessness of working out a truly modern and thoroughly national system of education, through the organisation at whose service he had so enthusiastically placed himself.

But the man possessed by pure passion creates, where he cannot find them ready-made for him, his own instruments for the realisation of his supreme end in life. And wider fields of public usefulness were soon opened before Aravinda. The

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National School in Bengal was without a daily English organ. A new paper was started. Aravinda was invited to join its staff. A joint stock company was shortly floated to run it, and Aravinda became one of the directors. This paper—"Bande Mataram"— at once secured for itself a recognised position in Indian journalism. The hand of the master was in it from the very beginning. Its bold attitude, its vigorous thinking, its clear ideas, its chaste and powerful diction, its scorching sarcasm and refined witticism were unsurpassed by any journal in the country, either Indian or Anglo-Indian. It at once raised the tone of every Bengalee paper, and compelled the admiration of even hostile Anglo-Indian editors. Morning after morning not only Calcutta, but the educated community almost in every part of the country, eagerly awaited its vigorous pronouncements on the stirring questions of the day. It even forced itself upon the notice of the callous and self-centred British press. Long extracts from it commenced to be reproduced week after week, even in the exclusive columns of the "Times" in London. It was a force in the country which none dared to ignore, however much they might fear or hate it, and Aravinda was the leading spirit, the central figure, in the new journal. The opportunities that were denied him in the National College he found in the pages of the "Bande Mataram," and from a tutor of a few youths he thus became the teacher of a whole nation.

APPENDIX—(D)

The Car of Jagannath

[Translated from the Bengali magazine 'Prabartak' 30th Chaitra 1325 B.S. (1918 A.D.). Published in Weekly English 'Standard-Bearer'—Vol 1, issue No. 37, the 1st May 1921.]

The ideal society is the vehicular instrument of God, the soul of collective humanity—the chariot of the Lord of the world. Unity, freedom, knowledge and power are the four wheels of this chariot.

But the society that the human intellect has formed or the impure vital play of nature has given birth to, is otherwise. It

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is not the chariot of God who rules the collective humanity, but it is the vehicle of that collective ego which over-shadows the free soul and misinterprets the divine working in man. It treads aimlessly along a path of action, full of diverse enjoyments— driven by the unfulfilled determination of the intellect and the old or new incentive of the unregenerate lower nature. So long as the ego is the master, to find the goal is impossible ; even when the goal is known it is very hard to drive the chariot straight towards it. For the ego is a great bar to the attainment of divine perfection of the individual as well as the collective self.

There are three principal divisions in an ordinary society. The first is the chariot of an expert skilled machine, beautiful, bright, pure and happy. It is conveyed by strong well-trained horses. It proceeds along the easy path carefully, slowly and steady. Sattwic Ego is its passenger. The chariot is moving round and round that high region, on which is situated the temple of God but always keeping at a considerable distance and so he finds it difficult to reach the nearest proximity of that high eminence. If he is to reach it at all, he must alight from the chariot and walk on foot. The society of the old Aryans of the post-vedic times is a chariot of this type.

The second is the motor-car of a dexterous pleasure-loving fashion-monger. In a sandy hurricane, breaking the royal route with stupendous impetuosity and thunder-peals it hurries on in turbulent and unexhausted motion and deafening the ears of the passers-by with the trumpet-voices and trampling under the wheels whosoever comes across its path, it sweeps on and on. The life of the passenger is liable to be in peril at every step, mishaps and accidents grow and thicken ; the car breaks down and after laborious mending it wends its way with vaunted speed. It has no fixed end in view but to every new sight that comes across the reach of its vision, Rajasik Ahankara, the owner of the car, turns its course and cries out with a thrill shout, "Here is the goal, here is the goal." The drive in this chariot involves plenty of enjoyment and felicity though not unaccompanied with chances of unavoidable dangers at times, but it cannot lead us to God. The modern occidental society is a motor-car of this description.

The third is a dirty, time-worn and half-broken bullock-cart slow-moving like a tortoise, driven by a pair of emaciated,

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starving, half-dead oxen passing on its journey over the narrow rural path. Inside the cart is a blind old man, lazy and slothful, in dirty tatters, belly-in-all, smoking his mud-coated "chukka" in the exuberance of his mental felicity and listening to the shrill jarring sounds of the cart, he feels himself plunged in the dim and shadowy recollections of the past. The owner of this cart is Tamasik Ahankara and the name of the carter is book-lore. He determines the hour of starting and ascertains the direction of his route by consulting the almanac and keeps muttering to himself, "What is extant or what was existent is good enough but the attempt at anything new is bad." Though it cannot take us to God Himself, this car has the immediate possibility of leading to Impersonal Formless Brahman or the Eternal Void.

So long as the cart of the Tamasik Ego (Ahankara) moves along the uncouth village-path, it is safe. But when it makes its appearance on the highway of the world where quite a number of speedy motor-cars run hither and thither, the vital being shudders to think what its end will be ; for the danger is that at the time of changing the route of the car, the Tamasik Ego (Ahankara) might be quite at a loss to see and accept the new situation with an unerring instinct. It has not even the desire to recognise it because by so doing it happens to be deprived of profession and ownership. When the problem thus presents itself, some of the passengers say, "Let it remain so, it is better, for it is ours" —these are conservative and emotional patriots. Some say, "Let us mend it by tinkering reforms here and there." This easy process, they say, will transform the cart at once into a blameless invaluable motor-car—these men are called reformers. Some say, "Let the beautiful car of old come back." They are often busy to find the means of performing this impossible task. But there is no sign anywhere of their undertaking being successful.

If it be binding and imperative on us to choose among the the three and in the event of our shirking still higher pursuits and endeavours it is preferable for us to build the new car of the Sattwic Ahankara. But not till the car of Jagannath (the Lord of the Universe) makes its appearance in the world, the organisation of an ideal society is indeed a veritable impossibility. For that is the long-looked for ideal, the ultimate goal—the manifestation and reflection of the deepest and profoundest truth.

