Spirit

of

Kshatriya

with a

Large Liberal Ideal

A Compilation from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Spirit

of

Kshatriya

with a

Large Liberal Ideal

© All writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

are copyright of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

and have been reproduced here with their kind permission.

©2022 AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry

www.aurosociety.org

Year of Publication 2022

Compilation done by Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

The Idea of Compilation on India by Vijay bhai

Proof-reading:

Bijal Gala

Archana Udaykumar,

Gayatri Majumdar, and

Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Cover Design:

Ramajayam Ramachandiran and

Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

E-book:

Uttam Mondal and

Karthigeyan S

Earlier e-books released on India are:

1. India and Her Mission

2. The Task of Building India Is Spiritual

3. The Splendour of Bharat’s Past Be Reborn

Preface

In the continuing series of compilations on “India” from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s works, we present the fourth e-book Spirit of Kshatriya with a Large Liberal Ideal. We hope that the readers will recognize that the subtle theme of each e-book contains one idea by which it can help India to achieve its mission.

The quotations in this compilation are from “THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO” (CWSA); “COLLECTED WORKS OF THE MOTHER” Second edition; Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo recorded by A. B. Purani FIRST EDITION and from Sri Aurobindo’s Archives and Research Magazines. Few quotations are also from Conversations of the Mother with a Sadhak. In Purani’s book, Sri Aurobindo while talking to sadhaks gave his opinion on many subjects.

After each quotation the following abbreviations are used representing the book from which it is taken.

CWSA: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO

CWM: COLLECTED WORKS OF THE MOTHER Second Edition

CTMS: Conversations of the Mother with a Sadhak

ETABP: Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo; recorded by A. B. Purani First Edition

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Those who would like to go through the fuller text are advised to go through the original books.

The section headings and sub-headings have been provided by the compiler to bring clarity on the selected topic. The reader needs to remember that the original quotations were not written with the intention of the sub-heading given by the compiler and so one may find that the passage has few other aspects included in the quotation. All the words that are bold faced are done by the compiler so that the reader may not miss the important point in the passage. One more reason for highlighting is that Sri Aurobindo’s writings are integral and cover a range of ideas in one sentence.

The idea of taking up this comprehensive compilation on India was suggested to me by Vijaybhai [Sri Vijay Poddar] somewhere in 2003. The hard copy of this compilation remained with him for many years. It was in May 2022 he wrote to me – “I was looking again at your compilation on India. It is extremely comprehensive and very well done. I feel we should go ahead immediately to publish it as an e-book on our website.” With the help of few proof-readers, we are able to bring out the series of e-books.

Compiler Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Why a Compilation on “India” from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother?

Sri Aurobindo says in one of his article says,

“I am impelled to this labour by the necessity of turning the mind of young India to our true riches, our real source of power, purification and hope for the future and of safeguarding it in the course of its search both from false lights and from the raucous challenges and confident discouragements cast at us by the frail modern spirit of denial. I write, not for the orthodox, nor for those who have discovered a new orthodoxy, Samaj or Panth, nor for the unbeliever; I write for those who acknowledge reason but do not identify reason with Western materialism; who are sceptics but not unbelievers; who, admitting the claims of modern thought, still believe in India, her mission and her gospel, her immortal life and her eternal rebirth.”  (CWSA 12: 62–63)

So this compilation contains all the labour of Sri Aurobindo, so that the youth in India may believe in the mission of India and her gospel and the hopes for the future are fulfilled.

But a question may arise why Sri Aurobindo on India? The part of the answer is in the letter Sri Aurobindo wrote to his wife.

“I know I have the strength to deliver this fallen race. It is not physical strength,—I am not going to fight with sword or gun,—but the strength of knowledge. The power of the Kshatriya is not the only one; there is also the power of the Brahmin, the power that is founded on knowledge. This feeling is not new in me, it is not of today. I was born with it, it is in my very marrow. God sent me to earth to accomplish this great mission. The seed began to sprout when I was fourteen; by the time I was eighteen the roots of the resolution had grown firm and unshakable.” August 30, 1905. (Letter written by Sri Aurobindo to his wife Mrinalini)

Besides the strength of knowledge which Sri Aurobindo had, his collaborator the Mother further adds.

“What must be done to pull the country out of its difficulty? Sri Aurobindo has foreseen all the troubles and he has given the solution. Just now we are approaching his Centenary; [1972] … this would be a wonderful occasion to spread his teaching all over the country: ... his teaching about India, how to organise India, the mission of India. ...

About all that has happened and all that is happening now, he has said clearly that to go back to it is useless. We must give the country its true position, that is, the position of relying on the Divine. Naturally, this is at the other end of what people try to believe now. But Sri Aurobindo explains it in such a way that even those who are against it can agree. You understand? He has found a way of saying it which can be understood by everybody. That’s the only solution, as far as I can see; it is the only solution. All the rest will mean complication, contradiction and fighting.

... And this is above politics, you see. ... It is to organise the country beyond politics. And it is the only way. In politics it is always fight and ugly fight—ugly. And it has become so bad. He was telling me always that things would become worse and worse, because it is the end of this age. We are entering into an age where things must be organized differently. It is a difficult time because of that.

Because we know what will come, we can help to make it come sooner and with less turmoil. There is no hope in going backwards; it would make things last endlessly. We must go forward, absolutely, and go beyond, beyond party. And nobody can explain that better than Sri Aurobindo, because he was so much, so much beyond party; he saw the advantages and disadvantages of all parties and he stated them exactly.

If you read carefully what he has written—so much—you will find the answer to all these questions. And at the same time you will know that you will have the full support of the Divine Power. The Power that was behind him is behind this transformation. It is time for transformation. We can’t cling to the past.

The best way to go beyond politics is to spread the message of Sri Aurobindo. Because he is no more a political element wanting to take power; there are only his ideas and ideals. And, of course, if people could understand and realise his programme, the country could be very strong, very strong.” (CWM 15: 405–406)

This compilation has also quotations from the Mother’s Collected Works. The Mother though born in France always felt that India was her true country, the country of her soul and spirit. She has declared herself Indian by choice and predilection.

“I want to mark this day by the expression of a long cherished wish; that of becoming an Indian citizen. From the first time I came to India—in 1914—I felt that India is my true country, the country of my soul and spirit. I had decided to realise this wish as soon as India would be free. But I had to wait still longer because of my heavy responsibilities for the Ashram here in Pondicherry. Now the time has come when I can declare myself.

But, in accordance with Sri Aurobindo’s ideal, my purpose is to show that truth lies in union rather than in division. To reject one nationality in order to obtain another is not an ideal solution. So I hope I shall be allowed to adopt a double nationality, that is to say, to remain French while I become an Indian.

I am French by birth and early education, I am Indian by choice and predilection. In my consciousness there is no antagonism between the two, on the contrary, they combine very well and complete one another. I know also that I can be of service to both equally, for my only aim in life is to give a concrete form to Sri Aurobindo’s great teaching and in his teaching he reveals that all the nations are essentially one and meant to express the Divine Unity upon earth through an organised and harmonious diversity.” 15 August 1954 (CWM 13: 43)

The reason why the Mother took birth in France is explained in this quotation.

