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Accomplishment & Enjoyment

 

                                                                                       December 31, 2001.

            The Theory of Development is spread over 25 aspects of social evolution of which anachronisms and their role of being an obstacle to change figure. Here, we consider this idea under ten heads. It would be interesting to state the theory of anachronism. New methods and instruments of developmental change do not disappear after their use but turn into obstacles to further development. It means every new situation, whether of growth or production or survival fashions its own new tools, which have a way of persisting after their use is over. It is an axiom in this field that the change, however powerful it is, or widespread, is still the tip of the iceberg. The greatest part of the society is under water in the grip of old ways. It is an act of benevolence that the establishment lets the change take over. No organization or institution unless it is entirely born afresh, can ever get rid of all anachronisms practically. If they ever do so, assuming it is a theoretical possibility, its efficiency will rise a hundred-fold. If it is a profit making concern, its turnover will become its profit.

            Man doing so biologically will decondition himself and in that case will evolve into a supramental being. From the point of view of efficiency or profit, it is enough one makes an exhaustive list of all anachronisms and blunt them at their sharp edges - reduce their effectivity 10% - and their efficiency will rise 100%. We know the Green Revolution has quadrupled the production of food grains in 35 years, but what is the extent of that revolution? The East and the Central parts of India are not covered. In the West and South the farmer has taken to fertilizer and pesticides in an unintelligent fashion. In 2000 AD, if we have to think of anachronisms in the field of agriculture and measure the change here in terms of the best practices elsewhere, we can safely say not more than 10% of it is removed. The bullock cart, a famous metaphor for anachronism, still largely survives. India will soon become modern and prosperous if there is a consensus in the nations that anachronisms should be shown the way out.

Anachronisms act in dozens of ways.

1. They shut out all progress.

2. Therefore, the nation is pushed down several levels as she becomes non-competitive.

3. Where they exist, they turn into virtual obstacles of progress.

4. They are obstacles to physical change, vital growth and mental progress. They dampen the Spirit wherever it survives.

5. Anachronisms declass organizations and individuals.

6. When weeding them out is tried successfully, they reappear in other fashions or move down one level below to hide from your inquiring eye.

            Anachronisms organize in the evolving present the fixed physical forms of the past. Life evolves through Time. Anachronisms try to stay that progress by reversing the flow of Time. The object here is not to explain in every possible detail what anachronisms are or how they function which properly belongs to an encyclopaedic effort, but to present the Spirit of their existence.

1. Any method that outlived its use can turn into an obstacle. Nationalism matures in emotions as patriotism and wins the freedom of a subject nation. That maturing is a flowering in an hour of glory where death itself is a fulfilment of birth, celebrated by kith and kin who should mourn the loss of the physical life. Instead, they witness the birth of the Spirit in the wider domains of national freedom and share the intensity of that birth which is physical death. It is this fine flower of human spirit when it outlives its time that becomes the seed of fundamentalism that gets organized into abominable terrorism.

Rote memory that was an asset and indispensable before the age of printing becomes a bar to understanding when one enters the field of original research. Centralised authority which is the shining star of individual efficiency degenerates into a symbol of inefficiency when the expansion of the company demands decentralisation. The very success of the past is now an unbearable obstacle of anachronism. The ideal of a joint family that was indispensable for agricultural operations has, in the modern days of urban freedom, changed into a vehicle of oppression of the younger generation that aspires for freedom. Man, who adored woman's purity and safety, gave her a cloistered life in days past. That cloistered life is now an obstacle and symbol of male chauvinism.

2. Anachronisms are invisible obstacles, obstacles to the growth of Spirit.

Denial of outer growth is transitory which spares the inner spirit from continuing its growth in time. Anachronism, when it has outlived its use, obviously effectively prevents outer growth, but that is not its essential negative role. As days pass, it becomes the medium to insist on the past as the ruling power of the present. Thus, a mechanism of growth is converted into a mechanism of tyranny. That is the argument for its total removal. The very presence of an anachronist attitude is poison for the energies of growth, especially of evolution.

 3. A method that has taken its form in the physical and is therefore rigid becomes an obstacle.

An idea can be given up more easily than an attitude, as an attitude is the result of emotions endorsing an idea at the stage of an opinion. Going deeper down, an attitude acquires a physical form and becomes rigid. Nehru could give up socialism as an idea. Gandhiji's ahimsa was no mere idea, it was an attitude successfully practiced over thirty years by the entire nation. He did see how wrong his ahimsa was in 1947 when he declared that his ahimsa organized the violence below the surface to erupt later. He could not easily change it. It killed him. In USSR communism, which turned into state economy, acquired a fixed rigid physical form. For seventy years, the leviathan crushed the spirits of the people.

4.  Obstacles stubbornly prevent progress of the present.

Many affectionate men who dissolve themselves in their emotions for their endearing family, are unable to avail of the expanding opportunities life brings them from the very energy of that affection. Men who were taken to USA in the days when it was a rare dream found their affections so powerful that they felt compelled to return home, thus denying themselves a rare opportunity and their children the outcome.2

5. Anachronisms are physical energy shaped into a fixed mould invading the regions of mind and encroaching the field of Spirit. It is so imperceptible that it escapes one's observation. Boys are put to religious training of chanting Vedas at the age of 5 or 7 in an atmosphere of spiritual ardour. Years pass. One delights in the purity of intonation of the child in reciting the sacred Vedas and is oblivious of what happens around. Many more years pass. The child emerges as an expert in Vedic recitation to enter the world of affairs. His peers enter the government employment. He finds no employment. The field that is open to him is free feeding once in a while. He finds himself reduced to a beggar. His very spirit is crushed. It is not given to anyone to revive his spirit.

6.  Anachronisms are fortified by archaic sentiments.

There was a time when the tuft, the sacred thread, and the dhoti without a shirt looked charming, the very symbol of piety and greatness. Now, they do not, rather they are detestable in the eyes of the young. There are hearts that still grow warm now for that sight. It is a capacity to relive the past in the present. Imagination is the future in the present. We can as well say they have successfully reversed Time in their emotional sentiments.

7.  Physical obstacles are insurmountable.

     The best examples are the narrow roads of the last century.

8. Vital obstacles are ferocious in their energies of opposition.

     Osama bin Laden offers the typical instance of it.

9. Mental obstacles are those of the ego and seal the fate of progress.

    Latin for the priest and Sanskrit for the prohit serve that purpose.

10. Obstacles are symbols of the being's determination to cherish the present. To abridge Time is Progress. Evolutionary progress is to cross even Timelessness. Here is a phenomenon that is self-absorbed into the present.

The Theory can be approached in infinite ways. Here we do so in about 30 ways. As it is integral, to bring out its integrality we try to express each aspect from the point of view of every other aspect. As a penultimate step we collect in an encyclopaedia ALL the instances available that express this phenomenon and try to explain them from every other point of  view by expanding the example into an explanation that is comprehensive.    

    Accomplishment is Enjoyment -Levels of Enjoyment

Development is accomplishment at the next level for one who is growing and it is two levels above for one who is trying to survive. Accomplishment is a necessary part of development as development must end in accomplishment. We consider development as the third stage in the chain of survival, growth, development and evolution. It is the third in four stages. Interest in the process at each stage is the conversion of energy into result through force and power. This energy-result process is found in the four planes of physical, vital, mental, and spiritual.