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Impelled by the inspiration of the hidden pervading Deity of the universe (The All-Purusha), mankind is ever busy in creating the ideal society; but under the influence of the inherent ignorance of the blind Prakriti or Nature-soul it produces a quite different image or complexion either disfigured, unfinished and ugly or commonplace, half-beautiful and imperfect inspite of its appearance of beauty. Instead of Shiva, it creates either a pigmy, or a titan or a demi-god of the mediocre type of humanity.

The real shape or model of the car of Jagannath is not known to anybody and no architect of life is able to design it. The Lord of the universe depicts this picture in the kingdom of His own heart and invests it with manifold appendages. The intention of the divine seer is to unfold it and establish it in the material world through varied and constant efforts of His divine Incarnations as observer and worker.

The real denomination of the car of Jagannath is not society but commune. It is not a many-sided collective body or a group of persons loosely held together, but a divine commune is a commune of free and liberated souls—free and liberated from all bondages and divisions and which is organised and shaped into being out of the sheer intensity of delight and by the force of a concerted power of the heaven-born knowledge of the divine self.

The collective body or group which does united work in and through a combination of several individuals goes under the name of society. The meanings of words can be traced back to their derivations. The affix "Sam" means unitedly and the meaning of the verb 'Aja' is to go, to run or to fight.

The primeval worldly form of society consists in the association of thousands of men with a view to accomplish the varied functions of their mutual destinies, for the gratification of their various self-regarding desires. In one particular line of action they seek and pursue after different objectives and as a result of this venture a hot competition grows amongst them as to who is to go ahead or who is to be the greatest of them all.

And amidst this confusion and chaos which are a prelude to a new system of order, co-operation and fruition of their mental psychology, various relations are established, different

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ideals are introduced and as a result of which something imperfect and transient comes into being.

The primordial society is based on division and that division is established on a partial, uncertain and ephemeral unity. But the building of an ideal society is just the contrary to it. Unity is its base and the play of diversity exists not to create walls of division but for multifarious expressions of Anandam. In society we catch the glimpse of an unity and harmony of body, mind and work but the life of the commune consists in soul-unity.

Though confined in a limited sphere many partial and futile attempts have been made for the organisation of communes either swayed by intellectual ideas and inspirations as in the western world or like the followers of the great Buddha for the free enjoyment of the cessation of work calculated to bring about Nirvana or through the impulse of divine love as was the case with the first Christian Church. But within a very short time it so happens that these social evils, imperfections and partial tendencies of human nature gradually creep into the soul of the new commune and then reduce it into an ordinary commonplace society.

The thoughts of the restless intellect are short-lived and life whether old or new is carried away by the irresistible surge of nature's instincts. The success of this sort of endeavour is impossible by sheer emotional outbursts, for emotions get exhausted through their very intensity. It is better to seek after Nirvana alone, for to evolve a commune out of love for Nirvana is a very strange affair. The commune is ordinarily the fostering field for work and association.

The day when soul-unity will manifest itself out of the synthesis and harmony of knowledge, feeling and action, that day will witness the birth of a new age and by the inspired will of the great communal Soul, the car of Jagannath will be exposed to public view in the great highway of the world and dazzle and illumine all parts of its route. And then indeed will the Golden Age be ushered into the bosom of the universe and the world of mortal men will then be turned into a divine play-house, the temple city of God—the abode of Anandam.

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APPENDIX—(E)

OURSELVES

By Sri Aurobindo Ghosh

(Standard Bearer, Vol. 1—First issue, the 15th August, 1920).

"The Standard-Bearer" comes into the field to-day entrusted with a special mission and as the bearer of an ideal and a message. The standard it carries is not that of an outward battle, but the ensign of a spiritual ideal and of a life that must be its expression and the growing body of its reality. Our endeavour shall be to prepare the paths and to accomplish the beginning of a great and high change, which we believe to be, and aim at making, the future of the race and the future of India. Our ideal is a new birth of humanity into the spirit ; our life must be a spiritually inspired effort to create a body of action for that great new birth and creation.

A spiritual ideal has always been the characteristic idea and aspiration of India. But the progress of Time and the need of humanity demand a new orientation and another form of that ideal. The old forms and methods are no longer sufficient for the purpose of the Time-spirit. India can no longer fulfil herself on lines that are too narrow for the great steps she has to take in the future. Nor is ours the spirituality of a life that is aged and world-weary and burdened with the sense of the illusion and miserable inutility of all God's mighty creation. Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life, but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit. It is to accept the world as an effort of manifestation of the Divine, but also to transform humanity by a greater effort of manifestation than has yet been accomplished—one in which the veil between man and God shall be removed, the divine manhood of which we are capable, shall come to birth and our life shall be remoulded in the truth and light and power of the spirit. It is to make of all our action a sacrifice to the Master of our action and an expression of the greater self in man and of all life a Yoga.

The West has made the growth of the intellectual, emotional, vital and material being of man its ideal, but it

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has left aside the greater possibilities of his spiritual existence. Its highest standards are ideals of progress, of liberty, equality and fraternity, of reason and science, of efficiency of all kinds, of a better political, social and economical state, of the unity and earthly happiness of the race. These are great endeavours, but experiment after experiment has shown that they cannot be realised in their truth by the power of the idea and the sentiment alone ; their real truth and practice can only be founded in the spirit. The West has put its faith in its science and machinery and it is being destroyed by its science and crushed under its mechanical burden. It has not understood that a spiritual change is necessary for the accomplishment of its ideals. The East has the secret of that spiritual change, but it has too long turned its eyes away from the earth. The time has now come to heal the division and to unite life and the spirit.

This secret too has been possessed but not sufficiently practised by India. It is summarised in the rule of the Geeta—' Yoga sthah Kuru Karmani.' Its principle is to do all actions in Yoga, in union with God, on the foundation of the highest self and through the rule of all our members by the power of the spirit. And this we believe to be not only possible for man, but the true solution of all his problems and difficulties.

That then is the message we shall constantly utter and this the ideal that we shall put before the young and rising India, a spiritual life that shall take up all human activities and avail to transfigure the world for the great age that is coming. India, she that has carried in herself from of old the secret, can alone lead the way in this great transformation, of which the present Sandhya of the old yuga is the fore-runner. This must be her mission and service to humanity—as she discovered the inner spiritual life for the individual, so now to discover for the race its integral collective expression and found for mankind its new spiritual and communal order.