“It is true that this body was born in Paris and that its soul has declared that it is Indian, but I belong to no nation in particular.” (CWM 13: 44)

She further adds that

“It is France that can connect Europe with India. There are great spiritual possibilities for France. She will play a big part in spite of her present bad condition. It is through France that the spiritual message will reach Europe. That is why I chose France for my birth, although I am not French.” (CWM 13: 379–380)

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother cannot be narrowly called Indian for they worked to uplift the humanity and move towards the next step in evolution so that all the problems of humanity can be solved. But their love for India was intense. The Mother says,

“Sri Aurobindo always loved deeply his Motherland. But he wished her to be great, noble, pure and worthy of her big mission in the world. He refused to let her sink to the sordid and vulgar level of blind self-interests and ignorant prejudices. This is why, in full conformity to his will, we lift high the standard of truth, progress and transformation of mankind, without caring for those who, through ignorance, stupidity, envy or bad will, seek to soil it and drag it down into the mud. We carry it very high so that all who have a soul may see it and gather round it.” (CWM 13: 123)

The quotations of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are a few decades old, so one may wonder how it will be relevant today. When a Yogi or a realised person talks, even in worldly matters, there will be Truth in it. This Truth will help one much more than what he would do by his own thinking. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had the highest spiritual realisations. Their vision and guidance can only lift India out of the present challenges she faces and help her achieve her mission. If one reads the mission that India has to achieve and the present day condition of our country then one will realise that Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s quotations are as valid that time as today. Reading the compilations, one will feel that it is relevant in today’s condition.

One caution needs to be taken while reading Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s quotations which is that one need not be too dogmatic about them. One really needs to live in the spirit behind these quotations.

This work is presented with a hope and an aspiration that the people of India may be inspired by the vision of India and the process of achieving India’s Mission may be hastened.

Compiler: Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Contents

Spirit of Kshatriya with a Large Liberal Ideal

(Replace the Average Contented Middle-Class Indians by the Spirit of Kshatriya and a Large and Liberal Ideal)

Section One: In Nineteenth Century—Why India Was Weak and Unable to Realise Its Great Possibilities?

I—India with Great Potential, Original Culture, Splendid Ancient Past and a Higher Mission in the World, Remained Politically, Economically and Intellectually Dependent

II—Japan Became One of the Mightiest Powers by Remaining Faithful to Her Ancient Spirit, the Spirit of the Samurai

III— The Evolvement of a New Type of Class in India—the Bourgeois

IV—This Difference of the Samurai and the Bourgeois Comprised the Contrasted Histories of Japan and India

Section Two: Decline of India as Bourgeois Prevailed in India

I—What Is the Bourgeois?

A—The Bourgeois Is the Average Contented Middle-Class Citizen in Love with Ease and Comforts

B—The Bourgeois Is Unfit for Great Adventures, Tremendous Enterprises and Lofty Achievements

C—The Bourgeois of the Mildest and Inefficient Type Reigned in India in the Nineteenth Century

II—The Bourgeois Type Dominated Indian Society in Nineteenth Century

III—Bourgeois Is the Creation of British Policy and English Education

IV—Another Reason How India Lost Ancient Heroic Manhood

Section Three: Under British the Kshatriya Died Out of the Soil and the Bourgeois Took His Place

I—Under the British, There Was No Need for the Rajpoot’s Courage, the Robust Manhood, the Noble Pride of the Kshatriya

II—British Rule Had No Need for Scholars, It Wanted Clerks

III—The Fighter and the Thinker Dwindled and the Bourgeois Flourished and Grew

IV—The Springs of Originality Were Fast Growing Atrophied

V—The British Education Was Poison to All True Elements of National Strength and Greatness

Section Four: Ancient India Was Not a Favourable Soil for Bourgeois’s Growth

I—The Spirit of Ancient India Was Aristocratic, Extreme and Highly Strenuous

II—There Was Continual Clash of Arms, Unceasing Stir and Strenuousness of Life, Fierceness of the Struggle and Magnificence of the Achievement

Section Five: The Cause of India's Decline Was the Practical Disappearance of the Kshatriya and the Dwindling of the Vaishya

I—In a Nation if the Spirit of the Kshatriya or the Brahmin goes, Then the Nation Is Doomed Unless It Can Revive the Missing Strength

Section Six: For India’s Resurgence the Middle-Class Bourgeois Must Be Transfigured to Become the Breeding Ground of the Kshatriya

I—India Must Recover Her Faculty for Self-Sacrifice, Courage and High Aspiration

II—The New Nationalism Seeks to Replace the Bourgeois by the Kshatriya, the Samurai

III—Kshatriya of the Old Must Again Take His Rightful Position in Our Social Polity

IV—Learn to Encounter Difficulties and Danger Manfully

V—In Remaking a Nation the Only Qualification Needed Is Heart That Can Feel For India, a Brain That Can Think and Plan for Her Greatness, a Tongue That Can Adore Her Name or Hands That Can Fight for Her

Section Seven: The Spirit of the Kshatriya

I—Courage, Ardour, Honour, Nobility, Chivalry, Patriotism

II—The Active Man With a Dominant Will, Bolder Ambitions, the Instinct to Act, Battle

III—Chivalry, Magnanimity and Honour

IV—Not to Bow His Neck to an Unjust Yoke, Protect the Weak and Suffering Against the Oppressor

V—The Soul-Power of This Type of Nature Opens to Fearlessness Which No Danger Can Daunt

VI—Srikrishna Declared Bhagavadgita, to a Kshatriya the Man of Action

Section Eight: India Needs Shakti Alone and To Get Strength We Must Adore the Mother of Strength

I—To Get Strength We Must Adore the Mother of Strength

II—The Thing Wanting Is Strength Physical, Mental, Moral, But Above All Strength Spiritual Which Is Inexhaustible and Imperishable Source of All the Others

III—Billowing Streams of Energy Must Be Poured into India

IV—The Shakti We Call India Is the Living Unity of the Shaktis of All People

V—Brahmatej, the Spiritual Force and Energy Can Be Directed To Build a Nation

Section Nine—National Awakening Requires a Large and Liberal Political Ideal

I—Low and Narrow Ideals, Petty Hopes, Insignificant Caution and Cowardice, Can Never Be the Fit Material for Building Up National Power

II—What India Needs Is the Spirit of Soaring Idealism

III—India has to Rise Above Petty and Insignificant Ideal

IV—Great Workers and Heroes Have Given the Greatest Credit to Pioneers of Ideas and Ideals

V—The Power and Vitality of Ideas Are More Powerful Than Fighting Men, Guns and Best-Organised Despotism

VI—Ideal Determines the Spirit of Action and Fixes the Method

VII—The Idea of National Greatness Has Overmastering Appeal and Try To Be Worthy of Our Past

VIII—If the Objective Is in the Skies, Then Find Wings or an Aeroplane to Lift You

Section Ten: The Ideals Relevant to India’s Future Work

I—To Live for God; Helper and Leader of the Whole Human Race; the Resurgence of Asia; International Unification; Spiritualisation of Life of the Whole Race and a New Step in the Evolution

II—India Is the Guru of the Nations, the Physician of the Human Soul in Its Profounder Maladies

III—India’s Mission Is To Give the Example of Spirituality

IV—India for the Sake of Humanity

V—Man’s Unity and Man's Self-Transcendence Can Occur Only by Living in the Spirit

VI—The Initiative for Evolution Can Arise From India

Section Eleven: Build Faith and Cohesion in the Country

I—Divine Power Alone Can Help India

II—Conviction Within, Not in the Intellect But in the Heart, that the Power That Is Guiding India Is Invincible, It Is Almighty

III—The Vision of Faith Penetrates into the Remote Future and Turns the Impossible into the Possible

IV—First Realise the Divine in Yourself and Shape your Life and God Will Change India in Shorter Time

V—In Reality All Work Is Done by the Will of God and When Faith in Him Is the Mainspring of Our Actions, Success Is Inevitable

VII—Someone Who Can Manifest from Within His Divinity and Realises the Divine Life Can Uplift India

Spirit of Kshatriya with a Large Liberal Ideal

(Replace the Average Contented Middle-Class Indians by the Spirit of Kshatriya and a Large and Liberal Ideal)

Section One: In Nineteenth Century—Why India Was Weak and Unable to Realise Its Great Possibilities?

