Sr Aurobindo On Asiatic Democracy

SRI AUROBINDO
BANDE MATARAM
Early Political Writings. 1890 - May 1908
Asiatic Democracy
Asia is not Europe and never will be Europe. The political ideals of the West are not the mainspring of the political movements in the East, and those who do not realise this great truth, are mistaken; for they suppose that the history of Europe is a sure and certain guide to India in her political development. A great deal of the political history of Europe will be repeated in Asia, no doubt; Democracy has travelled from the East to the West in the shape of Christianity, and after a long struggle with the feudal instincts of the Germanic races has returned to Asia transformed and in a new body. But when Asia takes back democracy into herself she will first transmute it in her own temperament and make it once more Asiatic. Christianity was an assertion of human equality in the spirit, a great assertion of the unity of the divine spirit in man, which did not seek to overthrow the established systems of government and society but to inform them with the spirit of human brotherhood and unity. It was greatly hampered in this work by the fact that the European races were in a state of transition from the old Aryan civilisation of Greece and Rome to one less advanced and enlightened. The German nations were wedded to a military civilisation which was wholly inconsistent with the ideals of Christianity, and the new religion in their hands became a thing quite unrecognisable to the Asiatic mind which had engendered it. When Mahomedanism appeared, Christianity vanished out of Asia, because it had lost its meaning. Mahomed tried to re-establish the Asiatic gospel of human equality in the spirit. All men are equal in Islam, – whatever their social position or political power, – nor is any man debarred from the full development of his manhood by his birth or low original station in life. All men are brothers in Islam and the bond of religious unity overrides all other divisions and differences. But Islam also was limited and imperfect, because it confined the ideal of brotherhood and equality to the limits of a single creed, and was further deflected from its true path by the rude and undeveloped races which it drew into its embrace. Another revelation of the old truth is needed.
India from ancient times had received the gospel of Vedanta which sought to establish the divine unity of man in spirit; but in order to secure an ordered society in which she could develop her spiritual insight and perfect her civilisation, she had invented the system of caste which by corruptions and departures from caste ideals came to be an obstacle to the fulfilment in society of the Vedantic ideal. From the time of Buddha to that of the saints of Maharashtra every great religious awakening has sought to restore the ancient meaning of Hinduism and reduce caste to its original subordinate importance as a social convenience, to exorcise the spirit of caste-pride and restore that of brotherhood and the eternal principles of love and justice in society. But the feudal spirit had taken possession of India and the feudal spirit is wedded to inequality and the pride of caste. (Read Sri Aurobindo's The Unhindu Spirit Of Caste Pride)
When the feudal system was broken in Europe by the rise of the middle class, the ideals of Christianity began to emerge once more to light, but by this time the Christian Church had itself become feudalised, and the curious spectacle presents itself of Christian ideals struggling to establish themselves by the destruction of the very institution which had been created to preserve Christianity. When the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity were declared at the time of the French Revolution and mankind demanded that society should recognise them as the foundation of its structure, they were associated with a fierce revolt against the relics of feudalism and against the travesty of the Christian religion which had become an integral part of that feudalism. This was the weakness of European democracy and the source of its failure. It took as its motive the rights of man and not the dharma of humanity; it appealed to the selfishness of the lower classes against the pride of the upper; it made hatred and internecine war the permanent allies of Christian ideals and wrought an inextricable confusion which is the modern malady of Europe. It was in vain that the genius of Mazzini rediscovered the heart of Christianity and sought to remodel European ideas; the French Revolution had become the starting-point of European democracy and coloured the European mind. Now that democracy has returned to Asia, its cradle and home, it will be purged of its foreign elements and restored to its original purity. The movements of the nineteenth century in India were European movements, they were coloured with the hues of the West. Instead of seeking for strength in the spirit, they adopted the machinery and motives of Europe, the appeal to the rights of humanity or the equality of social status and an impossible dead level which Nature has always refused to allow. Mingled with these false gospels was a strain of hatred and bitterness, which showed itself in the condemnation of Brahminical priestcraft, the hostility to Hinduism and the ignorant breaking away from the hallowed traditions of the past. What was true and eternal in that past was likened to what was false or transitory, and the nation was in danger of losing its soul by an insensate surrender to the aberrations of European materialism. Not in this spirit was India intended to receive the mighty opportunity which the impact of Europe gave to her. When the danger was greatest, a number of great spirits were sent to stem the tide flowing in from the West and recall her to her mission; for, if she had gone astray the world would have gone astray with her.
Her mission is to point back humanity to the true source of human liberty, human equality, human brotherhood. When man is free in spirit, all other freedom is at his command; for the Free is the Lord who cannot be bound. When he is liberated from delusion, he perceives the divine equality of the world which fulfils itself through love and justice, and this perception transfuses itself into the law of government and society. When he has perceived this divine equality, he is brother to the whole world, and in whatever position he is placed he serves all men as his brothers by the law of love, by the law of justice. When this perception becomes the basis of religion, of philosophy, of social speculation and political aspiration, then will liberty, equality and fraternity take their place in the structure of society and the satyayuga return. This is the Asiatic reading of democracy which India must rediscover for herself before she can give it to the world. It is the dharma of every man to be free in soul, bound to service not by compulsion but by love; to be equal in spirit, ap portioned his place in society by his capacity to serve society, not by the interested selfishness of others; to be in harmonious relations with his brother men, linked to them by mutual love and service, not by shackles of servitude, or the relations of the exploiter and the exploited, the eater and the eaten. It has been said that democracy is based on the rights of man; it has been replied that it should rather take its stand on the duties of man; but both rights and duties are European ideas. Dharma is the Indian conception in which rights and duties lose the artificial antagonism created by a view of the world which makes selfishness the root of action, and regain their deep and eternal unity. Dharma is the basis of democracy which Asia must recognise, for in this lies the distinction between the soul of Asia and the soul of Europe. Through dharma the Asiatic evolution fulfils itself; this is her secret.