Our first object shall be to declare this ideal ; insist on the spiritual change as the first necessity and group together all who accept it and are ready to strive sincerely to fulfil it ; our second shall be to build up not only an individual but a communal life on this principle. An outer activity as well as an inner change is needed and it must be at once a spiritual, cultural, educational, social and economical action. Its scope, too, will be at once

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individual and communal, regional and national, and eventually a work not only for the nation but for the whole human people. The immediate (result) of this action will be a new creation, a spiritual education and culture, an enlarged social spirit founded not on division but on unity, on the perfect growth and freedom of the individual, but also on his unity with others and his dedication to a larger self in the p6ople and in humanity and the beginning of an endeavour towards the solution of the economic problem founded not on any western model but on the communal principle native to India.

Our call is to Young India. It is the young who must be the builders of the new world—not those who accept the competitive individualism, the capitalism or the materialistic communism of the West as India's future ideal nor those who are enslaved to old religious formulas and cannot believe in the acceptance and transformation of life by the spirit, but all who are free in mind and heart to accept a completer truth and labour for a greater ideal. They must be men who will dedicate themselves not to the past or the present but to the future. They will need to consecrate their lives to an exceeding of their lower self, to the realisation of God in themselves and in all human beings and to a whole-minded and indefatigable labour for the nation and for humanity. This ideal can be as yet only a little seed and the life that embodies it a small nucleus, but it is our fixed hope that the seed will grow into a great tree and the nucleus be the heart of an ever-extending formation. It is with a confident trust in the spirit that inspires us that we take our place among the standard-bearers of the new humanity that is struggling to be born amidst the chaos of a world in dissolution and of the future India, the greater India of the rebirth that is to rejuvenate the mighty outworn body of the ancient Mother.

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APPENDIX—(F)

Sapta-chatustaya

(Revealed to Sri Aurobindo as index to his "Synthesis of Yoga")

I had heard from Mahaguru Sri Aurobindo that during his silent tapasya in Alipore Prison, a series of mantras was revealed in his spiritual experience, which were felt by him as signals or landmarks of his new yogic consciousness. These were recorded by him as we believe—just after he came out of jail-—and this record in several pages of his own hand-writing—an invaluable document, is still in our possession.

This original document along with some other original writings of Sri Aurobindo—essays, epistles, historical impressions and poems—also in his own hand-writing had been received by our revered Gurudeva Shreemat Motilal Roy in February 1910, when Sri Aurobindo came to Chandernagore and stayed in his house in secret seclusion. The writings were copied out by me in my then teen age curiosity as well as under an intuitive urge and intention to keep them with me as a precious possession for later study and deeper contemplation in future. The originals were—so far as I am aware—sent in a bundle by Shree Samgha-gurudeva to Pondicherry after Sri Aurobindo's retreat to that place.

But it so happened that the original of these "Saptachatustaya" note-records of Sri Aurobindo were some-how left behind with us here in Chandernagore, and continued to be preserved in my personal custody—as I feel now—as an actual legacy of my latent sub-conscious urge or intuitive intention. They have been subsequently Photostatted for more lasting conservation.

Sri Aurobindo, however, never called for it, perhaps having taken it for granted as being lost during the period of frequent police-raids and house-searches and other transitional disturbances or uncertainties of the time.

I was however, astonished beyond measure, when ever since the publication of the "Arya" from August 1914, I began to read and study the series of articles appearing in its pages— along with the 'Life Divine' series—under the heading of "Synthesis of Yoga"—a serial presentation of Sri Aurobindo's new thought on Yoga—of equal, nay, as we feel—of even more

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practical importance—for a follower of his Yoga. This continued feature—month after month—it was amazing enough to be found by me—to be following on exactly same lines just as outlined in his note-record of his spiritual experiences in jail, we have mentioned above—but without those written records actually with him to help his mind or memory.

It was indeed, a wonder of wonders to me to observe and realise how his elaborate exposition of the new yoga was proceeding with almost verbatim precision as a faithful expansion of those pre-attained experiences, so much deeply and accurately they must have been imprinted in his inner consciousness as not to lose any the least either in content or sequence of thought-matter, and arrangement also in its consequent methodical presentation.

A page of the original document of "Sapta-Chatustaya" has been found to be missing through the carelessness of one of my fellow-associates. It is a matter of sorrow and regret that this cannot be now at this distance of time actually recovered and replaced.

An article in Bengali Prabartak,—from the pen of my Samgha-Gurudeva, containing the gist and purport of Sri Aurobindo's note-record, centering round the four revealed mantras quoted verbatim in that article, is here reproduced in English translation along with those four mantras that will at least help a little towards the filling up of that missing gap or link.

"The Sapta-Chatustaya" is therefore, felt and termed by me as the index of the Master's "Synthesis of Yoga" volume.

Arun Chandra Dutt

I—Shanti- Chatustaya.

समता-शान्तिःसुरवं हास्यमिति शान्तिचतुषुवम् ||

Samata—The basis of internal peace is samata, the capacity of receiving with a calm and equal mind all the attacks and appearances of outward things, whether pleasant or unpleasant, ill-fortune and good-fortune, pleasure and pain, honour and ill-repute, praise and blame, friendship and enmity, sinner and saint, or, physically,

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heat and cold etc. There are two forms of samata, passive and active, samata in reception of the things of the outward world and samata in reaction to them.

(1) Passive—Passive samata consists of three things. :

Titiksha—Titiksha is the bearing firmly of all contacts, pleasant or unpleasant, not being overpowered by that which is painful, not being carried away by that which is pleasant. Calmly and firmly to receive both and hold and bear them as one who is stronger, greater, vaster than any attack of the world, is the attitude of titiksha.

Udasinata—-Udasinata is indifference to the dwandwas or dualities, it means literally being seated above, superior to all physical and mental touches. The udasinata, free from desire, either does not feel the touch of joy and grief, pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, or he feels them as touching his mind and body, but not himself, he being different from mind and body and seated above them.