Results in the physical, enjoyment of these results in the vital, achievements in the mental and accomplishments in the spiritual are in evidence. To approach the Theory from enjoyment and accomplishment points of view is to comprehend it from the end. Accomplishment is the result of which enjoyment is the sensation. Society when it accomplishes enjoys. This paper is on the relationship between these two aspects. Sri Aurobindo says to know the relationship between two things which cannot be reconciled in our understanding is wisdom. Here are two aspects of development whose relationship we are trying to explore even though they can be reconciled in our minds.

The Absolute's first creation is Sachchidananda. Sat ending in Ananda is creation at that level. Let us note that creation ends in Ananda. The Upanishads go far beyond to declare that creation begins in Ananda, lives in Ananda and returns to Ananda. Social evolution has several stages and each has an ending. Each such ending is an accomplishment and there we see enjoyment. Our inquiry is limited to these discernible stages and does not proceed to its parts. We can ask the question why accomplishment is enjoyment. A work in the physical is mainly of movements during the course of which physical energy is released to complete the work. The work produces the results when the energy is organized into a skill, a system of memory into which energy can flow repeatedly to produce the same results. At the physical level the knowledge is memory. The memory of the physical learning a fixed pattern that it can reproduce endlessly is skill. Skill is that which produces results. At the vital level the energy of interest is released which is greater in quantity and quality. This energy makes the skill smooth and dexterous, results enjoyable apart from useable. At the mental level mind understands the physical skill and vital interest and organizes the same skill better through an idea of its own.  It energises with an enlightened interest so that the mere result that is useful at the physical becomes a grand accomplishment that is not only enjoyable but pure enjoyment. Thus, accomplishment is enjoyment whose various levels are the points of study.

Here are 64 statements, some of which look like a law, that touch upon these aspects. An idea can be considered in several ways so that one more aspect of it emerges. The same aspect can be considered from various ways. Whether they are definitions, descriptions, aspects, relations with other ideas, it is worth approaching them from every possible way, though one cannot exhaust looking at it.

1. Accomplishment is the characteristic endowment of the Act that is the unit of

   universal existence or worldly life.

  (Act is the unit, accomplishment its stamp.)

Act is the master word of life. Brick is the unit of a building. Word is the unit of language. Family is the unit of society. Nation is the unit of the United Nations. Though an act is the unit of life, act itself is a universe in miniature, as the atom is a universe in itself. Acts in the universe give birth to activities which when strung together become a system. System is one major part of an organisation which matures into an institution that through long history ripens and settles down as culture. Society is sustained by its culture. An act is at the beginning. This act does not end in society but extends into the universe and the life of the universe. This long chain from an act to life comes into existence because at millions of intermediate stages there is accomplishment. Let us consider only the major stages and their accomplishments.

An act itself comes into existence when energy or life is organized at a primary level. A step taken by the leg is an act. A law passed by the Parliament is an act. An act is an act whether it is small or big, as long as it is a well-knit closed phenomenon serving as a unit of a bigger act or activity. To be an act it must be complete itself. Unless an act produces results - accomplishes - it will not become an act. It will remain energy or force or power. Hence accomplishment is a landmark. Energy becomes an act or performs an act when it ends in productive results. A step is a small act. Walking is an act of several steps. Walking by itself is a physical act. When we go to someone to pay him a visit, walking accomplishes the social act of a visit. One cannot accomplish anything without the components of several acts.

  • An act can be seen as a part of wider act or a chain of activities.
  • It can be viewed as a medium of embodying an idea in work.
  • An act is vital. It gives social shape to physical movements.
  • Whether we notice or not, an act always expresses the higher values and deeper motives.
  • An act is a movement in space, occupying a duration in time.

2.  Accomplishment is the aspect of the whole and therefore it is the capacity of the

     whole.

  (The whole accomplishes. Wholeness and accomplishment go together).

Concepts of ‘whole' and ‘part' are essential threads running throughout the Theory. For the Theory, society is the whole and the individual is part. For philosophy, universe is the whole and earth is a part. Wherever there is a whole, however small it is, that whole comes into existence by accomplishment.

A clerk in a company is a part of the company which is the whole. His work is confined to his own desk, relating to accounts or inventory or dispatch. Whatever it is he finishes it in time efficiently.

  • His work done from the view of a clerk, even when it is efficient, will be tiring to him, will lack the spirit of perfection when it is to serve the whole. His reception of the visitor may be all right to the visitor, but to the company it would not have inspired the visitor with exalted thoughts about it. Therefore it may fall flat.
  • When the clerk is inspired by the ideal of the company or inspired by the ideal of serving the company, his reception of the visitor may lead to the discovery of a great potential in him for the future of the company. That is an accomplishment on the part of the employee as he has drawn upon the capacity of the whole.
  • When V.P.Menon offered to draw up urgently in two weeks the Draft Plan to integrate the Princes in independent India, Lord Mountbatten desired it that evening at 7 P.M. Menon did it. Today all the 365 Princedoms except Kashmir are integrated with India.
  • A junior staff member of a university desired to create a constituency for the registered graduates in the Senate so as to reform the university. In 12 months, the amendment of the university act permitted it, he and eleven colleagues of his were elected as members, he was elected to the Board of Studies, Academic Council, the Senate and the Syndicate. As the spirit is the spirit of the whole, in twelve months all this was accomplished and all the intended reforms were instituted. Normally it would have taken twelve years.
  • The past capturing the flavour of the whole raises the work from mere completion to full accomplishment, crossing the middle status of achievement which provides all the parts without the unifying vibration of the higher plane.

3. He who accomplishes moves away from the past and centres himself in the Centre of the whole away from the parts.

(Past accomplishes the part. Accomplish from the centre of the whole).

Moksha which is called in the West salvation is a spiritual example of this idea. Spirit is one of the four parts of the being that thinks of its origin, which is the accomplishment it aims at. It separates itself from the other parts and leaves for its origin. The M.P. who gets elected to the Parliament no longer belongs only to the constituency, but moves to Delhi which is the centre of the whole.

  • A part, having espoused the Spirit of the whole successfully, really belongs to the whole thereafter in spirit.
  • A local athlete who touches the record of the country moves to the national team, though he still represents the local team.
  • An oyster that has produced a pearl of value to the society on land, shifts from the sea to the society that values it.
  • Srinivasa Ramanujam whose work on Mathematics won recognition in Cambridge moved away from the office at the Port Trust to Cambridge.
  • A personal situation generating an impersonal vibration moves to the centre of impersonality.
  • Marriage is an accomplishment for a daughter who moves to her husband's house. A son who accomplishes at a higher level in the society, though still resides at home, really belongs to the level of his own accomplishment.
  • Napoleon, who distinguished himself as a soldier at the level of a General, moved away from Corsica to Paris.
  • A wealthy man who lived among aristocrats loses his wealth and moves away to the slums. There he loses his status also. This is a negative example of the same principle, as the bankrupt man has qualified himself to be a member of the poor community.
  • A lawyer who has acquired the talents of the bench accomplishes at a higher level and is lost to the bar.
  • One who spiritually attains is elevated to the level of a Saint. While an ordinary man, he functions by his mind and vital. Here he starts functioning from his spirit.
  • A technician is thus transported to higher levels by insight when he raises himself to the position of a technocrat.
  • A politician thus rises to be a statesman.