I—India with Great Potential, Original Culture, Splendid Ancient Past and a Higher Mission in the World, Remained Politically, Economically and Intellectually Dependent

“Two oriental nations have come powerfully under the influence of Western ideas and felt the impact of European civilization during the nineteenth century, India and Japan. The results have been very different. … the larger [nation India] in spite of far greater potential strength, a more original culture, a more ancient and splendid past and a far higher mission in the world, remains a weak, distracted, subject & famine-stricken people politically, economically, morally & intellectually dependent on the foreigner and unable to realise its great possibilities. … why has the attempt at transformation in India been a failure? The solution of problems of this kind [of weakness of India] has to be sought not in abstractions, not in machinery, but in men. It is the spirit in man which moulds his fate; it is the spirit of a nation which determines its history.” (CWSA 7: 1091)

“Japan has within thirty years been able to become a great nation equal to Western Kingdom, but we are left in the same darkness as we were in before.” (Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research; Vol.15, No.2; Pg.241)

II—Japan Became One of the Mightiest Powers by Remaining Faithful to Her Ancient Spirit, the Spirit of the Samurai

“The smaller nation [Japan] has become one of the mightiest Powers in the modern world, … Why has Japan so admirably transformed herself? (CWSA 7: 1091)

“In Japan the dominant Japanese type had been moulded by the shaping processes of an admirable culture and when the Western impact came, Japan remained faithful to her ancient spirit; she merely took over certain forms of European social & political organization necessary to complete her culture under modern conditions and poured into these forms the old potent dynamic spirit of Japan, the spirit of the Samurai. It is the Samurai type which has been dominant in that country during the nineteenth century.” (CWSA 7: 1092)

III— The Evolvement of a New Type of Class in India—the Bourgeois

“Describe the type of human character which prevails in a nation during a given period of its life under given conditions, and it is possible to predict in outline what the general history of the nation must be during that period. … In India the mass of the nation has remained dormant; European culture has had upon it a powerful disintegrating and destructive influence, but has been powerless to reconstruct or revivify. But in the upper strata a new type has been evolved to serve the necessities and interests of the foreign rulers, a type which is not Indian, but foreign—and in almost all our social, political, educational, literary & religious activities the spirit of this new & foreign graft has predominated & determined the extent & quality of our progress. This type is the bourgeois.” (CWSA 7: 1091–1092)

IV—This Difference of the Samurai and the Bourgeois Comprised the Contrasted Histories of Japan and India

“In India, the bourgeois, in Japan, the Samurai; in this single difference is comprised the whole contrasted histories of the two nations during the nineteenth century.” (CWSA 7: 1092)

Section Two: Decline of India as Bourgeois Prevailed in India

I—What Is the Bourgeois?

A—The Bourgeois Is the Average Contented Middle-Class Citizen in Love with Ease and Comforts

“What is the bourgeois? For the word is unknown in India, though the thing is so prominent. The bourgeois is the average contented middle class citizen … He is a man of facile sentiments and skin-deep personality; … In love with his life, his ease and above all things his comforts, he prescribes the secure maintenance of these precious possessions … In the conduct of public movements he has an exaggerated worship for external order, moderation and decorum and hates over-earnestness and over-strenuousness. … The bourgeois is the … the man of moderation, the man of peace and orderliness, the man in every way ‘respectable’, who is the mainstay of all well-ordered societies.” (CWSA 7: 1092–1093)

B—The Bourgeois Is Unfit for Great Adventures, Tremendous Enterprises and Lofty Achievements

“But this admirable creature has his defects and limitations. For great adventures, tremendous enterprises, lofty achievements, the storm and stress of mighty and eventful periods in national activity, he is unfit. These things are for the heroes, the martyrs, the criminals, the enthusiasts, the degenerates, geniuses, the men of exaggerated virtue, exaggerated ability, exaggerated ideas. He enjoys the fruit of their work when it is done, but while it is doing, he opposes and hinders more often than helps. For he looks on great ideals as dreams and on vehement enthusiasms as harebrained folly; he he distrusts everything new & disturbing, everything that has not been done before or is not sanctioned by success & the accomplished fact revolt is to him a madness & revolution a nightmare.” (CWSA 7: 1093–1094)

C—The Bourgeois of the Mildest and Inefficient Type Reigned in India in the Nineteenth Century

“Such is the bourgeois and it was the bourgeois of the mildest & most inefficient type who reigned in India in the nineteenth century.” (CWSA 7: 1095)

II—The Bourgeois Type Dominated Indian Society in Nineteenth Century

“It is undoubtedly this type which has dominated us in the nineteenth century. … In Senate & Syndicate, in Legislative Council & District Board or Municipal Corporation, in Congress & Conference, in the services & professions, even in literature & scholarship, even in religion he was everywhere with his well-regulated mind, his unambitious ideals, his sung little corner of culture, his ‘education’ and ‘enlightenment’, his comfortable patriotism, his comfortable enlightenment, his easy solution of the problem how to serve both God and Mammon, yet offend neither, his self-satisfaction, his decorous honesty, his smug respectability. Society was made after his model, politics moulded in his image, education confined within his limits, literature & religion stamped with the seal of the bourgeois.” (CWSA 7: 1095)

III—Bourgeois Is the Creation of British Policy and English Education

“The bourgeois as a distinct & well-evolved entity is an entirely modern product in India, he is the creation of British policy, English education, Western civilization. Ancient India, mediaeval India were not a favourable soil for his growth.” (CWSA 7: 1095)

“British rule necessitated the growth of the bourgeois, British policy fostered it, and the plant grew so swiftly because a forcing-house had been created for his rapid cultivation and the soil was kept suitably shallow and the air made warm and humid for his needs. It was as in the ancient world when the nations accepted peace, civilisation and a common language at the cost of national decay, the death of their manhood and final extinction or agelong slavery. The Pax Britannica was his parent and an easy servitude nursed him into maturity.

For the first need of the bourgeois is a guaranteed and perfect security for his person, property and pursuits. Peace, comfort and safety are the very breath of his nostrils.” (CWSA 7: 1098)

IV—Another Reason How India Lost Ancient Heroic Manhood

“Buddhism with its exaggerated emphasis on quiescence … its all too facile admission of men to the higher life and its relegation of worldly action to the lowest importance possible stands at the opposite pole from the gospel of Sri Krishna and has had the very effect he deprecates; it has been the author of confusion and the destroyer of the peoples. Under its influence half the nation moved in the direction of spiritual passivity & negation, the other by a natural reaction plunged deep into a splendid but enervating materialism. As a result our race lost three parts of its ancient heroic manhood, its grasp on the world, its magnificently ordered polity and its noble social fabric. … But Hinduism has never been able to shake off the deep impress of the religion it vanquished; … it has not succeeded in recovering its old vitalising force.” (CWSA 1: 330–331)

Section Three: Under British the Kshatriya Died Out of the Soil and the Bourgeois Took His Place

I—Under the British, There Was No Need for the Rajpoot’s Courage, the Robust Manhood, the Noble Pride of the Kshatriya

“Under the new dispensation of Providence there was no call for the high qualities of old, the Aryan or noble virtues which, whatever else failed or perished, had persisted in Indian character for thousands of years, since first the chariots rolled on the hitherside of the Indus. What need for the Rajpoot’s courage, the robust manhood, the noble pride of the Kshatriya, when heroic and unselfish England claimed the right of shedding her blood for the safety of the land? What room for the gifts of large initiative, comprehensive foresight, wise aspiration which make the statesman, when a Bentinck or a Mayo, a Dufferin or a Curzon were ready & eager to take & keep the heavy burdens of Government out of the hands of the children of the soil? The princely spirit, the eagle’s vision, the lion’s heart, these were things that might be buried away with the memories of the great Indian rulers of the past. Happy India, civilised and cared for by human seraphs from over the sea, had no farther need for them. So from sheer inanition, from want of light, room and air, the Kshatriya died out of the soil which had first produced him and the bourgeois took his place. But if room was none for the soldier & the statesman, little could be found for the Brahmin, the sage or the Sannyasin.” (CWSA 7: 1099)

II—British Rule Had No Need for Scholars, It Wanted Clerks

“British rule had no need for scholars, it wanted clerks; British policy welcomed the pedant but feared, even when it honoured, the thinker, for the strong mind might pierce through shows to the truth and the deep thought teach the people to embrace great ideals and live and die for them; British education flung contempt on the Sannyasin as an idler and charlatan, and pointed with admiration to the strenous seeker for worldly goods and success as the finest work of the creator. So Vyasa & Valmekie were forgotten for weavers of idle tales and Smiles and Sir Arthur Helps took their place as an instructor of youth, the gospel of Philistinism in its naked crudeness was beaten into the minds of our children when most malleable. Thus Ramdas was following Shivaji into the limbo of the unreturning past. And if God had not meant otherwise for our nation, the Sannyasin would have become an extinct type, Yoga been classed among dead superstitions with witchcraft & alchemy and Vedanta sent the way of Pythagoras & Plato.” (CWSA 7: 1099–1100)

III—The Fighter and the Thinker Dwindled and the Bourgeois Flourished and Grew

“We read & thought but did not live what we read & thought. So our existence grew ever more artificial and unreal. The fighter and the thinker in us dwindled & bourgeois flourished and grew.