Nati— Nati is the submission of the soul to the will of God, its acceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of man. Nati may be with titiksha, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God's will, or with udasinata, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God's working in the lower instruments, or with ananda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna, and therefore, in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete yogin, for by this continual joyous or anandamaya namaskara to God, constantly practised, we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain &c, the entire freedom from the dwandwas, and find the Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail and experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering—Anandam Brahmano vidvan na vibheti kutaschana. We may have to begin with titiksha and udasinata, but it is in this ananda that we must consummate the siddhi of samata. The yogin receives victory and defeat, success and ill-success, pleasure

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and pain, honour and disgrace with an equal, a sama ananda, first by buddhi-yoga, separating himself from his habitual mental and nervous re-actions and insisting by vichara on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul, which is secretly anandamaya,—full of sama ananda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary values of experience ; á mangala reveals itself to him as mangala, defeat and ill-success as the fulfilment of God's immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical ananda ; but this is only at the end, when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges from his subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara.

(2) Active—It is this universal or sama ananda in all experiences which constitutes active samata, and it has three parts or stages—

रसः प्रोतिरानन्द् ईति सव्बीनन्दः ||

—Rasa is the appreciative perception of that guna, that aswada, taste and quality, which the lswara of the lila perceives in each different object of experience (vishaya) and for the enjoyment of which He creates it in the lila. Pritih is the pleasure of the mind in all rasa, pleasant or unpleasant, sweet or bitter. Ananda is the divine bhoga, superior to all mental pleasure, with which God enjoys the rasa ; in ananda, the opposition of the dualities entirely ceases.

Shanti—Only when samata is accomplished, can Shanti be perfect in the system. If there is the least disturbance or trouble in the mentality, we may be perfectly sure that there is a disturbance, or defect in the samata. For the mind of man is complex and even when in the buddhi, we have fixed ourselves entirely in udasinata or nati, there may be revolts, uneasiness, repining in other parts. The buddhi, the manas, the heart, the nerves (prana), the very bodily case must be subjected to the law of samata.

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Shanti may be either a vast passive calm based on udasinata or a vast joyous calm based on nati. The former is apt to associate itself with a tendency to inaction and it is therefore, in the latter that our Yoga must culminate. Sukha—Sukham is the complete relief and release from dukha, from vishada, which comes by the fulfilment of samata and shanti. The perfected yogin has never in himself any touch of sorrow, any tendency of depression, cloud or internal repining and weariness, but is always full of a sattwic light and case.

Hasya—Hasyam is the active side of sukham ; it consists in an active internal state of gladness and cheerfulness, which no adverse experience, mental or physical, can trouble. Its perfection is God's stamp and seal on the siddhi of the samata. It is in our internal being the image of Srikrishna playing, balavat as the eternal balaka and kumara in the garden of the world.

II—Shakti-chatustaya

Veeryam -[Adapted from 'Varnashrama'—an article published in Bengali 'Prabartak', Vol-1, Number-(2), Aswin 1322 B.S.), from the pen of Shree Motilal Roy dwelling on the gist of this 'veerya' chapter of Sri Aurobindo's note record.] God is at once above quality and full of qualities. It is through His will that innumerable universes lapse into laya or annihilation in a single moment and through His will again innumerable new universes in air, fire, sky, nay in all the twenty-four tattwas or fundamental elements are lashed into creation. This Will is Prakriti or Nature-power. Prakriti is constituted with qualities. Though it has manifold qualities, one of such qualities is Veerya. It is this veerya which has manifested as the institution of Varnashram in Hindu society.

Veerya is in held in the body of every living creature. Every living body again is constituted with five sheaths—annamaya (physical), pranamaya (vital), monomaya (mental), vijnanamaya (gnostic) and anandamaya (spiritual).

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The quality of veerya has its hold on the first four koshas or sheaths. Man generally plays his part in the world through these four-sheath instruments. The play through the anandamaya or spiritual happens in the lives of rare persons alone. The swabhava-shakti or self-nature of Prakriti indwelling as veerya in the four-fold sheaths causes man to live and work as its play-instruments. Man has no hand in this working—he is a mere instrument. This veerya-quality inhering ever in the the four-fold koshas, displays a divergence in its active manifestation in life. So, when Shakti presses upon a particular sheath of a living man with a special stress, special characteristics and activities, peculiar to that sheath find expression in that man's life and character.

This veerya-shakti manifesting with special stress in the vijnanamaya kosha outflows as the following qualitative characteristics displayed in his life-character :-

—thirst for knowledge, revelation of knowledge, light-energy known as brahma varchas and steadiness of being. The Arya seers have denominated a man of such qualities in his life-vessel as the Brahmin.

A Brahmin has no passionate desire ; he has no craving, no avarice, no propensity to enjoy. He has the passion to know. Purifying his desire-seed, he uplifts its urge. With such illumined upward urge, he endeavours to reach up and enter anandamaya kosha. This passion for knowledge is the principal quality in a Brahmin. Knowledge is of two kinds : para and apara—Para is Brahmavidya ; apara is secular knowledge. A Brahmin would dissociate himself as much as possible from the gravitation of earthly nature and incessantly pursue the light of Brahma-knowledge. Involved within Brahmavidya, will reveal in him also all the learnings of the world. To a Brahmin the knowledge of the physical sciences or any other branches of terrestrial learning become an achieved possession. Brahman-knowledge—-attainable through hardest tapasya is possible only to the Brahmin. Undeterred by the alluring temptation of all mundane learning and fired with a unique aspiration and determination to know Brahma-vidya alone, he gives himself up to such sadhana alone.

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Ordinarily man first acquires external knowledge of particular things, and afterwards dives deeper for its interior truth. A Brahmin sees first the inner essence of a thing, understands its inner nature and in that light judges and ascertains its outer manifestation. The expressive power of a Brahmin's knowledge wells up from within.

