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ARTICLE : Sri Aurobindo on India
Dear INdians, India-lovers,
In the present Indian society, there appear many trends that indicate
a certain soul-searching into the causes of the current state of India,
which one cannot be too happy about. There is a general feeling that India
is not (yet?) what it ought to be. Our leaders lack the vision and
ability to steer India to Her destiny. Among the spiritual figures,
there is one who has seen deep into the past and future of this nation -
Sri Aurobindo. One may find in His writings an accurate diagosis of
all of India's maladaies, and a secure course of treatment.
Here's an except from Sri Aurobindo's writings that describes one of the
"causes" that keeps India low.
"Let me tell you in brief one or two things about what I have long seen.
My idea is that the chief cause of the weakness of INdia is not
subjection or poverty, nor the lack of spirituality or dharma but the
decline of thought-power, the growth of ignorance in the motherland
of Knowledge. Everywhere I see inability or unwillingness to think -
thought-incapacity or thought phobia. Whatever may have been in the middle ages
this state of things is now the sign of a terrible degeneration. The middle
age was the night, the time of the victory ignorance. The modern world is
the age of the victory of knowledge. Whoever thinks most, seeks most, labors
most, can fathom and learn the truth of the world, and gets so much more
Shakti. If you look at Europe, you will see things: a vast sea of thought
and the play of a huge and fast-moving and yet disciplined force. The whole
Shakti of Europe is in that. And in the strength of that Shakti it has been
swallowing up the world, like the tapaswins of the ancient times, by whose
power even the gods of the world were terrified, held in suspense and
subjection. People say Europe is running into the jaws of destruction. I do
not think so. All these revolutions and upsettings are the preconditions of
a new creation.
"Then look at India. Except for some solitary giants, everywhere there is your
"simple man", that is, the average man who does not want to think and
cannot think, who has not the least Shakti but only a temporary excitement.
In India, you want the simple thought, the easy "word". In Europe they want
the deep thought, the deep "word"; there even an ordinary laborer or
artisan thinks, wants to know, is not satisfied with surface things but wants
to go behind. But there is still this diference: there is a fatal limitation in
the strength and thought of Europe. When it comes into the spiritual field,
its thought-power can no longer move ahead. There Europe sees everything as
a riddle - nebulous metaphysics, yogic hallucination. They rub their
eyes as in the smoke and can see nothing clear. Still, some effect is being
made in Europe to surmount even this limitation. We already have the
spiritual sense - we owe it to our forefathers - and whoever has that sense has
at his disposal such Knowledge and Shakti as with one breath might blow away
all the huge power of Europe like a blade of grass. But to get that Shakti one
must be a worshipper of Shakti. We are not worshippers of Shakti. We are
worshippers of the easy way. Our forefathers dived into the sea of
vast thought and gained a vast Knowledge and established a mighty civilization.
As they went on their way, fatigue and weariness came upon them. The force of
thought diminished and with it also the strong current of Shakti.
Our civilization has become an achalayatana [prison], our
religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light
or a momentary wave of religious intoxication. As long as this sort of a thing
continues, any permanent resurgence of India is improbable."