"..our hearts and minds are still chained to ignorance...perhaps an external shock is needed to break that chain which has brought us nothing but nothingness..

Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech

We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatana Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatana Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived. This is the dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the seclusion of this peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak.

Therefore this was the next thing He pointed out to me, — He made me realise the central truth of the Hindu religion.

I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell, but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Srikrishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me His shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Srikrishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me. I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies....When I approached God at that time, I hardly had a living faith in Him. The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all. I did not feel His presence. Yet something drew me to the truth of the Vedas, the truth of the Gita, the truth of the Hindu religion. I felt there must be a mighty truth somewhere in this Yoga, a mighty truth in this religion based on the Vedanta. So when I turned to the Yoga and resolved to practise it and find out if my idea was right, I did it in this spirit and with this prayer to Him, "If Thou art, then Thou knowest my heart. Thou knowest that I do not ask for Mukti, I do not ask for anything which others ask for. I ask only for strength to uplift this nation...The second message came and it said, "Something has been shown to you in this year of seclusion, something about which you had your doubts and it is the truth of the Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising up before the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the rishis, saints and avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising up this nation to send forth my word. This is the Sanatana Dharma, this is the eternal religion which you did not really know before, but which I have now revealed to you...But what is the Hindu religion? What is this religion which we call Sanatana, eternal? It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation has kept it, because in this peninsula it grew up in the seclusion of the sea and the Himalayas, because in this sacred and ancient land it was given as a charge to the Aryan race to preserve through the ages. But it is not circumscribed by the confines of a single country, it does not belong peculiarly and for ever to a bounded part of the world..UTTARPARA SPEECH

"poverty,ignorance,disease,anger,violence,disharmony,tamas,lack of vitality,ill will seem to be ruling the indian subcontinent...this is the land that discovered all the laws/truths of the supreme but true vedantic(or even islamic) principles seem to be dead..laws/truths on divine's equality,ONENESS almost dont excist..customs,rituals,practices that sould be dead and buried continue to be alive like a zombie.."

He Is The Lord

When a movement for independence begins with diplomacy and Machiavellianism, it is doomed to failure..God is not with it. It does not rely on the eternal principles of truth and virtue, but on the finite strength of human intellect and human means and to that finite strength God leaves it. When that strength comes to its limits, there is nothing left, and failure is final. But when a movement takes its stand on truth and justice, then it appeals to God Himself and He will see to it that the trust reposed in Him is not falsified. Failures may come but they will be only fresh incentives to purer and nobler effort. An immortal power will stand behind the movement and death will be afraid to come near it. Its leaders may be snatched away by the hand of death, hurried into exile or imprisonment, given to the hand of the executioner, but fresh leaders will arise. Its means may change from time to time, it may pass through ever-new phases and sometimes men may fail to recognise it as the same old movement, but God is within it always as its eternal and undying Self and it lasts till it receives its consummation..Mustafa Kamil Pasha

[Yusufali 6:115] The word of thy Lord doth find its fulfilment in truth and in justice: None can change His words: for He is the one who heareth and knoweth all.