Brahma-varchas is a sort of light-energy. The divine knowledge of Brahmin inhering as a mighty power in his body-vessel, inspires him to manifest its light and power in the world. It is this brahma-varchas in a brahminic body that appears as the reflection of godly nature in him. Brahman and brahmin then become one. Therefore in Hindu society, to adore a brahmin is to worship the Parabrahma or the Supreme Brahman—through such worship is accomplished the adoration of the entire universe. A Brahmin is firm-footed in knowledge—no darkness of the ego can land a Brahmin in utter despair or dismay. Whatever heavenly treasure is earned by a Brahmin through his tapasya, he is not overwhelmed by it, but makes proper use of same. The steadfastness of a Brahmin is extra-ordinary; so a brahminic adhara or body-vessel is perfectly fit for expression of all the divine qualities.

Just below the vijnanamaya kosha is the place of the monomaya or mental sheath. Its manifestation in the human body leads to development of Kshatriya qualities.

Fearlessness, courage, aspiration for fame and self-estimation are the ornamental qualities of a Kshatriya. A Kshatriya is fearless and undaunted. Not a jot or tittle of fear shakes his mind. A Kshatriya calmly and patiently faces a thousand difficulties and dangers. No predicament or critical situation can over-whelm or overpower a Kshatriya. Such is the quality of abhoya in a Kshatriya.

The courage of a Kshatriya is uncommon. He is ever ready to do his duty. However thousand-fold a tirade of opposition may be raised by opponents in the way of a Kshatriya out to execute a determination, the latter is sure to trample such opposition under his foot by dint of his boundless courage and immeasurable dash of energy. There is nothing impossible to a Kshatriya. A Kshatriya is indomitable, unconquerable.

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Whatever the cartload of dangers that a Kshatriya may carry over his head as a fearless hero, and however patiently he bears all troubles and difficulties with a smile on his face, his aim is to achieve his purpose. Victory, attainment and mastery are the signs of his bid for fame. He rushes forward to the battle-field to unfurl the flag of victory. He knows no defeat. The goddess of success anoints a Kshatriya with the crown of victory. No Kshatriya would accept defeat in the field of battle so long as the last drop of blood flows in his veins, even if beset with the heaviest afflictions. It is such impassionate desire for fame that adorns the Kshatriya character. In a Kshatriya, indwells the knowledge and steadfastness of the Brahmin, where-through he visualises the play of his divine qualities. It is through such an adhara that God manifests his Kshatriya-veerya.

Self-praise or self-estimation is an impure Kshatriya quality. When with the touch of knowledge, such estimation rises above the self into the Paramatma or Supreme Self, then the pride of the Kshatriya is transmuted into a divine power and it is through such a Kshatriya that God does great and noble deeds in the field of work.

Now, to the third sheath—the pranamaya kosha. With the manifestation of Veeryam in this prana-kosha, these qualities come into play :-

These are qualities of the Vaishya-Shakti. Give and take, skill in earning, urge for enjoyment—are its characteristic traits. To give and to take constitute the two principal functionings of a Vaishya. Like a lover, he no doubt reaches out his gifts of life to all, but he also awaits to get back their value in return. If the Vaishya pours out his self-earnings for the benefit of others, in drawing back returns he would not hesitate to realise the same hundred-fold. He would give without let or hindrance, but has the skill to get in return its more than full value. A Vaishya's management, skill and productivity are all for the benefit of the people. His urge for conservation and distribution is no less joyous and sincere than his urge for acquisition. The Vaishya feels his delight in creation and its preservation. He is endowed with an uncommon power for enjoyment. Vishnu-Shakti,—the

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preservative power manifests it-self in the Vaishya personality, while Rudra-Shakti resides in the Kshatriya and Shiva-Shakti in the Brahmin.

The last to deal with is the annamaya kosha.

Desire, love, urge to serve and self-giving—are qualities, characteristic to the annamaya or physical sheath in man. It is God, who having descended step by step from the realm of subtle abstractions, has through His conscious powers created the annamaya kosha and displays His qualities as a Shudra in human life. In one sense therefore, it is the Shudra-Shakti which is the highest among the four powers—for it is the Shudra who has to sacrifice the most for the exercise of the divine play in man mostly and through his physical body.

But in the impure state, the Shudra has estranged himself from the triple sources of knowledge, puissance and skill and so he stands, mute and dumb, in life of society. He has to eliminate this dross of impurity. He has to re-awaken knowledge, puissance and skill in his inner being and then lay out all these in the service of God, of man and all creatures, Purifying his impure desire-seed, he has to raise it from the level of narrow selfish pursuit of happiness, and wake up the divine fervour of service in his annamaya human body. His innate spirit of love united with this divine fervour of self-less service will turn him into a consecrated instrument, self-devoted in the service of God and mankind.

In the Kali-yuga, the Shudra-Shakti is ahead of the four. The trend of this age has rendered us all Shudras inhabit and thought. We have to follow and fulfil the law of love and service, so characteristic of the Shudra—after having purified ourselves from its dross of imperfection. The Brahmanya-shakti predominant in the Satya Yuga, the Kshatriya Shakti of the Treta Yuga and the Vaishya Shakti of the Dwapara, have all one by one dropped down from their high places—these have all broken down in the fabric of society. Empty pride and persistence in the old sense and ego-samskara would serve no purpose any longer. All have gone down into wreckage and ruin, but it is the Will of God that society has to be re-born in the new cycle. We are

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under world -circumstances and the law of evolution, all reduced to the actual state of Shudra hood. God has descended from the vijnanamaya down the staircase to the annamaya level of universal Chaitanya or life-status. From this state of decline, we have to rise again to the state of re-ascension, awaiting for the new satya-yuga.

So let us now be up and doing—purifying and converting our lust or desire-passion through consecration to the Lord Shree Krishna, into the pure passion of love and selfless service. Let our self-bigotted love, through the process of patriotic and altruistic self-purification, be perfected into a mighty tide of universal brotherhood and divine unity. Let our urge for service extend and express itself to all the nations and peoples of the world through re-orientation of our cultural, social, economic and political life into a real international forum of spiritual life and relationship.

The four-fold veeryam or social qualities—revived in a reborn Varnashrama, according to the inner being, and its law—the swabhava and swadharma—of our being and becoming—will usher a new age—with its new, freed and perfected human life and society.