Contentment with an artificial existence, … made the old rich flood of vitality, strong character, noble aspiration, excellent achievement run ever shallower and thinner in our veins.” (CWSA 7: 1102)

IV—The Springs of Originality Were Fast Growing Atrophied

“We knew little & knew it badly. And even we could not profit by the little we knew for advance, for origination; even those who struggled to a wider knowledge proved barren soil. The springs of originality were fast growing atrophied by our unnatural existence. The great men among us who strove to originate were the spiritual children of an older time who still drew sap from the roots of our ancient culture and had the energy of the Mogul times in their blood. But their success was not commensurate with their genius & with each generation these grew rarer & rarer. The sap soon began to run dry, the energy to dwindle away. Worse than the narrowness & inefficiency, was the unreality of our culture. ... We learned science without observation of the objects of science, words & not the things which they symbolised, literature by rote, philosophy as a lesson to be got by heart, not as a guide to truth or a light shed on existence. We read of and believed in English economy, while we lived under Indian conditions and worshipped the free trade which was starving us to death as a nation.” (CWSA 7: 1103)

V—The British Education Was Poison to All True Elements of National Strength and Greatness

“But the [British] education which was poison to all true elements of national strength and greatness, was meat & drink to the bourgeois. The bourgeois delights in convention, because truth is too hard a taskmaster and makes too severe a demand on character, energy & intellect. He craves superficiality, a shallow soil to grow in. For to attain depth requires time & energy which would have to be unprofitably diverted from his chief business of making his individual way in the world. He cannot give up his life to his country, but if she will be grateful for a few of his leisure hours, he will give in those limits ungrudging service & preen himself on his public virtues. Prodigal charity would be uncomfortable & unwise, but if he can earn applause by parting with a fraction of his superfluities, he is always ready for the sacrifice. Deep scholarship would unfit him for his part in life, but if figuring on learned societies or writing a few articles and essays, an occasional book guiltless of uncomfortable originality, or a learned compilation prepared under his superintendence and issued in his name will make him a man of letters, he will court & prize that easily-earned reputation. The effort to remould society and rebuild the nation is too huge and perilous a task for a comfortable citizen, but he is quite prepared to condemn old and inconvenient institutions and superstitions and lend his hand to a few changes which will make social life more pleasant and comfortable. Superficiality, unreality of thought & deed thus became the stamp of all our activities.” (CWSA 7: 1105)

“Our education too had just the same pride in a false show of breadth and the same confined and narrow scope. In our schools & colleges we were set to remember many things, but learned nothing. We had no real mastery of English literature, though we read Milton and Bruke and quoted Byron and Shelley, …” (CWSA 7: 1102-1103)

Section Four: Ancient India Was Not a Favourable Soil for Bourgeois’s Growth

I—The Spirit of Ancient India Was Aristocratic, Extreme and Highly Strenuous

“The bourgeois as a distinct & well-evolved entity is an entirely modern product in India, … Ancient India, mediaeval India were not a favourable soil for his growth. The spirit of ancient India was aristocratic; its thought & life moulded in the cast of a high & proud nobility, an extreme & lofty strenuousness. The very best in thought, the very best in action, the very best in character, the very best in literature & art, the very best in religion and all the world well lost if only this very best might be attained, such was the spirit of ancient India. The Brahmin who devoted himself to poverty & crushed down every desire in the wholehearted pursuit of knowledge & religious self-discipline; the Kshatriya who, hurling his life joyously into the shock of chivalrous battle, held life, wife, children, possessions, ease, happiness as mere dust in the balance compared with honour & the Kshatriya dharma, the preservation of self-respect, the protection of the weak, the noble fulfilment of princely duty; the Vaishya, who toiling all his life to amass riches, poured them out as soon as amassed in self-forgetting philanthropy holding himself the mere steward & not the possessor of his wealth; the Shudra who gave himself up loyally to humble service, faithfully devoting his life to his dharma, however low, in preference to self advancement & ambition; these were the social ideals of the age.” (CWSA 7: 1095–1096)

II—There Was Continual Clash of Arms, Unceasing Stir and Strenuousness of Life, Fierceness of the Struggle and Magnificence of the Achievement

“The sense-conquering thought of the philosopher, the magnificent achievements of the hero, the stupendous renunciations of the Sannyasin, [the] unbounded liberality of the man of wealth, everything was exaggeration, extreme, filled with an epic inspiration, a world-defying enthusiasm. The bourgeois though he existed in the rough of course, as in all civilized societies he must exist, had no real chance of evolution; on such a height with so rare an atmosphere, he could not grow; where such tempests of self-devotion blew habitually, his warm comfortable personality could not expand.

The conditions of mediaeval India [mediaeval period from 6th to 16th century] suited him little better,—the continual clash of arms, the unceasing stir & splendour & strenuousness of life, the fierceness of the struggle and the magnificence of the achievement, the ceaseless tearing down & building up which resulted from Mahomedan irruption and the action & reaction of foreign & indigenous forces, formed surroundings too restless & too flamboyant. Life under the Moguls was splendid, rich and luxurious, but it was not safe & comfortable. Magnificent possibilities were open to all men whatever their birth or station, but magnificent abilities and an unshaken nerve & courage were needed to grasp them or to keep what had been grasped. There was no demand for the stable & easy virtues of the bourgeois. In the times of stress and anarchy, which accompanied this disintegration of mediaeval India, the conditions were yet more unfavourable; character and morals shared in the general disintegration, but ability & courage were even more is demand than before and for the bourgeois there was no place vacant. (The men who figured in the revolutions in Bengal, the Deccan, the Punjab and the North were often, like their European allies and antagonists, men of civil character, self-seeking, unscrupulous and Machiavellian, but they were at least men.)  It was not till mediaeval India breathed its last in the convulsions of 1857 that entirely new conditions reigned and an entirely new culture prevailed with an undisputed sway wholly favourable to the rapid development of the bourgeois type and wholly discouraging to the development of any other.” (CWSA 7: 1097)

Section Five: The Cause of India's Decline Was the Practical Disappearance of the Kshatriya and the Dwindling of the Vaishya

I—In a Nation if the Spirit of the Kshatriya or the Brahmin goes, Then the Nation Is Doomed Unless It Can Revive the Missing Strength

"There is no national life perfect or sound without the chaturvarnya. The life of the nation must contain within itself the life of the Brahmin,—spirituality, knowledge, learning, high and pure ethical aspiration and endeavour; the life of the Kshatriya,—manhood and strength moral and physical, the love of battle, the thirst for glory, the sense of honour, chivalry, self-devotion, generosity, grandeur of soul; the life of the Vaishya,—trade, industry, thrift, prosperity, benevolence, philanthropy; the life of the Shudra,—honesty, simplicity, labour, religious and quiet service to the nation even in the humblest position and the most insignificant kind of work. The cause of India's decline was the practical disappearance of the Kshatriya and the dwindling of the Vaishya. …

When the chaturvarnya disappears, there comes varnasankara, utter confusion of the great types which keep a nation vigorous and sound. The Khastriya dwindled, the Vaishya dwindled, the Brahmin and Shudra were left. ... the Brahmin type ... the first sign of his disappearance was utter degeneracy, the tendency to lose himself and while keeping some outward signs of the Brahmin to gravitate towards Shudrahood. In the Kaliyuga the Shudra is powerful and attracts into himself the less vigorous Brahmin, ... and the Brahmatej, the spiritual force of the latter, already diminished, dwindles to nothingness. For the Satyayuga to return, we must get back the Brahmatej and make it general. For the Brahmatej is the basis of all the rest and in the Satyayuga all men have it more or less and by it the nation lives and is great.