4. Skill is essentially of the part. Talent is that skill raised to its peak by capacity which is the essence of several skills.

            (Skill of the part, capacity of the whole.

            Talent is the skill of the capacity.

            Talent is capacious skill).

Skill is energy organized to accomplish a result endlessly at each repetition. The energy that is being organized into a skill is organized by the will that released that energy. That will organising itself into a power of accomplishment is capacity. Each skill has a will behind it. One who learns several different skills is in possession of several wills that are behind all the skills. All those wills coming together in work is capacity. Capacity is the essence of various skills.

This capacity can choose to fortify one of the skills when that skill is raised to talent. One who can change the energy of one talent into that of another has ability.

Skill is generally used to denote physical work as when we speak of a skilled craftsman. Capacity is used in the context of personality.

Talent finds employment in denoting vital skills raised by mental capacity. It is best to confine the uses of skill, capacity, talent, etc. to the physical, mental and vital as

Physical skill

Mental capacity

Vital talent

In our own writing, we must keep this distinction. The writing will become live through examples of all varieties.

The carpenter has skill in his trade. The IAS officer has capacity for administration, not confined to any department. A musician has talents in composing music though he also sings on the stage, teaches others, lectures on music, etc.

5. Capacity is the essence of several skills pertaining to a whole. The growing capacity lends itself to raise the skill to talent when all the skills of the whole are acquired. (Talent is the essence of different skills. Talent is the skill of the whole).

Skills are of parts. One may acquire thirteen skills of a whole consisting of twenty parts. Until the skill of all the parts is fully acquired, capacity does not really take shape. Skill is  physical, capacity is mental.

The IAS officer is eligible to be posted as a Collector after six years of service, but many do not serve as a collector for ten or twenty years. When a higher promotion is considered, having served as Collector is essential, as the post of the Collector as the head of the district administration offers an overall capacity that is essential for senior posts.

6. Ability is essentially that which enables one to transfer the essence of one skill to another, collect the essences into capacity and reinforce a skill with capacity to raise it to a talent.

Skill acquires organization.

Capacity collects the essences.

Talent is saturated skill.

Capacity to transfer skills is talent.     

To be skilled is great. It is not given to everyone to transfer the skills of one field to another field. That belongs to personality. For one who is in business to become an administrator or an actor or to enter politics is an endowment. The majority find it not easy to change from government to party or from party to government. C.D. Deshmuk, an eminent administrator was unable to function as a minister in the central government. When a party first accepts office the same difficulty is encountered.

Just after Independence, Lord Mountbatten went to Simla while millions of refugees started coming to Delhi. Nehru and Patel who led the nation to freedom were non-plussed and called Lord Mountbatten for help. The issue was simple for him. He ordered men to shoot the rebel refugees so that discipline would be ensured. Such a simple decision could not be thought of by the national leaders. Both pleaded inability and ignorance and told him he had the needed experience. He managed the situation. To change the skill of political leadership to that of administration was difficult for Nehru and Patel.

7. Skill and capacity are analogous to behaviour and character.

(Behaviour-like skill; character-like capacity )

Behaviour is on the surface and for the sake of others. Character is formed at the depth and is our own. Character is organized behaviour organized in what we are. As behaviour is directed towards others, its direction is from the conscious will. Character is not under our control as it is formed in the subconscious will. Look at manners, behaviour, character, personality, consciousness and substance of the mind, and below that substance of the physical. Whether it is the chain of energy ending in power or skill ending in talents or manners going up to physical substance, it is clear that Life is in layers as creation extends both ways from Sat to Matter. Scholarship in yoga is to know all the 96 versions (twelve aspects expressing in eight planes) of consciousness and the scholarship aimed at in this Theory of Social evolution is attained by fixing our framework in the social plane (say society, government, organisations, family, individual) and knowing the various expressions of any act or attitude such as giving or self-giving.

Yoga goes beyond nature to being. Therefore, one needs to know the 96 versions. Even here the 96 can be taken as 192, taking the positive and negative versions of each. Theoretically, it is possible to divide human comprehension and human nature to any extent until it disappears into divine nature, and further divine consciousness when the academic scholarship matures into scholarship that is yoga. This Theory is but a superficial outline of that whole but one that embraces the whole, much as the history of the world is taught to children. It covers the whole period up to prehistoric times but as an outline. Our approach to the Theory is

Outline of the Whole on the Surface.

Of course this Theory does admit of specialisation whose characteristic is specialised knowledge of the part on the basis of complete grasp of the whole theoretically, whose significances can be stated as

The greater the Specialisation, the deeper should be the comprehension of the Whole.

The one area of specialization we have so far attempted with any satisfaction is Management. It can be extended at once to politics and medicine. Some stray attempts have been made to extend this Theory to literature, life, mythology, human nature, journalism, and transition of societies.

8. As personality lies beyond character it is the potential strength that can achieve outside the formed character which recoils from the challenge of the unknown. Accomplishment is the endowment of that central person who holds in essence the strength to bring about results.

(Accomplishment is the personality of life).

‘Danger is my trade', ‘What is attractive is the danger in the adventure', ‘Danger is not to be avoided but courted, ‘It is not adventure that attracts but the danger in it' are things we hear. The great soul is attracted by great challenges as they permit the maximum growth possible in a field of ever fresh energy. The field of personality is the near approach in human life. Human life accomplishes by human character. Life accomplishes on earth through human personality. Manners are what are dictated by the emergency of a social occasions constantly confronting one. Instead of fashioning an attitude each time, man arrives at a permanent attitude in his temporary personality. We know that as behaviour. The organization of that act and its centre can be moved from the surface consciousness to its depth where it becomes character. Character when pushed from the organised consciousness to its unorganised zone becomes personality. Thus personality is the unorganised will in readiness in the unorganised nature of man that enjoys its expression in a free field.

 Personality is,

--Unorganised will in unorganised nature.

-- Free will of Freshness in human nature.

An uneducated man from a highly educated nation will be able to appreciate with comprehension abstruse ideas of abstract subjects because he, in the matter of understanding, belongs to the personality of his nation. The extension of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy to other fields requires such application of known acts to unfamiliar aspects of life or subjects. Intellectuality can thus meet with its extreme challenge endlessly so that all its edges will be opened to insight or by insight into the higher realm of intuition. This is a field of transition one can avail of but is not indispensable for the progress of the soul. It will be an enjoyable encounter to the ever-growing intellect which is a field of expression of the veiled intuition into senses.

  • Intellectuality is the objectivity of sensational Thought.
  • Intuition is the subjective knowledge of intellectuality.
  • Truth that objectifies itself objectifies as intuition.
  • The intuition that is external is the human intuition of the yogi.
  • Internal intuition is supramental intuition.
  • The subjective state of the supramental intuition is Truth, which is again the objective state of Sat.
  • We see subjectivity and objectivity finding play in the Absolute becoming Matter at every stage.
  • Subjective superstition becomes objective intellectuality.
  • Intellectuality subjectivised is intuition.

External intuition of man becomes supramental intuition when it is internalised, a subjective process.

It is where Truth, an objective state, lands as supramental intuition by its faculty of intuition.

  • Self-conception, Self-limitation and Self-absorption, though they are three different methods, each contains the other. The ONE becomes The Many by these three processes while the Many becomes the ONE by seeing in any one process all the three or a process of which these three are parts.