Shakti—

Shakti is the perfection of the different parts of the system which enables them to do their work freely and perfectly. Deha-Shakti

Mahatwa-bodhah, bala-slagha, laghuta, dharana-samarthyam, iti deha-shaktih.

—The body is the pratistha in this material universe; for the working out of the divine lila on earth, it is necessary that it should have specially the dharana-samarthyam or power of sustaining the full stream of force, of ananda, of widening knowledge and being which descends into mind and prana and the vital and bodily functions with the progress of the siddhi. If the body is unfit, the system is unable to hold these things perfectly. In extreme cases, the physical brain is so disturbed by the shock from above as to lead to madness, but this is only in entirely unfit and impure adharas or when Kali

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descends angrily and violently, avenging the attempt of the Asura to seize on her and force her to serve his foul and impure desires. Ordinarily, the incapacity of the body, the nervous system and the physical brain shows itself in slowness of progress, in slight derangements and ailments, in unsteady hold of the siddhi which comes and slips away, works and is spilled out. Dharana-samarthya—comes by purification of the mind, prana and body; full siddhi depends upon full shuddhi. Prana-shakti

—Purnata, prasannata, samata, bhoga-samarthyam, iti prana-shaktih. When in the physical sensations, we are conscious of a full and steady vital force which is clear and glad and bright and undisturbed by any mental or physical shock, then there is the siddhi of the prana, the vital or nervous system. Then we become fit for whatever Bhoga God imposes on the mind and body.

Chitta-shakti—

Snigdhata, tejashlagha, kalyana-sraddha, prema-samarthyam; iti Chitta-shaktih.

These are all the signs of Chitta-shuddhi and shakti of the chitta or emotional parts of the antah-karana. The wider and more universal the capacity for love, a love self-sufficient and undisturbed by want or craving or disappointment and the more fixed the faith in God and the joy in all things as mangalam, the greater becomes the divine force in the chitta. Suddhi-shakti

Visuddhata, prakasha, vichitra-bodhah, jnanadharana-samarthyam, ieti buddhishaktih.

Manas and buddhi need not be considered separately as the elements of power apply both to the six-fold indriya and the thought-power in the mind. Their meaning is clear.

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For the full sense of visuddhata, refer to the explanation of shuddhi in the seventh chatusthaya.

Chandibhawa—

Chandibhava is the force of Kali manifest in the temperament (Daivi Prakriti).

(The detailed description of this power is deferred.)

Shraddha—

Shraddha is necessary in two things :-

Shaktyam, Bhagawati, Cha, iti Shraddha.

There must be faith in the love and wisdom of God fulfilling Himself through us, fulfilling the Yoga-siddhi, fulfilling our life-work, working out all for our good even when it is apparently veiled in evil; and there must be faith in the power of the Shakti manifested by Him in this adhara, to sustain, work out and fulfil the divine knowledge, power and joy in the Yoga and in the life. Without shraddha, there is no shakti; imperfect shraddha means imperfect shakti. Imperfection may be either in the force of the faith or in its illumination. It is sufficient at first to have full force of the faith, for we cannot from the beginning of the Yoga, have full illumination. Then, however, we err or stumble, our force of faith will sustain us. When we cannot see, we shall know that God withholds the light, imposing on us error as a step towards knowledge, just as He imposes on us defeat as a step towards victory.

III—Vijnana-chatustaya

Siddhis

Siddhis—their justification, dangers and uses: The two first chatustaya of the adhara have references mainly to the central principle of man's existence, the antahkarana; but there is one superior faculty and one inferior instrument, which have each its peculiar siddhi, the vijnana or supra-intellectual faculty and the body. The siddhi of the vijnana and the siddhi of the body belong both of them to that range of experiences and of divine fulfilment which are abnormal to the present

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state of humanity. They are called specially siddhis, because of their abnormal nature, rarity and difficulty; they are denied by the sceptic and discouraged by the saint. The sceptic disbelieves in them and holds them to be impostures, fables or hallucinations, as a clever animal may disbelieve in the reasoning powers of man. The saint discourages them, because they seem to him to lead away from God; he shuns them just as he shuns the riches, powers and attainments of this world, and for the same reason. We need not shun them, and cannot shun them, because God is sought by us in His world-fulfilment as well as apart from the world, and in the world, there are the riches of His power and knowledge which we cannot avoid, once we dwell in Him, perceiving and sharing His nature. Indeed, there is a stage reached by the Yogin, when, unless he avoids all attraction in the world, he can no more avoid the use of the siddhis of power and knowledge than an ordinary man can avoid eating and breathing, unless he wishes to leave his body; for these things are the natural action of the vijnana, the plane of ideal consciousness to which he is rising, just as mental activity and physical motion are the natural action of man's ordinary life.

All the ancient Rishis used these powers, all great Avataras and Yogins and Vibhutis from Christ to Ramakrishna have used them; not is there any great man with the divine power at all manifest in him, who does not use them continually in an imperfect form, without knowing clearly what are these faculties that he is employing. If nothing else, he uses the powers of intuition and inspiration, the power of is hota which brings him the opportunities he needs and the means which make these opportunities fruitful, and the power of vyapti, by which his thoughts go darting and flashing through the world and creating unexpected waves of tendency both around him and at a distance. We need no more avoid the use of these things than a poet should avoid the use of his poetical genius which is a siddhi unattainable by ordinary men or an artist renounce the use of his pencil. At the same time there is a justification for the denial of the sceptic and the renunciation by the saint, and of this justification we must take note.

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The saint renounces, because when these siddhis show themselves fragmentarily in a weak adhara, dominated by egoism, the egoism becomes enormously enhanced, the ignorant sadhaka thinking that he is the possessor and creator of these abnormal powers and a very great man indeed, (just as we find an abnormal egoism very frequent in the small poet and the half-artist; for those who have a really great power, know well enough that the power is not theirs but a gift from God, and feel that the power of God is using them and not they the power). So the sadhaka misled by Ahankara, goes running after these powers for their own sake and leaves following after God. The denial of the sceptic is justified by the credulity of ordinary men, who regard these things as miracles and invent them where they do not exist, and by the weakness and egoism of the sadhakas themselves and of many who are not sadhakas; for if they catch even a glimpse of these things in themselves or others, they exaggerate, puff, distort and build around some petty and imperfect experiences all sorts of jargon, mysticism, charlatanism and bujruki of all kinds which are an offence and stumbling block to the world.