…

The Brahmin stands for religion, science, scholarship and the higher morality; the Kshatriya for war, politics and administration; the Vaishya for the trades, professions and industries, the Shudra for labour and service. It is only when these four great departments of human activity are all in a robust and flourishing condition that the nation is sound and great. When any of these disappears or suffer, it is bad for the body politic. And the two highest are the least easy to be spared. If they survive in full strength, they can provide themselves with the two others, but if either the Kshatriya or the Brahmin go, if either the political force or the spiritual force of a nation is lost, that nation is doomed unless it can revive or replace the missing strength. And of the two the Brahmin is the more important.  He can always create the Kshatriya; spiritual force can always raise up material force to defend it. But if the Brahmin becomes the Shudra, then the lower instinct of the serf and the labourer becomes all in all, ... the instinct to accept safety as a compensation for lost greatness and inglorious ease and dependence in place of the ardours of high aspiration for the nation and the individual. When spirituality is lost all is lost." (CWSA 08: 19-20)

Section Six: For India’s Resurgence the Middle-Class Bourgeois Must Be Transfigured to Become the Breeding Ground of the Kshatriya

I—India Must Recover Her Faculty for Self-Sacrifice, Courage and High Aspiration

“Our only hope of resurgence was in some such great unsealing of the eyes to the Maya in which we existed and the discovery of some effective mantra, some strong spiritual impulse which should have the power to renovate us from within.  For good or for evil the middle class now leads in India, and whatever saving impulse comes to the nation, must come from the middle class, whatever upward movement begins, it must initiate and lead. But for that to happen the middle class must by a miracle be transfigured and lifted above itself; the natural breeding ground of the bourgeois, it must become the breeding ground of the Samurai. It must cease in fact to be a middle class and turn itself into an aristocracy, an aristocracy not of birth or landed possessions, not of intellect, not of wealth and commercial enterprise, but of character and action. India must recover her faculty for self-sacrifice, courage and high aspiration.  Such a transformation is the work which has been set before itself by the new Nationalism; … The new Nationalism is an attempt at a spiritual transformation of the nineteenth century Indian, it is a notice of dismissal or at least of suspension to the bourgeois and all his ideas and ways and works; a call for men who will dare & do impossibilities; the men of extremes, the men of faith the prophets, the martyrs, the crusaders, … & rebels, the desperate ventures and reckless doers, the initiators of revolutions.  It is the rebirth in India of the Kshatriya, the Samurai.” (CWSA 7: 1107–1108)

II—The New Nationalism Seeks to Replace the Bourgeois by the Kshatriya, the Samurai

“… the new spirit in India … The New nationalism is the very antithesis, the complete and vehement negation of the old. The old movement sought to make a wider circle of activity, freer living-room and a more comfortable and eminent position for the bourgeois, to prolong the unnatural & evil conditions … which British rule has recreated for India; the new seeks to replace the bourgeois by the Samurai and to shatter the prison house which the nineteenth century made for our mother and build anew a palace for her glory, a garden for her pleasure, a free domain for her freedom & her pride.” (CWSA 7: 1105–1106)

III—Kshatriya of the Old Must Again Take His Rightful Position in Our Social Polity

“But we reiterate with all the emphasis we can command that the Kshatriya of old must again take his rightful position in our social polity to discharge the first and foremost duty of defending its interests. The brain is impotent without the right arm of strength. India is now conscious of this long-forgotten truth.” (CWSA 6: 251)

IV—Learn to Encounter Difficulties and Danger Manfully

“An individual or a nation cannot rise to its full height except through trouble and stress. The stone block patiently submits to hammering, cutting and chiselling to be made into the statue which pleases the eye and gladdens the soul. If it could feel it certainly would say, ‘How dearly I have to pay for the beautiful transformation.’ This is the inexorable law of nature. … If you want to get anything grand and beautiful out of her you must go through the process through which a piece of stone passes before it is endowed with shape, beauty and meaning. The fertilising river rolls down stones, breaks through the impediments, rends asunder the surface of the earth before it bears on its bosom the argosies and crowns the bordering lands with plenty. Those who cannot look this sternness of nature in the face are not destined for things good, noble and high. … but if climbing up the heights of glory is your ambition learn to encounter difficulties and danger manfully. … But it bears repetition times without number and when either an individual or a nation sets about anything earnestly it should start fully impressed with the truth of this copybook commonplace.” (CWSA 6: 248)

V—In Remaking a Nation the Only Qualification Needed Is Heart That Can Feel For India, a Brain That Can Think and Plan for Her Greatness, a Tongue That Can Adore Her Name or Hands That Can Fight for Her

“It [the New nationalism] cries to all to come forth, to help in God’s work & remake a nation, each with what his creed or his culture, his strength, his manhood or his genius can give to the new nationality. The only qualification it asks for is a body made in the womb of an Indian mother, a heart that can feel for India, a brain that can think and plan for her greatness, a tongue that can adore her name or hands that can fight in her quarrel.” (CWSA 7: 1106)

Section Seven: The Spirit of the Kshatriya

I—Courage, Ardour, Honour, Nobility, Chivalry, Patriotism

“… the courage, ardour, honour, nobility, chivalry, patriotism of the Kshatriya …” (CWSA 1: 391)

II—The Active Man With a Dominant Will, Bolder Ambitions, the Instinct to Act, Battle

“At a higher elevation of the rajasic or kinetic quality of our one common nature we get the active man with a more dominant will, with bolder ambitions, with the instinct to act, battle, and enforce his will, at the strongest to lead, command, rule, carry masses of men in his orbit, the fighter, leader, ruler, prince, king, Kshatriya.” (CWSA 19: 522)

III—Chivalry, Magnanimity and Honour

“… the Kshatriya dharma of courage, chivalry, magnanimity and honour.” (CWSA 20: 418)

IV—Not to Bow His Neck to an Unjust Yoke, Protect the Weak and Suffering Against the Oppressor

“But the First virtue of the Kshatriya is not to bow his neck to an unjust yoke but to protect his weak and suffering countrymen against the oppressor and welcome death in a just and righteous battle.” (CWSA 6: 238)

“Justice and righteousness are the atmosphere of political morality, but the justice and righteousness of the fighter, not of the priest. Aggression is unjust only when unprovoked, violence unrighteous when used wantonly or for unrighteous ends. It is a barren philosophy which applies a mechanical rule to all actions, or takes a word and tries to fit all human life into it. The sword of the warrior is as necessary to the fulfilment of justice and righteousness as the holiness of the saint. Ramdas is not complete without Shivaji. To maintain justice and prevent the strong from despoiling and the weak from being oppressed, is the function for which the Kshatriya was created.” (CWSA 7: 1121)

V—The Soul-Power of This Type of Nature Opens to Fearlessness Which No Danger Can Daunt