The impersonality is the quality of the Person above and can give rise to innumerable personal qualities.

Person - impersonality - person

9. The only difference is personality surfaces only when challenged by the unfamiliar. Accomplishment meets every work all day long.  (Accomplishment is the personality of everyday work).

        Everyday work meets its accomplishment at the hands of our character. When the unfamiliar arises our character is readily challenged. Character cannot handle the new. The essence of character rising to the occasion taking the shape of a new needed faculty accomplishes. This arises not from character, but from one's personality.

        We do meet with such occasions, if not daily, very often. Man ignores them withdrawing into the shell of his character and says it is not for him. He has the choice of accepting the challenge and growing. That growth is not the preservation of character but the growth of personality. In a static society this is an option to grow. In a changing society, social forces compel men to accept the challenge or perish.

  • Man has the option of perishing without accepting the challenge or perishing accepting it.
  • He who accepts in his WILL the new emerging society - The Mother - is energized by that society to win.

10.  When several parts meet to accomplish a whole, each part has its sensitivity that must be fully honoured and a negative sensitivity must be fully avoided.

Sensitivity succeeds.

Sensitivity is an index of success.

Sensitivity succeeds or ruins.

Succeeding sensitivity.

Ruining sensitivity.

  • Thought is senses organized in the mind, by the mind. That organization has two layers to deal with. One is mind organising the various layers of energy in the information the senses bring. The other is various layers in the mind organising the incoming sensation. When the sense information coming from outside is organized in the physical consciousness or substance, sensitivity arises. Mind receives sense impressions. When they are organized as they enter, it belongs entirely to the vital plane of thought or emotion -- No. 4 or No. 5. Mind can separate the FACT from the senses.
  • That fact in the mind is data.
  • Fact mentally interpreted is information.
  • Information organized by No. 1 is idea.
  • Information organized by No. 2 is opinion which can be prejudice for or against.
  • Information organized by No. 3 is decision.

Ideas emotionalised and converted into decisions are mental sensitivities. Similarly, vital, physical sensitivities arise.

  • Mental sensitivities create creeds or dogmas.
  • Vital sensitivities generate religion or religious worship.
  • Physical sensitivities organize orthodoxy and fundamentalism.
  • Sensitivities can be cultural, religious, national, personal, or communal.

A work brings many people together. The best for work is ALL must relate to work only from the work point of view. In that case, the only sensitivities that find play are work-sensitivities which means personal sensitivity that aims at accomplishing the work.

In practice, human sensitivities rise and clash. At that point the executive in charge must do two things that this point No. 10 speaks of. The golden rule is as long as sensitivities are positive, i.e. positive to the work, they must be accepted, and the negative ones must be avoided.

A man may have a habit of hurrying for everything. It may not hurt work, it may sometimes help. It should be allowed. If punctuality is to be followed in India, it will irritate everyone. Even if it is good, it creates resistance in everyone and spoils the work. This is a negative sensitivity to work. One may innately dislike work. His presence in a chain of work will hinder the work by itself, by his becoming a contagion. Therefore it should be avoided. This is a negative sensitivity by itself and is negative to work.

  • Whether it is a positive sensitivity or a negative one, when it hinders a work it should be avoided. It should be allowed only if work is NOT hindered.
  • Great care is to be taken in knowing our attitude, as what matters is not so much the result as the attitude.
  • Then, how to form the attitude is the issue.

The principle here is work attitudes must be formed that will accomplish the work according to the valid principles of inner consciousness, which is aiming at the WORK of emerging from ignorance as knowledge.

11.  Positive sensitivities reward in proportion to our response, negative sensitivities when permitted a little will cancel the whole work.  (Positive sensitivity awaits invitation; negative sensitivity invites itself.)

Ours is a theory that considers society as a WHOLE, neither positive, nor negative. That is the theoretical attitude which has no negative part to discard or fight against. What does a man do when he faces a house breaking, a corrupt officer, an attack of terrorists and the like. The answer is, handle them as imperfection of the whole we are aiming to build. It can be better stated as a pithy statement or a proverb as

            Do as others do;

            But do so with a higher understanding.

In acting like every other man, as the act needs counteraction, have the clarity that it is not negative, but an imperfection of the positive. A naughty child is sternly corrected with a clear understanding that he has to grow up into decent adulthood.

The words positive and negative carry moral and social connotations. In electricity and mathematics they are simply traits. This being a theory, one needs to have the clarity needed for the theory and should not allow social or moral notions to intrude. Those notions are out of bounds to a theoretical conception.

Sri Aurobindo says positive is one version of the Reality while the negative contains all the aspects the positive has not stated or is unable to express. In this sense it is clear the WHOLE needs both.           

  • The past and present are social positives; the new, the change, the future are negatives to the society. It only means that excluding what is negative in our present view excludes all progress.
  • Man is positive to himself and to him woman is negative.
  • Success is positive to the world; experimentation is negative.
  • Organisation is positive to those who are in it, new ideas are negative. Please note any established organization takes its own ideals as negative in practice, paying lip sympathy.
  • For any caste it is positive and every other caste is negative.
  • Self is positive to a selfish man and the whole world is negative to him.
  • Entering deep into philosophical thought, peace is positive, war is negative; quiet life is positive, natural catastrophes are negative,

What we know to be positive is established over a long period with its culture, atmosphere, custom, usage, strategies, tradition, etc. saturating the whole of the social atmosphere, whereas what we understand to be negative is the new spark, the bright lightning, the shining ideal that is a shadow.

  • The new is precariously perched and will be demolished at one strong push.
  • The old can achieve in a trice, as it is well organized and established, especially when it wants to destroy the fragile new.

The established present society is a small island in an ocean of life whose forces are all either negative - that is destructive - or neutral. The ocean rising a few feet will submerge the islet. To take the society to further heights, say educating the Indian people about punctuality which is the least of work values, is not to be achieved in one stroke. Sensitivities are sentinels on the border. Hence the original statement. A man takes decades to build up a reputation and a solid base of wealth. By one act of indiscretion, a son can destroy the entire name of his family overnight. We must deeply consider a few ideas.

  • When you aim at the whole, one part, even the negative one, cannot be neglected.
  • Seeking the whole does not mean accepting the positive as well as negative because that way all the positive will be directly destroyed.
  • The question is if you cannot give up the negative or take it in, what to do actually.
  • It is no answer to reply that the negative must be transformed before being included.
  • The strategy is to accept the negative without allowing it to acquire the power to destroy the positive, but to permit it to play a positive role, rather a role of supporting the positive while it remains negative.
  • One cannot say it is an impossible utopia, as we do act like this in the Parliament, in our own office and in our house.
  • Instead of tolerating the negative, one can recognize the essential role the negative is playing and allow it to play that role with no scope of destroying the whole.
  • In the Parliament the opposition plays that role. Without the opposition there is no Parliament. By definition this opposition does not have a majority.
  • In the office a scheming subordinate, a tale-bearing colleague, a grudging boss are NOT to be removed, because you cannot remove them. Instead of boiling over in anger and reaction we know we become more alert by a scheming man, more reticent by a tale-bearer and more efficient with a grudging boss. To recognize positively the positive role of the negative is the right way to handle the negative.
  • An irresponsible husband or an incorrigible wife will certainly ruin the family. But that is not the only option. Should a wife take up the responsibility of the family or the husband accept the reality of an incorrigible wife and be determined to get things done in spite of the obstacle, no doubt the family will rise, whether the spouse will change or not. If what is done is done psychologically and not merely physically, there is a great chance of the spouse changing.
  • We must understand that what is negative to the first view is NOT negative to an analytic approach and is really a greater positive if one is willing to realize the subtle truth the negative shows.
  • The fact that Coimbatore is a rocky district with no water made them dig wells that are like huge tanks about a hundred times the size of an ordinary well. That initial effort released so much energy that today Coimbatore is the number one district in India for modern agriculture.
  • To recognize the potential in the negative when it is transformed is the wisdom of life. There can be no better example than USA, Japan, Europe, Asian Tigers, etc.
  • To fully exploit the opportunity of transformation, it is necessary to have the strategic knowledge of our own sensitivities, positive and negative.