We must therefore, keep in view very strictly certain fixed principles :

1.That these powers are not miraculous, but powers of Nature, which manifest of themselves as soon as the vijnana-padma in us begins to open, and are no more a cause for bragging and vanity than the power of eating and breathing or anything else that is Nature's.

2.That these can manifest fully only when we leave ego and offer up our petty separate beings in the vastness of God's being.

3.That when they manifest in the unpurified state, they are a dangerous ordeal to which God subjects us, and we can only pass through it safely by keeping our minds clear of vanity, pride, selfishness and by remembering continually that they are His gifts and not our acquirements.

4.That the powers are not to be pursued for their own sake, but developed or allowed to develop as part of the flower of divine perfection which is by God's grace blossoming out in us.

Subject to these cautions, we have not to reject these powers when they come but accept them, to be used in us by God for His

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own purposes and not by us for ours, to be poured out by vyapti on humanity and not kept for our own use and pride.

Vijnana—

Jnanam, trikaldrishtir, astasiddhih, samadhi, iti vijnana-chatustayam.

Jnana—By jnana is meant that power of direct and divine knowledge which works independently of the intellect and senses or uses them only as subordinate assistants. It perceives the things that are hidden from the ordinary man, helps us to cease seeing the world in the terms of our sense-experience and enables us to become sensitive to the great unseen forces, powers, impulses and tendencies which stand behind our material life and determine and govern it. To jnana, the whole machinery of the world reveals itself in its hidden principles; the nature of Purusha, the workings of Prakriti, the principles of our being, God's purpose in His world-workings, the harmony of His gunas, Brahman, lswara, Atman, man and beast and object, idea and name and form, reality and relation, all these show themselves to the eye that God has illuminated with the sun of His knowledge,—-jnanadeepena bhaswata.

Jnana is of three kinds,—jnana of thought, jnana of experience, (realisation or prati bodha) and jnana of action or satyadharma.

Jnana of thought consists of three powers,

(1)Drishti, revelation or swayamprakasha.

(2)Shruti, inspiration.

(3)Smriti, consisting of — 1. Intuition 2. Viveka. Drishti—Drishti is the faculty by which the ancient Rishis saw the truth of Veda, the direct vision of the truth without need of observation of the object, reasoning, evidence, imagination, memory or any other of the faculties of the intellect. It is as-when a man sees an object and knows what it is, even if sometimes, he cannot put a name on it, it is pratyaksha-darshana of the satyam.

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Shruti.—Shruti is the faculty by which we perceive as in a flash, the truth hidden in a form of thought or an object presented to our knowledge or in the word by which the thing is revealed. It is that faculty by which the meaning of the mantra, dawns on the mind or on the being of the sadhaka, although when he first heard it, he did not know its meaning nor was it explained to him. It is as when a man hears the name of a thing and by the name itself, without seeing the thing, comes to know its nature. A special power of smriti is the revelation of truth through the right and perfect vak in the thought.

Smriti—Smriti is the faculty by which true knowledge hidden in the mind reveals itself to the judgement and is recognized at once as the truth. It is as when a man has forgotten something he knew to be the fact, but remembers it, the moment it is mentioned to him.

Intuition & Viveka—Intuition is the power which distinguishes the truth and suggests at once the right reasons for its being the truth; viveka is the power which makes at once the necessary limitations and distinctions and prevents intellectual errors from creeping in or an imperfect truth from being taken for the whole satyam.

The important of viveka for the purpose of man's progress in his present stage is supreme. At present, in the greatest men, the powers of the vijnana act not in their own power, place and nature, but in the intellect, as helpers of the intellect and occasional guides. Directly we get an intuition or revelation, the intellect, memory, imagination, logical faculty seize hold of it and begin to disguise it in a garb of mingled truth and error, bringing down truth to the level of the nature, samskaras and preferences of a man instead of purifying and elevating his nature and judgments to the level of the truth. Without viveka, these powers are as dangerous to man as they are helpful. The light they give, is brighter than the light of the intellect, but the shadow the intellect creates around them is often murkier than the mist of ignorance, which surrounds ordinary intellectual knowledge. Thus men who use these powers ignorantly, often stumble much more than those who walk by the clear though limited light of the intellect. When these powers begin to work in us, we must be dhira and sthira and not be led away by our enthusiasm; we

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must give time for the viveka to seize on our thought and intuitions, arrange them, separate their intellectual from their vijnanamaya elements, correct their false extensions, false limitations, misapplications, make, in the image of the Upanishads, the vyuha or just marshalling of the rays of the sun of knowledge, suryasya rashmayah. Knowledge is not for the hasty mind; but only for the dhira, who can sit long accumulating and arranging his stores and does not rush away with fragments like a crow darting off with the first morsel of food on which it can seize.

Realisation—Realisation or jnana of experience is the perception of things through bhava—bhava of being or Sat, realising the truths of being;—bhava of Chit or knowledge, realising the truths of thought; bhava of Tapas or force, realising the truths of force and action—bhava of love or Ananda, realising the truths of emotion and sensation and bliss.

Satyadharma :- Satyadharma is the carrying out of the jnana in bhava and action.

Trikala-drishti.—Trikala-drishti is a special faculty of jnana by which that general power is applied to the actuality of things, their details of events, tendencies etc in the past, present and future of the world as it exists, has existed and will exist in time. It deals with particular fact, just as jnana deals with general truth. Trikala-drishti works in several ways:

(1)Directly, without a means or excuse, by drishti, Shruti and smriti.

(2)By dwelling in concentration on the object—that process which calls sanyama on the object—until the mind in observer and observed becoming one, we know what the object contains, whether past, present or future, just as we can know the contents of our own being.

(3)By using as a means some external sign or some indicative science such as samudrika, astrology, angury &c. These sciences are worth little, if not used by the higher vijnanamaya faculties; for the signs they use are mostly indicative of tendencies and to distinguish perfectly tendencies of possibility from actual eventualities cannot be done by following written shastra or by rule of thumb.