“On the other hand the turn of the nature may be to the predominance of the will-force and the capacities which make for strength, energy, courage, leadership, protection, rule, victory in every kind of battle, a creative and formative action, the will-power which lays its hold on the material of life and on the wills of other men and compels the environment into the shapes which the Shakti within us seeks to impose on life or acts powerfully according to the work to be done to maintain what is in being or to destroy it and make clear the paths of the world or to bring out into definite shape what is to be. This may be there in lesser or greater power or form and according to its grade and force we have successively the mere fighter or man of action, the man of self-imposing active will and personality and the ruler, conqueror, leader of a cause, creator, founder in whatever field of the active formation of life. … But the soul-powers to which this type of nature opens on its higher grades are as necessary as those of the Brahmana to the perfection of our human nature. The high fearlessness which no danger or difficulty can daunt and which feels its power equal to meet and face and bear whatever assault of man or fortune or adverse gods, the dynamic audacity and daring which shrinks from no adventure or enterprise as beyond the powers of a human soul free from disabling weakness and fear, the love of honour which would scale the heights of the highest nobility of man and stoop to nothing little, base, vulgar or weak, but maintains untainted the ideal of high courage, chivalry, truth, straightforwardness, sacrifice of the lower to the higher self, helpfulness to men, unflinching resistance to injustice and oppression, self-control and mastery, noble leading, warriorhood and captainship of the journey and the battle, the high self-confidence of power, capacity, character and courage indispensable to the man of action,—these are the things that build the make of the Kshatriya. To carry these things to their highest degree and give them a certain divine fullness, purity and grandeur is the perfection of those who have this Swabhava and follow this Dharma.” (CWSA 24: 744–745)

VI—Srikrishna Declared Bhagavadgita, to a Kshatriya the Man of Action

“The practical disappearance of the Kshatriya caste … has operated in the same direction. The Kshatriyas were the proper depositaries of the gospel of action; Srikrishna himself declares:

…

‘This imperishable Yoga I revealed to Vivaswan, Vivaswan declared it to Manou, Manou to Ixvaacou told it; thus did the royal sages learn this as a hereditary knowledge’,

and when in the immense lapse of time it was lost, Srikrishna again declared it to a Kshatriya. … Srikrishna’s emphasis on the necessity of action as the one sure road to the goal. Time, however, in its revolution is turning back on itself and there are signs that if Hinduism is to last and we are not to plunge into the vortex of scientific atheism and the breakdown of moral ideals which is engulfing Europe, it must survive as the religion of Vyasa for which Vedanta, Sankhya & Yoga combined to lay the foundation, which Sri Krishna announced & which Vyasa formulated.” (CWSA 1: 331-332)

Section Eight: India Needs Shakti Alone and To Get Strength We Must Adore the Mother of Strength

I—To Get Strength We Must Adore the Mother of Strength

“Strength then and again strength and yet more strength is the need of our race. But if it is strength we desire, how shall we gain it if we do not adore the Mother of Strength? She demands worship not for Her own sake, but in order that She may help us and give Herself to us. This is no fantastic idea, no superstition but the ordinary law of the universe. The gods cannot, if they would, give themselves unasked. Even the Eternal comes not unaware upon man. Every devotee knows by experience that we must turn to Him and desire and adore Him before the Divine Spirit pours in its ineffable beauty and ecstasy upon the soul. What is true of the Eternal, is true also of Her who goes forth from Him.” (CWSA 6: 85)

II—The Thing Wanting Is Strength Physical, Mental, Moral, But Above All Strength Spiritual Which Is Inexhaustible and Imperishable Source of All the Others

“The deeper we look, the more we shall be convinced that the one thing wanting, which we must strive to acquire before all others, is strength—strength physical, strength mental, strength moral, but above all strength spiritual which is the one inexhaustible and imperishable source of all the others. If we have strength, everything else will be added to us easily and naturally. In the absence of strength we are like men in a dream who have hands but cannot seize or strike, who have feet but cannot run.” (CWSA 06: 82)

III—Billowing Streams of Energy Must Be Poured into India

“Whenever we strive to do anything, after the first rush of enthusiasm is spent a paralysing helplessness seizes upon us. We often see in the case of old men full of years and experience that the very excess of knowledge seems to have frozen their powers of action and their powers of will. When a great feeling or a great need overtakes them and it is necessary to carry out its promptings in action, they hesitate, ponder, discuss, make tentative efforts and abandon them or wait for the safest and easiest way to suggest itself, instead of taking the most direct; thus the time when it was possible and necessary to act passes away. Our race has grown just such an old man with stores of knowledge, with ability to feel and desire, but paralysed by simple sluggishness, senile timidity, senile feebleness. If India is to survive, she must be made young again. Rushing and billowing streams of energy must be poured into her; her soul must become, as it was in the old times, like the surges, vast, puissant, calm or turbulent at will, an ocean of action or of force.” (CWSA 06: 82–83)

IV—The Shakti We Call India Is the Living Unity of the Shaktis of All People

“For what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha-Mardini sprang into being from the Shaktis of all the millions of Gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharti, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people; but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons. To get rid of tamas we have but to wake the Brahma within.” (CWSA 06: 83)

V—Brahmatej, the Spiritual Force and Energy Can Be Directed To Build a Nation

"We have said that Brahmatej is the thing we need most of all and first of all. … Brahmatej; which is rather spirituality, the force and energy of thought and action arising from communion with or self-surrender to that within us which rules the world. ... This force and energy can be directed to any purpose God desires for us; it is sufficient to knowledge, love or service; it is good for the liberation of an individual soul, the building of a nation ... It works from within, it works in the power of God, it works with superhuman energy. The re-awakening of that force in three hundred millions of men by the means which our past has placed in our hands, that is our object." (CWSA 8: 21)

Section Nine—National Awakening Requires a Large and Liberal Political Ideal

I—Low and Narrow Ideals, Petty Hopes, Insignificant Caution and Cowardice, Can Never Be the Fit Material for Building Up National Power

“When preparations for a national awakening are begun, no matter in what country or by what nation, a large and liberal political ideal is then required for that purpose. If the noble-minded Rousseau’s doctrine of equality had not been preached the stirring aspirations of the French Revolution would not have been able to awaken half dead France and flood the whole of Europe. Unless America had felt a longing for obtaining the natural rights of man the Unites States would never have been created. If the sage-like Mazzini had not infused high hopes and liberal ideals in the heart of young Italy that fallen nation would never have been able to cut through the bonds of eternal servitude.  Low and narrow ideals, petty hopes, small purpose, insignificant caution and cowardice, and leaders who are shortsighted and wanting in boldness—all these despicable ingredients can never be the fit material for building up national power. No nation ever mounted the high steps of greatness with (literally, taking) these petty ingredients. ‘The inactive (can) never enjoy great things’—he whose hopes are small (can) never enjoy greatness—men versed in politics ought always to bear in mind this saying of the Mahabharata.” (Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research; Vol.15, No.2; Pg.238)

II—What India Needs Is the Spirit of Soaring Idealism

“What India needs especially at this moment is the aggressive virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation, fearless resistance, courageous attack; of the passive tamasic spirit of inertia we have already too much. We need to cultivate another training and temperament, another habit of mind. We would apply to the present situation … that what we need, what we should learn above all things is to dare and again to dare and still to dare.” (CWSA 7: 487–488)

III—India has to Rise Above Petty and Insignificant Ideal

“But if the nation has to be brought to life again (we) should rise above this petty and insignificant ideal. Who has for the sake of this ideal ever forgotten himself by being intoxicated with patriotism and given up his real self-interest, or has, defiant of all sorts of terrors and temptations, advanced with great speed in the path of duty? On the other hand, see, when you once showed (us) the heart-enrapturing image of the Mother, then at the sight of that face and at (the hearing of) that name all of us became mad, engaged ourselves in national work after gladly giving up our self-interests, …” (Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research; Vol.15, No.2; Pg.242–243)

“No nation can be great on the principle of maintaining its existence, unless it stands for some great cause or idealism or something else great.” (ETABP: 761)

IV—Great Workers and Heroes Have Given the Greatest Credit to Pioneers of Ideas and Ideals

“Men in their ordinary utilitarian course of life do not feel called upon to serve any one except themselves.