12.  Accomplishment when acquired as a unit or in the unit - whole, will allow itself to raise itself in proportion to the strength of personality.

(Character accomplishes.

Personality improves upon it.

Personality improves even the perfect.)

A whole is full of many parts each of which is a whole. Accomplishment belongs not only to the whole, but to every unit that is a whole though they are parts. These partial achievements will contribute to the whole in the measure the personality is organized and grown.

A foundation may have several sub-units of education, journalism, commerce, etc. Each is obviously a part, but is a self-contained whole also. Suppose that the school accomplishes at a level of perfection nowhere seen in the country, it will be appreciated outside only in the measure the central organisation is popular. In case the central organisation enjoys small popularity, the glorious achievement of the school will go unnoticed. Glenn Doman, whose educational achievement is original, is not known widely after fifty years, as his own personality which is the central organisation here, is very narrow.

The determinant of the extent of accomplishment is the central personality, not the achievement of the unit.

The great scientists of the past were mostly part of the Roman Catholic Church which chose to oppose them as they were their central personality. Only in the measure of support from there, it can grow.

Doctor Zhivago is a very ordinary story which created no great personality or striking plot. Had it been published in the country of its origin in the absence of any stigma it would have won some little local popularity and died. Due to reasons of political prejudice the Nobel Committee awarded a prize and the book became world famous, not for any inherent value in the work or its author who has no claim to greatness.

  • Lal Bahadur's integrity was rewarded by the Congress party. Had he confined himself to his Sanskrit Vidyalaya we would not have heard of him.
  • The accomplishments of Vinobha Bhave would not have been known to the world had he not been with Mahatma.
  • When Rajaji, Kamaraj, Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha were out of power, they stood as outstanding individuals as they all were mass leaders. Bakthavathsalam, Gowda, Gujral, Chandrasekar, and V.P.Singh became non-entities when they were out of power.

13. Accomplishment is neutral, never permits social or ethical considerations except to     interfere or abridge the result. Accomplishment allows no conscientious dimensions.

(Accomplishment is a law unto itself. Neutral accomplishment)

Accomplishment is neutral as it is part of work that is neutral. Anything in the world untouched by Mind, or outside the scope of ego is mental. Ego is not, and to a great extent mind cannot be neutral, though it is not without a capacity to be neutral which ego is incapable of.

  • All instruments from a penknife to the atom bomb are neutral.
  • All movements of ego are given a character, positive or negative, by their own energy.
  • When a Hindu, Muslim, or Christian boy is given education it is not Hindu education or Muslim education. As education is neutral, it remains neutral. It is Facts, Information, Ideas, etc. One can bend it to his own purposes.
  • Even NLC is a project, neutral in its existence. Whether it is state owned, or owned by the centre, the power generated is NEUTRAL and it remains with a vengeance neutral to the end.
  • One may establish a Hindu Raj or Muslim State but after all it is polity that organises the population for a way of living.
  • Mind is an instrument that can see one part or one aspect of the whole entirely separate as if it is the whole, not a whole of the part. It can see any accomplishment in its neutrality. Only mind can see it, not the vital or the senses.

14.  Social, ethical accomplishments are wholes in a partial plane.

       (wholes of the part)

The Negroes were given freedom 200 years ago. They have not yet availed of it. Legally the enactment was a whole and was an accomplishment. When they have not really availed of it, we say ‘The time has not come'. This was a social accomplishment. But life is a greater whole and has its aims. A village cannot enjoy the facility of a school while it is poor. What the Negroes need is not mere legal freedom, but a social, psychological recognition by the brethren which is not yet in evidence. For that to appear, the milk of human kindness should flow out of hearts. A law in itself can be a great achievement, but to raise the spirit of humanity to one of good will is not given to law

We see the same phenomenon in India with respect to untouchability. In law it was struck down. Those who are poor cannot be meaningfully given the legal right to enjoy the status it carries in the society.

Indian freedom itself was a vast political accomplishment, but it remained a partial achievement for forty years. It still remains so. Politics too is one part of life. A man of low caste earns an enormous wealth which is, in itself, a vast accomplishment in the society. But it does not raise the status of his low caste.

            Thiru V.Ka retired as a Tamil pandit from the Christian College High School with no pension. In his later days he was penniless. A Rs.100/- honorarium a month would have gone a long way for him. One of his pupils went to a philanthropist and got him a donation of one lakh of rupees fifty years ago. The self-respect of the pandit refused to receive it. There can be no greater ethical accomplishment than this. Another incident of this description cannot be conceived. He refused what came to him on its own. But this exalted accomplishment could not raise his economic position at home. No ethical glory has the power to have an overall effect in one's life. Success in one field has the power to open up success in other fields. But partial accomplishments do not have a bearing on the whole. A little of the whole can energise the parts, not the part the whole.

15. Opinion, attitude, motive are of mind, vital and being.

       (Mental opinion.

       Vital attitude.

      Being's motive.)

Skill, capacity, talent, ability are organisations of energy for action at the physical, mental, vital levels. This is physical energy organised.

Energy differs. It divides itself into physical, vital, mental, spiritual energies. Also the process of ascent and decent is there in every activity. If these analyses are continued further to cover all human existence, we see a complex whole developing from a micro unit to macro expansiveness. The more the analysis is carried on, the greater is the precision that we witness and the greater is the complexity. One more interchange arises. Physical energy in the mind as well as mental energy in the physical are distinguished. So the phrases mental skill, bodily preferences are there. To distinguish them in practice is to launch oneself on a psychological study of a rare precision. This being social theory, not yogic psychology, our scope stops with the initial territories.

It is obvious that the physical energies in a work that get organized into a skill need a direction of thought. It comes from the mind of the body. In other words, the body that is urged to move releases the energy for action. The energy that continuously moves develops the mental cognition and starts giving direction. This we call the mind of the bodily energies and have designated its seat as No. 7. It is primary mind, which by evolution becomes vital mind in No. 4 and pure mind in No. 1.

Mind, conceived as a plane is beyond the plane of the vital. This is divided into 3, 2 and 1. All energies here are energies of the mind. Its physical, vital, mental parts are denoted by 3, 2 & 1. Mind receives the impressions of the senses from the vital and the urges of the physical that lie below the vital. After separating the vital impressions, the mind sets to work. Sometimes it begins its work without that separation. Above the mind lies the spirit whose energies are entirely subtle and whose skills we have called values. The primary function of the physical is movement, rather existence of the body which begins to move by the vital energies. The primary function of the vital is neither existence nor understanding but movement that releases energy. Mind's primary function is understanding, while such a primary function of the spiritual is to understand silently.