Whoever is still under the influence of intellectual pride, is shocked when people depreciate the reason as the supreme guide. He asks how is it posssible for a man of culture to depreciate the reason and exalt some extraneous influence like that which people call God? But these doubters are under the influence of European materialism which tries to confine man to his material portion and deny him the possibility of a divine origin and a divine destiny...The Glory Of God In Man

"mera jutaa hey japani,mera dil hey anglosthani..;-)..neo colonialism continues to possess asians..our socio economic models,our lifesytles are fully westernised.. asians have become first class pseudo sahibs(the consequences?we have absorbed the fears,the paranoia,the mental gymnastics, excessive materialism of the west)..we seem to have no desire,no will to rediscover the essence of our dharma ..we probably think.."aah..what's the use of all this dharma/karma/bhakta crap!!..we need fast money,everlasting security..we need our safety nets in the form of job,income,bling bling lifestyle and exploring,diving deep to rediscover the true spirit of our dharma doesnt bring paise $$$$!!(but i am willing to bet,cock "o" phonies like the deepak chopras,the OSHOS,TM, and many self appointed guru bufoonandas ,swami conmananda's will disagree... they managed to suck billions of $$$ from those hungry thirty newly awakened europeans..)..not surprisngly,asians have actually become weak,vulnerable and depressed.."

Sri Aurobindo-A God's Labour

A God's Labour
I have gathered my dreams in a silver airBetween the gold and the blueAnd wrapped them softly and left them there,My jewelled dreams of you.
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridgeMarrying the soil to the skyAnd sow in this dancing planet midgeThe moods of infinity.
But too bright were our heavens, too far away,Too frail their ethereal stuff;Too splendid and sudden our light could not stay;The roots were not deep enough.
He who would bring the heavens hereMust descend himself into clayAnd the burden of earthly nature bearAnd tread the dolorous way.
Coercing my godhead I have come downHere on the sordid earth,Ignorant, labouring, human grownTwixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and longMid a horror of filth and mireA bed for the golden river’s song,A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s nightTo bring the fire to man;But the hate of hell and human spiteAre my meed since the world began.
For man’s mind is the dupe of his animal self;Hoping its lusts to win,He harbours within him a grisly ElfEnamoured of sorrow and sin.
The grey Elf shudders from heaven’s flameAnd from all things glad and pure;Only by pleasure and passion and painHis drama can endure.
All around is darkness and strife;For the lamps that men call sunsAre but halfway gleams on this stumbling lifeCast by the Undying Ones.
Man lights his little torches of hopeThat lead to a failing edge;A fragment of Truth is his widest scope,An inn his pilgrimage.
The Truth of truths men fear and deny,The Light of lights they refuse;To ignorant gods they lift their cryOr a demon altar choose.
All that was found must again be sought,Each enemy slain revives,Each battle for ever is fought and refoughtThrough vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and oneAnd the Titan kings assail,But I cannot rest till my task is doneAnd wrought the eternal will.
How they mock and sneer, both devils and men!"Thy hope is Chimera’s headPainting the sky with its fiery stain;Thou shalt fall and thy work lie dead.
"Who art thou that babblest of heavenly easeAnd joy and golden roomTo us who are waifs on inconscient seasAnd bound to life’s iron doom?
"This earth is ours, a field of NightFor our petty flickering fires.How shall it brook the scared LightOr suffer a god’s desires?
"Come, let us slay him and end his course!Then shall our hearts have releaseFrom the burden and call of his glory and forceAnd the curb of his wide white peace."
But the god is there in my mortal breastWho wrestles with error and fateAnd tramples a road through mire and wasteFor the nameless Immaculate.
A voice cried, "Go where none have gone!Dig deeper, deeper yetTill thou reach the grim foundation stoneAnd knock at the keyless gate."
I saw that a falsehood was planted deepAt the very root of thingsWhere the grey Sphinx guards God’s riddle sleepOn the Dragon’s outspread wings.
I left the surface gods of mindAnd life’s unsatisfied seasAnd plunged through the body’s alleys blindTo the nether mysteries.
I have delved through the dumb Earth’s dreadful heartAnd heard her black mass’ bell.I have seen the source whence her agonies partAnd the inner reason of hell.
Above me the dragon murmurs moanAnd the goblin voices flit;I have pierced the Void where Thought was born,I have walked in the bottomless pit.
On a desperate stair my feet have trodArmoured with boundless peace,Bringing the fires of the splendour of GodInto the human abyss.
He who I am was with me still;All veils are breaking now.I have heard His voice and borne His willon my vast untroubled brow.
The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridgedAnd the golden waters pourDown the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridgedAnd glimmer from shore to shore.
Heaven’s fire is lit in the breast of the earthAnd the undying suns here burn;Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birthThe incarnate spirits yearn
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:Down a gold-red stair-way wendThe radiant children of ParadiseClarioning darkness’s end.
A little more and the new life’s doorsShall be carved in silver lightWith its aureate roof and mosaic floorsIn a great world bare and bright.
I shall leave my dreams in their argent air,For in a raiment of gold and blueThere shall move on the earth embodied and fairThe living truth of you.
31-7-1935
Sri Aurobindo