The daily duties are engrossing enough for the average man. His own individual prospects in life generally become his sole concern. He is propelled by the interia of his own individual needs, and if any other sort of work is expected of him a different and more intense force must be continuously applied to him to produce the necessary energy. Or, in other words, we must continuously appeal to his better nature, we must evoke the spiritual in him, we must call forth his moral enthusiasm.

These may not be human nature’s daily food, they may not be necessary for our daily life, … but they are essential for working a change in our social or political life. Buddha … Christ … Sankar only preached and lived a holy life, and they have each worked a mighty revolution in the history of the world. Inspiration is the real work. Let the truly inspiring word be uttered and it will breathe life into dry bones. Let the inspiring life be lived and it will produce workers by thousands. … great workers and heroes, they have given the greatest credit to the givers of ideas and ideals, because they have felt in their own life where the inspiration for work comes from. Work without ideals is a false gospel.” (CWSA 07: 880–881)

V—The Power and Vitality of Ideas Are More Powerful Than Fighting Men, Guns and Best-Organised Despotism

“The mistakes which despots, benevolent or malevolent, have … is that they overestimate their coercive power, which is physical and material and therefore palpable, and underestimate the power and vitality of ideas and sentiments. … But such feelings and thoughts are more powerful than fighting men and guns … Their beginning are feeble, their end is mighty. … Thought is always greater than armies, more lasting than the most powerful and best-organised despotism. It was a thought that overthrew the despotism of centuries in France and revolutionised Europe. It was a mere sentiment against … which brought to nought the administrative genius, the military power, the stubborn will of Aurangzeb, … the physical power and organisation behind the insurgent idea are ridiculously small, the repressive force so overwhelmingly, impossibly strong that all reasonable, prudent, moderate minds see the utter folly of resistance and stigmatise the attempt of the idea to rise as an act of almost criminal insanity. But the man with the idea is not reasonable, not prudent, not moderate. He is an extremist, a fanatic. He knows that his idea is bound to conquer, … He knows that in the fight with brute force the spirit, the idea is bound to conquer…. The idea or sentiment is at first confined to a few men whom their neighbours and countrymen ridicule as lunatics or hare-brained enthusiasts. But it spreads and gathers adherents who catch the fire of the first missionaries and creates its own preachers and then its workers who try to carry out its teachings in circumstances of almost paralysing difficulty. … The idea creates its martyrs. And in martyrdom there is an incalculable spiritual magnetism which works miracles. A whole nation, a whole world catches the fire which burned in a few hearts; the soil which has drunk the blood of the martyr imbibes with it a sort of divine madness which it breathes into the heart of all its children, until there is but one overmastering idea … It is at this moment that the idea begins to create its heroes and fighters, whose numbers and courage only multiplies and confirms until the idea militant has become the idea triumphant. Such is the history of the idea, so invariable in its broad lines that it is evidently the working of a natural law.” (CWSA 07: 493–494)

VI—Ideal Determines the Spirit of Action and Fixes the Method

“These are two ideals before us, and an ideal is not mere breadth, it is a thing compelling which determines the spirit of our action and often fixes the method. No policy can be successful which does not take into view the end to be attained and the amount and nature of the effort needed to effect it. The leader of industry who enters on a commercial enterprise, first looks at the magnitude of his field and intended output and equips himself with capital and plant accordingly, and even if he cannot commence at once on the scale of his ideal he holds it in view himself, puts it before the public in issuing his prospectus and estimating the capital necessary, and all the practical steps he takes are conceived in the light of his original aspiration and ordered towards its achievement. So it is with the political ventures of a nation.” (CWSA 8: 92–93)

VII—The Idea of National Greatness Has Overmastering Appeal and Try To Be Worthy of Our Past

“Without a great ideal there can be no great movement. Small baits of material advantages will not nerve them to high endeavour and heroic self-sacrifice; it is only the idea of … national greatness that has that overmastering appeal. We must not bend the knee to others but try to be worthy of our past—here is an ideal which, if set forth with conviction and power, cannot fail to inspire self-sacrificing action. We need faith above all things, faith in ourselves, faith in the nation, faith in India’s destiny. A dozen men rendered invincible by a strong faith in their future, have in other times, spread the contagion of nationalism to the remotest corner of vast countries. Unbelief is blind—it does not see far ahead, neither stimulates strength nor inspires action.” (CWSA 06: 348)

VIII—If the Objective Is in the Skies, Then Find Wings or an Aeroplane to Lift You

“To place before himself a great object and then to shrink in the name of expediency from the expenditure and sacrifice called for in its pursuit is not prudence but ineptitude. If you will be prudent, be prudent from the beginning. Fix your object low and creep towards it. But if you fix your object in the skies, it will not do to crawl on the ground and because your eyes are sometimes lifted towards the ideal imagine you are progressing while you murmur to those behind, ‘Yes, yes, our ideal is in the skies because that is the place for ideals, but we are on the ground and the ground is our proper place of motion. Let us creep, let us creep.’ Such inconsistency will only dishearten the nation, unnerve its strength and confuse its intelligence. You must either bring down your ideal to the ground or find wings or aeroplane to lift you to skies. There is no middle course.” (CWSA 8: 93)

Section Ten: The Ideals Relevant to India’s Future Work

I—To Live for God; Helper and Leader of the Whole Human Race; the Resurgence of Asia; International Unification; Spiritualisation of Life of the Whole Race and a New Step in the Evolution

“I have been asked for a message on this great occasion, [15th August 1947] but I am perhaps hardly in a position to give one. All I can do is to make a personal declaration of the aims and ideals conceived in my childhood and youth and now watched in their beginning of fulfilment, because they are relevant to the freedom of India, since they are part of what I believe to be India’s future work, something in which she cannot but take a leading position. For I have always held and said that India was arising, not to serve her own material interests only, to achieve expansion, greatness, power and prosperity,—though these too she must not neglect,—and certainly not like others to acquire domination of other peoples, but to live also for God and the world as a helper and leader of the whole human race. Those aims and ideals were in their natural order these: a revolution which would achieve India’s freedom and her unity; the resurgence and liberation of Asia and her return to the great role which she had played in the progress of human civilisation; the rise of a new, a greater, brighter and nobler life for mankind which for its entire realisation would rest outwardly on an international unification … but drawing them together into an overriding and consummating oneness; the gift by Indian of her spiritual knowledge and her means for the spiritualisation of life to the whole race; finally, a new step in the evolution which, by uplifting the consciousness to a higher level, would begin the solution of the many problems of existence which have perplexed and vexed humanity, since men began to think and to dream of individual perfection and a perfect society.” The Fifteenth of August 1947 Message (CWSA 36: 474-475)

II—India Is the Guru of the Nations, the Physician of the Human Soul in Its Profounder Maladies

“India is the guru of the nations, the physician of the human soul in its profounder maladies; she is destined once more to new-mould the life of the world and restore the peace of the human spirit.” (CWSA 7: 906).