Mind organising its mental energies creates understanding. Understanding of the sense impressions is opinion. Opinion endorsed by vital energies is attitude. It can be stated otherwise that the direction of vital energies endorsed by mental understanding is attitude.

Physical urges receiving the vital energies and the endorsement of the mental understanding is motive. In one sense the body is inclusive of the mental and vital and can be considered as a whole being.

The whole being having its own overall direction is motive. This is another way of understanding it. Linguistic development is already on these lines to a great extent but we cannot expect it to be precise. In fact, to develop such a precision in expression in the language is one function of any developing science. Using the already available terms in the measure that it suits, we can come thus far.

So, we arrive at mental opinion, vital attitude and being's motive. When acts move on the basis of decisions we see all these energies and their organisations playing on each other. A clear understanding of these classifications is helpful for further work on the Theory.

n an action being triggered we see the initial urge is that of the body, followed by the vital and mental. When it is a process of education, not experience, we also see the urge of the body preceded by thought. What initially appears to be confusing becomes clarity if we know in gaining experience the body moves by trial and error and collects knowledge. In education, the mind first receives the knowledge from others and instructs the body to act according to that knowledge.

Even in the primary physical urge it is the will that urges the body. That will is the will of the being and not the will of the mind. It is the mind of the being, if one needs to use the term mind. Thus we see subdivisions rising and gain perceptions of the whole, each in one sense, resembling the other.

To have the penetration and patience to observe all such movements with growing precision is the work that underlies this Theory.

Science will enter its own legitimate arena and will qualify for the name science when all these distinctions are perceived in practice, when fresh terms are developed specially for these purposes avoiding possible confusions. At present one has to use the words available in the language in so far as it conforms to the movements of  Nature.                 

A creative area arises when the movements of Nature shade off into existence of Being. Original expressions that are pregnant and creative, and will remain in the language forever as household words are created in this zone by the combination of existing words which all poets and writers did. This zone has not yet become creative of fresh words. That will be a higher linguistic creativity.

16. One's accomplishment could be restricted to one of these - opinions, attitudes, motives.

      (Determinants of accomplishment)

History was once studied as the lives of kings. From that narrow perspective, history has moved to become a chronicle of events. That step forward is a great leap and has released history from its narrow confines. There are further, wider, larger, greater perspectives possible. History can be studied as

  • The march of civilization with the centre being the collective or the individual.
  • Material comforts enjoyed serve as an index to study history.
  • Discovery of natural laws; mental development.
  • Conception of the universe; God.
  • Accomplishment - collective or individual.

The possibilities of collective or individual accomplishment afforded by a period can be an index of historical progress. And that would be of interest to us here if not the listing of all the possible indices of historical growth. The measure of violence given up, the care of child receives, the volume of population, the sacred trust the woman is, the level of education one can attain can be the indices we can use. From our Theory point of view, history can be studied from the point of view of every aspect of life, say even from the most remote aspect, such as the thorny nature of bushes that grow around us.

The determinants of human accomplishment are the instruments fashioned by human psychology of which the mental opinion, vital attitude and physical motive stand out. Taking one look at history, the attitudes of one king in each century will indicate this assumption.

Even today when nations are ranked according to GDP, a change has come about that considers the ranking according to human development. This is a vague, clumsy view, but however meaningless it is on the part of the mind that gropes in the dark, is it not on the very right track in that it moves from money as an index to man who is the achiever? What factors are available in a country for man to develop and their measurement has come into vogue recently. To move from here to the determinants of accomplishment is no easy task. One can measure physical factors. The world does not yet have any conception of the psychological factors. There are no tools yet to measure them. Still to measure them in the physical factors reflected is eminently possible.

17. Work in a higher plane will be adversely affected by a lower attribute (opinion, etc.) being negative to it, while the work in the lower plane will remain unaffected by a higher                attribute even if it is negative to the work.

(The lower affects the higher.

The superfluous higher.

The unaffective higher.)

Work is organized in several layers and all of them are ultimately inter-connected, but, in practice, each layer acts as if it is autonomous. Still, some activities of one plane do not affect the other layers. The higher being insufficient does not affect the lower while the lower affects the higher is taken here for consideration.

  • The family life and the lives of children remain largely unaffected by a wayward father, especially when it is a passing phase.
  • Gandhiji called off the Non-Cooperation movement when two policemen were killed in Chouri Choura.
  • Royalty that was done away with by Cromwell several centuries ago, has not diminished the loyalty of the people to the throne still.
  • A lion or an elephant can be immobilized or killed by a thorn in the foot that makes the wound septic.
  • One tactless argument rudely delivered cancels an international project.
  • A misjudgement by a wife in finalizing an alliance makes the boy suffer forever in life.
  • An excellent dress torn slightly at a visible place has to be thrown away, and cannot be darned or used.
  • Lack of interest in work in the employees that appears not to be a serious flaw can bankrupt a company, while serious disagreement within the Board of Directors may not at all affect the daily working.
  • A newspaper survives for a decade when on the balance sheet they have gone red. But one day's delay in getting the paper out in time to catch the trams and buses cancels that day's publication.

18. When an essential component of the work is not brought in, the result is either postponed till it arrives or stalls at that point.

(Determining component)

This is such a plain truth that needs no one to give it utterance. It is true. It is equally true that this error is often committed. It is committed because man is incapable of ‘knowing' that the accomplishment will be spoiled.

A person whose vocabulary of English was less than 200 words opted to take the B.A. exam in 1952, which requires writing four papers of about sixty pages each. Of the many equipments or endowments needed for successfully taking the exams, he had none. He could not even memorize because he could not read! The person who prepared him for the examination, not on any strength he had, but on the strength of one who taught, succeeded in his effort and brought him to the point of writing a hundred words after twelve months. Hearing a sigh of relief, the tutor asked the pupil to write every day 250 words until the exam day arrived. The man refused and failed. He took the exam three times and passed it the third time. It is not as if the man was a fool. Only that he overlooked the rules of accomplishment. It is common for people to imagine they could do something very well, just because they understood how. An essential component may be missing, as in this case the experience of writing. What is missing here is something practical, not subtle.

A very efficient manager acquired an extensive property. Obviously, he had all the capacities to manage. He became a failure on the first day and wished to sell it as he bought a property that needed Rs.65,000 working capital - and he had none - that would earn him 35,000 profits. What was missing here was the subtle endowment of owning property. Managing is not owning. The same man worked for 20 years as a manager and bought a small good property.

Examples of essentials missing are very striking, often unbelievable, such as the North Pole expedition returning for lack of food. Even considering whether all essentials are there is an essential endowment. Though apparently silly, this is an important aspect of accomplishment.

19. The atmosphere of a plane carries with it the ability of accomplishment in the areas one is unformed or oblivious.

(Accomplishment of the atmosphere.

Accomplishment of the unformed.

Accomplishment of the oblivious.)

We often live in the atmosphere of a new country, a great institution or a great soul. The subliminal pervades and gives a full endowment without one's knowledge. The servant of the Greek Professor repeating the poems in her delirium, or Ganapathi Munis' cook reciting Sanskrit slokas are instances.

People living in a university not formally belonging to the staff, or a court, etc. have developed endowments otherwise acquired by a formal training.

People living in the city are capable of greater accomplishment than those in rural areas. We may be justified in saying the great metropolises of the world are very much like a university in teaching its population.