"yes..we cry,we wail in the dark..praying for mannas and intervention from the Divine..and the divine always answers..but we continue to live and breathe in the darkness...we are deeply attached to things down below...why do we love so much our past and in things that are dead and buried deep?is it possible that our actions have resulted in the havens from above descending into the abyss ?..no!..we must constantly aspire for the supreme..that's the only thing that matters!.."

5th December 1950

Sri Aurobindo very much belonged (in his outward being) to the category of those who want things to change, who push for progress, who want to move on, who want to reject the past ... very much so. He had to make a great effort to be satisfied with things and people; it was his compassion that made him accept people around him as they were. Otherwise he used to suffer a lot.

"christ sacrificed himself by absorbing man's sins..1950 years later..Sri Aurobindo sacrificed himself by absorbing dark waves from the abyss onto his body to quicken the arr ival of the new golden age..."

The Four Aspects Of The Divine Mother-Mahasaraswati

Mahasaraswati is the Mother's Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most skillful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature.
Maheswari lays down the large lines of the world-forces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail of organization and execution, relation of parts and effective combination of forces and unfailing exactitude of result and fulfilment.
The science and craft and technique of things are Mahasaraswati's province. Always she holds in her nature and can give to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye of the perfect worker.
This Power is the strong, the tireless, the careful and efficient builder, organiser, administrator, technician, artisan and classifier of the worlds. When she takes up the transformation and new building of the nature, her action is laborious and minute and often seems to our impatience slow and interminable, but it is persistent, integral and flawless.
For the will in her works is scrupulous, unsleeping, indefatigable; leaning over us she notes and touches every little detail, finds out every minute defect, gap, twist or incompleteness, considers and weighs accurately all that has been done and all that remains still to be done and all that remains still to be done hereafter. bNothing is too small or apparently trivial for her attention; nothing however impalpable or disguised or latent can escape her.
Moulding and remoulding she labours each part till it has attained its true form, is put in its exact place in the whole and fulfils its precise purpose. In her constant and diligent arrangement and rearrangement of things her eye is on all needs at once and the way to meet them and her intuition knows what is to be chosen and what rejected and successfully determines the right instrument, the right time, the right conditions and the right process.
Carelessness and negligence and indolence she abhors; all scamped and hasty and shuffling work, all clumsiness and 'à peu près' and misfire, all false adaptation and misuse of instruments and faculties and leaving of things undone or half done is offensive and foreign to her temper. When her work is finished, nothing has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is solid, accurate, complete, admirable.
Nothing short of a perfect perfection satisfies her and she is ready to face an eternity of toil if that is needed for the fullness of her creation. Therefore of all the Mother's powers she is the most long-suffering with man and his thousand imperfections.
Kind, smiling, close and helpful, not easily turned away or discouraged, insistent even after repeated failure, her hand sustains our every step on condition that we are single in our will and straightforward and sincere; for a double mind she will not tolerate and her revealing irony is merciless to drama and histrionics and self-deceit and pretence.
A mother to our wants, a friend in our difficulties, a persistent and tranquil counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant smile the clouds of gloom and fretfulness and depression, reminding always of the ever-present help, pointing to the eternal sunshine, she is firm, quiet and persevering in the deep and continuous urge that drives is towards the integrality of the higher nature. All the work of the other Powers leans on her for its completeness; for she assures the material foundation, elaborates the stuff of detail and erects and rivets the armour of the structure.
Selection from " The Mother" By Sri Aurobindo

"[Yusufali 2:153] O ye who believe! seek help with patient perseverance and prayer; for Allah is with those who patiently persevere...[Yusufali 3:200] O ye who believe! Persevere in patience and constancy; vie in such perseverance; strengthen each other; and fear Allah; that ye may prosper......[Yusufali 2:29] It is He Who hath created for you all things that are on earth; Moreover His design comprehended the heavens, for He gave order and perfection to the seven firmaments; and of all things He hath perfect knowledge...