III—India’s Mission Is To Give the Example of Spirituality

“Its [India’s] mission is to give the example of spirituality.” (CTMS: February 8, 1972)

IV—India for the Sake of Humanity

“Our aim will therefore be to help in building up India for the sake of humanity—this is the spirit of the Nationalism which we profess and follow.” (CWSA 13: 6)

V—Man’s Unity and Man's Self-Transcendence Can Occur Only by Living in the Spirit

“What then shall be our ideal? Unity for the human race by an inner oneness and not only by an external association of interests; the resurgence of man out of the merely animal and economic life or the merely intellectual and aesthetic into the glories of the spiritual existence; the pouring of the power of the spirit into the physical mould and mental instrument so that man may develop his manhood into that true supermanhood which shall exceed our present state as much as this exceeds the animal state from which science tells us that we have issued. These three are one; for man's unity and man's self-transcendence can come only by living in the Spirit.” (CWSA 13: 147)

VI—The Initiative for Evolution Can Arise From India

“… if this evolution is to take place, since it must come through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers.” (CWSA 36: 477)

Section Eleven: Build Faith and Cohesion in the Country

I—Divine Power Alone Can Help India

“Divine Power alone can help India. If you can build faith and cohesion in the country it is much more powerful than any man-made power.” (CWM 13: 353)

II—Conviction Within, Not in the Intellect But in the Heart, that the Power That Is Guiding India Is Invincible, It Is Almighty

“… this was the idea that there is a great Power at work to help India, and that we are doing what it bids us. … have this conviction within, not in the intellect but in the heart, that the Power that is guiding them is invincible, that it is Almighty, that it is immortal and irresistible and that it will do its work. … God is doing everything.” (CWSA 06: 826–827)

III—The Vision of Faith Penetrates into the Remote Future and Turns the Impossible into the Possible

“Faith is the first condition of success in every great undertaking. It is no exaggeration to say that faith moves mountains. It is faith that makes the men of will and thought persevere in spite of apparently insurmountable difficulties. They start with a strong confidence in the ultimate success of a noble undertaking and are therefore never daunted by difficulties, however formidable. Faith is the one predominating characteristic of all great souls. The vision of faith penetrates into the remote future and turns the impossible into the possible. In the region of politics faith is the result of imagination working in the light of history; it takes its stand on reason and experience and aspires into the future from the firm ground of the past. Other nations have risen from the lowest depths of degradation—the weakness which prevents us from trying bold and effective remedies were common to all subject nations before us. It is by nerving the nation’s heart with inspiring literature and inciting it to struggle for emancipation that freedom has been recovered.” (CWSA 6: 347–348)

IV—First Realise the Divine in Yourself and Shape your Life and God Will Change India in Shorter Time

“Try to realise the strength within you, try to bring it forward, so that everything you do may be not your own doing, but the doing of that Truth within you. Try so that every hour that you live shall be enlightened by that presence, that every thought of yours shall be inspired from that one fountain of inspiration, that every faculty and quality in you may be placed at the service of that immortal power within you. ... then you will not need any leader. The leader is within yourselves. If you can only find Him and listen to his voice, … then you will find that one word from you will awake an answering voice in others, that the creed which you preach will spread and will be received by all … You [then] see a movement which no obstacles can stop, you see a great development which no power can resist, you see the birth of the Avatar in the Nation, and if you have received God within you, if you have received that Power within you, you will see that God will change the rest of India in even a much shorter time, because the Power has already gone forth, and is declaring itself, and when once declared, it will continue its work with ever greater and greater rapidity. It will continue its work with the matured force of Divinity until the whole world sees and until the whole understands Him, until Sri Krishna, who has now hid Himself in Gokul, … will reveal Himself, will declare the Godhead, and the whole nation will rise, the whole people of this great country will rise, filled with divine power, filled with the inspiration of the Almighty, and no power on earth shall resist it, and no danger or difficulty shall stop it in its onward course. … Because God is there, and it is His Mission, and He has something for us to do. He has a work for this great and ancient nation. Therefore he has been born again to do it, therefore he is revealing himself in you not that you may be like other nation, not that you may rise merely by human strength to trample underfoot the weaker peoples, but because something must come out from you which is to save the whole world. That something is what the ancient Rishis knew and revealed, and that is to be known and revealed again today, it has to be revealed to the whole world and in order that he may reveal himself, you must first realise Him in yourselves, you must shape your lives, you must shape the life of this great nation so that it may be fit to reveal Him and then your task will be done, and you will realise that when you are doing today is no mere political uprising, no mere political change, but that you have been called upon to do God’s work.” (CWSA 07: 830–832)

V—In Reality All Work Is Done by the Will of God and When Faith in Him Is the Mainspring of Our Actions, Success Is Inevitable

“All that we do and attempt proceeds from faith, and if we are deficient in faith nothing can be accomplished. When we are deficient in faith our work begins to flag and failure is frequent; but if we have faith things are done for us. No great work has ever been done without this essential courage. Misled by egoism, we believe that we are working, that the results of what we do are our creation, and when anything has to be done we ask ourselves whether we have the strength, the means, the requisite qualities, but in reality all work is done by the will of God and when faith in Him is the mainspring of our actions, success is inevitable. Sometimes we wish a thing very intensely and our wish is accomplished. The wish was in fact a prayer, and all sincere prayer receives its answer. It need not be consciously addressed to God, because prayer is not a form of words but an aspiration. If we aspire we pray. But the aspiration must be absolutely unselfish, not alloyed by the thought of petty advantages or lower aims if it is to succeed. When we mingle self with our aspirations, we weaken to that extent the strength of the prayer and the success is proportionately less.” (CWSA 07: 937)

VII—Someone Who Can Manifest from Within His Divinity and Realises the Divine Life Can Uplift India

“In the noble heroic age of the Aryan people there was not so much shouting and gesticulating, but the endeavor they set in motion lasted many centuries. … You say that what is needed is emotional excitement, to fill the country with enthusiasm. We did all that in the political field during the Swadeshi period; everything we did has fallen in the dust. Will there be a more auspicious outcome in the spiritual field? I don’t say there has been no result. There has been; every movement produce some result. But it is mostly in an increase of possibilities. This is not the right way to steadily actualise the thing. Therefore I do not wish to make emotional excitement, feeling and mental enthusiasm the base any longer. I want to make a vast and strong equality the foundation of the yoga; in all the activities of the being, which will be based on that equality, I want a complete, firm and unshakable power; over that ocean of power I want the radiation of the sun of Knowledge and in that luminous vastness an established ecstasy of infinite love, and bliss and oneness. I do not want tens of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get as instrument of God one hundred complete men free from petty egoism. I have no confidence in guruhood of the usual type. I do not want to be a guru. What I want is for someone, awakened by my touch or by that of another, to manifest from within his sleeping divinity and to realise the divine life. Such men will uplift this country.” (A letter of Sri Aurobindo to his younger brother Barin.) (Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research: Vol 4, No.1, pg 21)

The lists of other compilation e-books on the topics related to the sadhana are as follows.

1. SURRENDER In the Integral Yoga

2. ASPIRATION In the Integral Yoga

3. REJECTION In the Integral Yoga Part I

4. REJECTION In the Integral Yoga Part II

5. Conquering Obstacles in Sadhana

6. LOVE FOR THE DIVINE

7. Bhakti Yoga: The Yoga of Devotion

8. The Supreme Divine Love

9. Preparing for Yoga Through Human Love

10. The Descent of Spiritual Peace

11. Peace is Most Needed in Sadhana

12. To Prepare for Spiritual Life Cultivate Equality

13. Necessity for Spiritual Perfection is Perfect Equality

14. Fundamental Faith Required in Yoga

15. Faith Precedes Spiritual Experience

16. Regain Faith if Faith Falters

17. Cure from Illness by Faith

18. COURAGE in SADHANA

19. HUMILITY in SADHANA

20. SINCERITY IN SADHANA

21. How to Become ABSOLUTELY SINCERE

22. Insincerity Can Be Changed in Yoga

23. To Succeed in Sadhana Aspire Sincerely

24. PERSEVERANCE in SADHANA

25. All Is She

26. RECEPTIVITY in SADHANA

27. FAITHFULNESS in SADHANA

28. MODESTY in SADHANA

29. Generosity in Sadhana

30. PATIENCE in SADHANA

31. Cheerfulness in Sadhana

32. Meditation, Concentration and Contemplation in Sadhana

33. Namjapa of Mantra in Sadhana

34. Seek Spiritual Progress in Happiness

35. Silence in Sadhana

36. Status of Silence in the Infinite

37. Concentration in Spiritual Life

38. Work in Sadhana

39. Work Is Indispensable in Sadhana of Integral Yoga

40. The Gita’s Gospel of Works

41. Gratitude towards the Divine

42. Pain the Hammer of the Gods

_____________