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(4) By the two powers of vyapti and prakamya which are what the Europeans call telepathy. Astasiddhi:

Vyapti, prakamya, aishwaryam, ishita, vashita, mahima, laghima, anima, iti ashta-siddhi. Asta-siddhi is of three orders :

(1)Two siddhis of knowledge,—vyapti and prakamya.

(2)Three siddhis of power,—aishwarya, ishita, vashita.

(3)Three siddhis of the body,—mahima, laghima, anima. Prakamya—By prakamya is meant the full prakasha of the senses and the manas, by which they surpass the ordinary limits of the body and become aware by sight, hearing, touch or more usually and more easily by mental sensation and awareness :

(1)of objects, scenes and events at a distance or hidden from the normal operation of the mind and senses.

(2)of objects, scenes and events belonging to other planes of existence.

(3)of objects &c belonging to the past or future, the images of which are contained in the object of our study.

(4)Of the present states of mind, feeling, sensations &c. of others or of their particular thoughts, feelings and sensations; of such states or particular thoughts &c which they have had in the past and of which the impression remains in the chitta-record or which they will have in the future of which the image is already prepared in the prescient part of the chitta.

Vyapti—To each form of Prakamya, there is a corresponding form of vyapti, i.e. reception or communication. By prakamya, for instance, we can have the perception of another's feelings; by vyapti, those feelings are felt striking in our own consciousness or ours are thrown into another. Prakamya is the sight of one looking from a distance and seeing an object; vyapti is the sensation of that object coming towards us or into contact with us. It is possible by vyapti to communicate anything we have in our system—thought, feeling, power &c to another, and if he is able to seize and hold it, he can make it his own and use it. This can be done either by a sort of physical throwing of the thing in us into the other or by a will upon the

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swabhava compelling it to effect the transfer. The teacher and the guru habitually use this power of vyapti which is far more effective than speech or writing; but all men use or suffer it unconsciously. For every thought, feeling, sensation or other movement of consciousness in us creates a wave or current which carries it out into the world-consciousness around, and there it enters into any adhara which is able and allowed to receive it. Half at least of our habitual thoughts and feelings are such unconscious borrowings.

Aishwarya—Aiswarya is effectiveness of the Will acting on object or event without the aid of physical means. It may work :

(1)by pressure or tapas of the chaitanya straight on the object that has to be affected.

(2)by pressure or tapas of chaitanya on Prakriti (either the general world-Prakriti or Prakriti in the object itself) to bring about directly the result intended.

(3)by pressure on the Prakriti to bring about circumstances which will compel indirectly the result intended.

(4)without pressure, by mere thought that is will, the ajna or ajnanam of the Iswara which Prakriti automatically obeys.

The last is the highest power of Aishwarya and its supreme siddhi; for here chit and tapas become one as in the will of God Himself.

Ishita—Ishita is the same effectiveness of the will acting not as a command or through thought, by ajnanam, but through the heart or temperament (chitta) in a perception of need or pure lipsa. Whatever the lipsa reaches out towards or even needs without conscious knowledge of the need, comes of itself to the man who possesses Ishita. Ishita also expresses itself either by pressure on the object or Prakriti or by simple perception automatically effective of its aim. The last is again the highest power of Ishita and its supreme siddhi.

Vashita—Vashita is the control of the object in its nature so that it is submissive to the spoken word, receptive of the thought conveyed or sensitive and effective of the action suggested. Vashita acts automatically through established control of one nature by another, or by the pouring of natural force into the word, thought or suggestion of action so as to produce an effect

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on the nature of others. The latter is the lower and ordinary siddhi; the former the supreme or entirely divine siddhi. Vyapti is one of the chief agents of Vashita.

The Conditions of Powers—It should be noted that none of the siddhis of power can act perfectly or freely so long as there is impurity of the chitta, egoism in the thought and temperament or domination of desire in the use of the siddhi. Under such circumstance there may be occasional use or irregular effectivity of the power—a thing not worth having in itself, but useful only as training the mind to give up its own samskaras and habitual processes and accept the activity of the vijnanamaya shakti; or there may be a regular and effective use of limited powers by fixed Tantric processes (kriyas). The latter should be shunned by the sadhakas of the Purna Yoga.

The Conditions of Jnana—It should also be noted that perfect jnana and trikaladrishti are only possible by complete shuddhi of the antahkarana, especially the exclusion of desire and vishudhi of the buddhi, absolute passivity of the manas, and finally, perfected action of the powers of the vijnana. An imperfect and irregular action of the higher powers is always possible and is possessed obscurely by many who are not yogins or sadhakas. Physical Siddhis—The physical powers, Mahima, Laghima, Anima, need not be considered at present, as, although belonging to the dharma of the vijnana, they act in the body and are strictly part of the physical siddhi.

Samadhi—Samadhi is the power by dwelling fixedly of the chaitanya on its object to extend the range of knowledge and consciousness through all the three states of waking, sleeping and dream, to the realisation of those tattwas of the Brahman, to which the ordinary waking consciousness is blind and to the experience either in reflected images or in the things themselves, of other worlds and planes of consciousness than the material earth or this waking physical consciousness. The consideration of samadhi may also be postponed for the present.

IV—Sharira-chatustaya

Sharira-siddhi—The sharira-chatustaya, likewise, need not be at present explained. Its four constituents are named below :

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Arogyam, Utthapana, Saundaryam, Vividhanandam, iti sharira-chatustayam.

The three general chatustayas—

These are the four chatustayas of the adhara-siddhi. In addition, there are three general chatustayas.

V—Karmachatustaya or Lila-chatustaya.

Krishna, Kali, Kamah, Karma iti Karma-chatustayam.

VI—Brahma-chatustaya

Sarvam, Anantam, Jnanam, Anandam, Brahma, iti Brahma-chatustayam.

VII—Yoga-chatushtaya or Sansiddhi-chatushtaya

Shuddhir, Muktih, Bhuktih, Siddhir, iti yoga-chatustayam.

The last or seventh is at once the means, the sum and completion of all the rest. Its explanation is essential to the full understanding of the others and will be separately treated.

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