  • Living in a cultured, educated family by itself educates the person.
  • If Westerners live in the rural parts of India, they will very much be educated in the subtle topics of life.
  • It is obvious that one does not learn in the areas of his mind and personality where he is formed and determined, as that formation is a bar.
  • Westerners living in India for very long periods do not learn beyond a few words of the language because they are determined not to learn.
  • Mother cities the example of an Indian servant with a French family for 18 years in France who gave up stealing and became almost a French citizen. On her return to India, she went back to stealing after a few years.

- Atmosphere accomplishes where there is no resistance.

- Formation prevents learning even in the presence of a powerful atmosphere.

- Knowledge acquired in such an atmosphere is retained or lost by the determination of one's personality that expresses through CHOICE.

- Even in these cases - all such cases - the layer below the organized conscious surface subtly gets the knowledge of the atmosphere.

20. Fresh incursions of energy can raise the level of accomplishment in the areas where the endowment fully exists or rests on experience.

(Experience elevates accomplishment)

            Efforts in the post war periods in Asia to modernise the nations had little or no results, while in Western Europe, such efforts gave complete results. Nations of Western Europe had earlier experience in modern living while the Asian nations had not had that benefit.

  • The age-old experience of mathematics is giving good results for Indians in software now.
  • Every new opportunity is better availed of by those who are organised. That is how the concept of ‘Rich becoming richer' was coined.
  • Every new product is quickly received by urban areas in a more widespread way than in rural parts.
  • The advent of English education was fully availed of by the Brahmins, as they were the only ones who had any experience in education.
  • The experience of democracy spreading after the war proves this. The Muslim nations that were not used to any democratic form of governance are until now alien to democracy.
  • When proletarian democracy entered into Russia it became proletarian dictatorship, as Russia was long used to dictatorship.
  • Technology made greater progress in USA than in Europe as USA had greater recent experience of creating a productive nation without being encumbered by forms of culture or forces of tradition.
  • We can say India has more quickly responded to housing than industrialisation, as the one is based on existing experience and the other has met in the population neither native endowment nor previous experience.
  • Mother's devotees readily respond more to photos, blessing packets, flowers and prayers than to consecration, work in consecration or reading books, as their past experience lies in one and not in the other.

21. An attitude essentially required for accomplishment can come to one either positively or negatively.

(Neutral attitude.)

Attitudes are vital propensities endorsed, sanctioned and reinforced by mental understanding, opinion or preference. The movement of the physical is in all directions, rather directionless. Giving those movements directions to accomplish a work forms what is known as physical skills.

Energies of the vital, when released, are equally without any direction, i.e. directionless. Any direction of energy makes it into force. Vital energies become vital force by attitudes. We know several such attitudes in work, life and spirit.

  • That results are produced by work is an idea as old as life. Work ethic is a Christian attitude, rather a European attitude.
  • In India we see that the attitude to life is governed by the idea, "Family must support me. I have to support my family". The normal vital energies of an Indian run along these lines and channel his energies.
  • In the West, as against the Indian view, the ruling attitude is one must live on his own, an attitude of individuality. From this comes the training of eating habits at the age of one, keeping one's things by oneself, a separate room for each child and launching onto life as soon as he comes of age.
  • It is clear that the attitude is social, personal and from the family. Below, each attitude is a vital force, severely neutral in its character.
  • This aspect of attitude can be seen more clearly in work. Attitudes in work are work attitudes. Punctuality, sequence, orderliness, perfection, non-interference and a host of other work attitudes are necessary for the accomplishment of any work. To see that punctuality is by itself neutral is not difficult.
  • Being neutral, the attitude can enter one's personality either through a good work or bad work.
  • A criminal's care for perfect execution is an excellent attitude of work but is not vitiated as an attitude because he is a criminal.
  • The corrupt man as well as the incorruptible man pay great attention to work. Attention, as a work attitude, remains neutral, corruption or no corruption.

22. The presence of such an endowment negatively will be largely successful in a negative social atmosphere, but it will be accomplishment pure and simple.

(Neutral accomplishment)

If attitudes are neutral, accomplishments too are neutral. In this human world of ours, everything is neutral where the ego does not intrude or the mind enters and takes a side.

  • A building is neutral. Its use can have a character.
  • An institution is neutral. It can take sides.
  • Understanding is neutral. It can be used on any side.
  • All objects are neutral.
  • All persons are neutral.
  • All endowments are neutral.

It often causes a surprise when a bad man succeeds, or an act of terrorism is accomplished to rounded perfection. Here we overlook the above basic rule that objects, persons, and faculties are neutral. What gives a character to them is the mind that chooses one side against the other or the ego which always takes its own side.

In social evolution creeds, nations, and ‘isms' enter and dominate over long periods. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Behind the creeds or isms lie the pure social forces that are eminently neutral and are in the process of building a human collective.

Even in spiritual evolution up to a point, disciplines are necessary and play a positive role. Beyond that, no disciplines are necessary as discipline is a bar. Sri Aurobindo says poets become great poets or poetry becomes immortal poetry when they shed the shackles of a purpose. Purposelessness achieves greater things than the greatest. Immortality belongs not to the forms. Form, purpose, goal, aim, discipline, right, good all belong to a lower plane, lower to the very highest. In that sense, for that region, accomplishment and attitude are neutral.

23. For that to be successful in a positive social atmosphere, the attitude should rise above the line.

(Line decides.

 Deciding line.)

Accomplishment is neutral. We are interested in positive accomplishment. Moving from below the line to above, the negative accomplishment will, ipso facto, change into positive one. The Line gives character to the act. The act is neutral, attitude is neutral, accomplishment is neutral. Neutrality is power. The character is positive or negative. Good and bad are moral characteristics. Right and wrong are social characteristics, positive and negative are work characteristics. Profit and loss are commercial characteristics. There can be as many characteristics as there are sectors in the society.

                                    The line for each sector is defined differently.

An efficient thief will make an efficient watchman when he crosses over to employment from stealing, with the line in between.

            The Viceroy in Delhi was there as a representative of the crown. In 1947 when Lord Mountbatten was appointed Viceroy, he took over as one who could work out the transfer of power smoothly. It was not the duty of a viceroy. He crossed over the line and made the transfer of power possible which until then remained impossible.

Marriage is a social institution fulfilling the individual requirement of a family and a spouse. In Pride and Prejudice, marriage crosses the line in changing its character from being an institution of preserving families. It acquired that characteristic which will render it into an institution that preserves society. And all over England the aristocracy was preserved from damage into which marriage too played its part however significant it is or not.

The runner who runs for the medal crosses the line when he runs for the glory of sports. A man who ran for the glory of God and refused to run on Sabbath, was accommodated into the schedules of heat and ran. He won the gold for England.

24. The maximum one accomplishes is determined by the scope of the atmosphere and the willing organisation of ‘accomplishment' in one self.

(Atmosphere decides the maximum.

 Inner organisation determines.)

This is obvious. When we look at the society we live in, we see the development of various individuals differs. We also see several individuals do not have all the scope they need for their fuller development. The latter are not pioneers, the former are. What is presently an inability will turn into a right endowment if they don the role - pioneers - for which they are fitted. Emphasis lies on the underdeveloped. They can be divided into two equal halves.