The Four Aspects Of The Divine Mother-Mahalakshmi

Wisdom and Force are not the only manifestations of the supreme Mother; there is a subtler mystery of her nature and without it Wisdom and Force would be incompetable things and without it perfection would not be perfect.
Above them is the miracle of eternal beauty, an unseizable secret of divine harmonies, the compelling magic of an irresistible universal charm and attraction that draws and holds things and forces and beings together and obliges them to meet and unite that a hidden Ananda may play from behind the veil and make of them its rhythms and its figures. This is the power of Mahalakshmi and there is no aspect of the Divine Shakti more attractive to the heart of the embodied beings.
Maheshwari can appear too calm and great and distant for the littleness of earthly nature to approach or contain her, Mahakali too swift and formidable for its weakness to bear; but all turn with joy and longing to Mahalakshmi.
For she throws the spell of the intoxicating sweetness of the Divine: to be close to her is a profound happiness and to feel her within the heart is to make the existence a rapture and a marvel; grace and charm and tenderness flow from her like the light from the sun and wherever she fixes her wonderful gaze or lets fall of the loveliness of her smile, the soul is seized and made captive and plunged into the depths of an unfathomable bliss.
Magnetic is the touch of her hands and their occult and delicate influence refines the mind and life and body and where she presses her feet course miraculous streams of an entrancing Ananda. And yet it is not easy to meet the demand of this enchanting Power or to keep her presence.
Harmony and beauty of the mind and soul, harmony and beauty of the thoughts and feelings, harmony and beauty in every outward act and movement, harmony and beauty of the life and surroundings, this is the demand of Mahalakshmi.
Where there is affinity to the rhythms of the secret world-bliss and response to the call of the All-Beautiful and concord and unity and the glad flow of many lives turned towards the Divine, in that atmosphere she consents to abide. But all that is ugly and mean and base, all that is poor and sordid and squalid, all that is brutal and coarse repels her advent.
Where love and beauty are not or are reluctant to be born, she does not come; where they are mixed and disfigured with baser things, she turns soon to depart or cares little to pour her riches.
If she finds herself in men's hearts surrounded with selfishness and hatred and jealousy and malignance and envy and strife, if treachery and greed and ingratitude are mixed in the sacred chalice, if grossness of passion and unrefined desire degrade devotion, in such hearts the gracious and beautiful Goddess will not linger. A divine disgust seizes upon her and she withdraws, for she is not one who insists or strives; or, veiling her face, she waits for this bitter and poisonous devil's stuff to be rejected and disappear before she will found anew her happy influence.
Ascetic bareness and harshness are nor to her not the suppression of the heart's deeper emotions and the rigid repression of the soul's and the life's parts of beauty. For it is through love and beauty that she lays on men the yoke of the Divine.
Life is turned in her supreme creations into a rich work of celestial art and all existence into a poem of sacred delight; the world's riches are brought together and concerted for a supreme order and even the simplest and commonest things are made wonderful by her intuition of unity and the breath of her spirit.
Admitted to the heart she lifts wisdom to pinnacles of wonder and reveals to it the mystic secrets of the ecstasy that surpassed all knowledge, meets devotion with the passionate attraction of the Divine, teaches to strength and force the rhythm that keeps the might of their acts harmonious and in measure and casts on perfection the charm that makes it endure for ever.
Selection from " The Mother" By Sri Aurobindo

[Yusufali 2:213] Mankind was one single nation, and Allah sent Messengers with glad tidings and warnings; and with them He sent the Book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear Signs came to them, did not differ among themselves, except through selfish contumacy. Allah by His Grace Guided the believers to the Truth, concerning that wherein they differed. For Allah guided whom He will to a path... [Yusufali 2:214] Or do ye think that ye shall enter the Garden (of bliss) without such (trials) as came to those who passed away before you? they encountered suffering and adversity, and were so shaken in spirit that even the Messenger and those of faith who were with him cried: "When (will come) the help of Allah?" Ah! Verily, the help of Allah is (always) near!that is straight.."