  • 1) Those who enjoy what they are and are determined to shun any possible growth. They are best left to themselves as their joy is maximum.
  • 2) Those who are capable of growth and greater enjoyment but are unconscious, unformed, and uninformed. To them any program will be useful.

As the society grows, it grows unevenly. Growth means disturbance of the existing equilibrium. Naturally there will be two differing ends. The idea of equality in society is a moral one and will not lend itself to being applied to social norms. The concept of egalitarian is equal rights and equal opportunities. The general impression is not this. By an enormous extension of rights and opportunities, there is general uninformed expectation of equal accomplishment, which in this context has a powerful tendency to be a superstition.

The pioneer who has great potentials will knock his head against the social realities and be suffocated when he tries to express himself in the society. Seeing his proper role, he will not only be free from the suffocation but will flower as a leader.

The willing inner organisation of ‘accomplishment' is the extent of one's readiness to enjoy at a higher level. This is a psychological landmark. In periods of transition, the tendency to cling to the old is known as conservative. One begins to cherish the past for its virtue of being the past. It is considered loyalty, tradition, and even goodness. To change is fickle, necessary, the neo-rich, the shallow modern lifestyle. When these people are shown the real value of the new, they are very likely to accept it with gratitude.

25. Strong individuals performing within a weak organisation will soon exhaust their possibilities at the point where the strength of the organisation is exhausted.

(Excessive strength of individuals.

 Weak whole and a strong part.)

The above is an anomaly where the individual by his excessive strength is a foreigner. In the normal course, the individual in an organisation is its product and will be in harmony. Greater or smaller strength, if created inside, is incidental. Greater strength of an individual secured from the organisation qualifies him to be a natural leader.

In practice, an organisation admits all sorts of people and all grades of strength. If one who is stronger than an organisation happens to be alien to its spirit, obviously it is not the place for his future. He may choose to be with the organisation and serve its cause. In that case, he will soon exhaust his own capacities and find himself a fish out of water. With the best of intentions, a small organisation cannot serve a great personality.

Not only this. A selfish family will not receive the selfless service of its member. It will not permit one member to be selfless. A truth that springs from this disharmony is great men are not popular in their own locality during their lifetime. All great men started their lives in small institutions. As a rule, these men were ejected by those organisations.

            More talent and less scope generate friction. There is one remote solution for this phenomenon. Whether it was ever tried is not known. The greater personality can lend his excess strength not to serve the ideals of his organisation, but to raise the level of those ideals. In case of success, the phenomenon will pass unnoticed and even the salutary results of such an endeavour. It is like a local rich man trying to feed all the idle people there. It will certainly lead to his dissolution. It will not result in any amelioration of those served. Tolstoy took such an attitude and opened his castle to the poor. Nothing palpable arose out of his generosity except his castle was strewn with poor bodies scattered all over. The strong man has one other course open to him. It is to try to raise the ideals of the organisation in a systematic way, instead of offering an indiscriminate exploitation.

Such an attempt will meet with a stiff resistance and will surely lead to his annihilation. This is so because no individual is stronger in these matters against the collective strength of an organisation where vested interests are entrenched.

26. Weak individuals performing within an organisation that is strong will be able to avail of their strength in the measure they subordinate to its authority.

(Strong whole and a weak part.

 Weakness growing strong.)

The concept of welfare state has behind it the above theme. Society is a collective made up of extraordinary individuals who can lead it in a revolutionary change, average individuals who take care not to fall short of its expectations and men who are unfit to survive but survive by the energy of the collective support that compels them to rise. We now consider the last category.

As a tank has various depths, so the society too has varying depths. The fish that is in it necessarily receives the pressure of water and survives it. A ball of clay that cannot survive that pressure disintegrates. Weak members of the society who do not disintegrate under its pressure are changed by the strength of the society.

  • A leader leads an army at the frontier and defends the border. All the weaklings who shudder at the mention of war receive the protection of the army.
  • A scientist discovers a windmill or a pen or a computer. Corporations commercialise them into products on the market. The entire nation enjoys someone's service.
  • Families do not let weaklings die in the sun like the Spartans, but sacrifice themselves for the ignorant member to survive. Often families succeed in making the unfit fit members of the society.
  • Not only the leader of the army, or the scientist serves the nation, but every layer of society that is above the average serves those who are below.
  • All units from the family, the school, the company, and the church do it religiously for their weak members.
  • This service is possible only when the weak submit themselves to the authority of the society.
  • The weak are crushed when left to themselves. The strong tyrants in the society take great joy in crushing the unprotected, just as children are cruel to animals. Society goes out of its way to protect its weak members against the cruelty of the strong.
  • The weak mostly cooperate, but not always. Often they take the part of violent tyrants who crush them, as they voluntarily elect corrupt politicians. The weak feel a privilege in being treated cruelly.

27. An accomplishment is determined by the interaction of the several endowments of the individual - skill, capacity, ability, manners, character, personality, opinions, attitudes, motives - with the several attributes of the outside - atmosphere, organization, authority, status, power, etc.

(Accomplishment is the result of the interaction of the inner and outer.

 Inner and outer accomplishes.

 Accomplishment is a miniature universe.)

The first rule of existence is nothing is separate. Everything needs every other thing. Mahatma Gandhi took a puritan attitude towards machines, but he travelled all over India in the train. A good part of his life - for that matter anyone's life - depended upon what was produced by machines. He could not shun the newspapers or the radio. Apart from the silly fad of  Amish culture, it is against the spirit of spirituality of India or the very spirit that sustains any society.

            The advent of Internet is taking this aspect of society - of mutual dependence - to its logical conclusion by making every one reach the fullest information on any subject which no encyclopaedia can give. Internet is raising the layman to the level of experts in the fields of his choice. As democracy offers the least of men the right to the highest office in the land, Internet is offering the very least man the knowledge now possessed by the first of them.

  • In this, Internet is serving as a tool that will make the part the whole.
  • By bringing the two ends of the society together, Internet is helping the Society to evolve as a WHOLE for which till now there was no opportunity.
  • Incidentally this fullness of information at the disposal of every citizen makes way for the subtle knowledge in the society to be born at the mental level.
  • Earlier civilisations had the vital subtle knowledge, not the mental subtlety.
  • The interaction mentioned above is going on all the time at various levels in all societies, but now society has evolved technological tools like computer, infrastructure like telecommunication and powers like electronics to make that goal real.
  • For the individual, it will be rewarding to observe that process in his own self inside and life outside. It will be pure yoga if the observation becomes subtle and inner.

28. The initiative cutting across these aspects reaching any goal without being tempered or interfered with by a negative trait, accomplishes itself.

(Self-fulfilling initiative.)

Human initiative is God's intention in Ignorance. When it is not consummate, all the outer attributes and inner aspects and their interaction fully count.

            At its maximum intensity, no extraneous force dare stand in its way. It fulfils itself. Human life is subjected to law, tradition, custom, usage, procedure and is tempered by time, season, participants, volume, intensity, etc. All these are for ordinary days.

            There are periods of revolution or war. At those moments everything is brushed aside by the declaration of war and they readily subordinate themselves to the central effort. At their peak all these forces offer their willing services to the revolution. Man's life is routine, on the surface. Rarely such a cataclysmic moment arises in his life as Elizabeth liberally abused Darcy for having proposed to marry her.

By definition intensity is short-lived. The short-lived peak of intensity of a plane is the ever-present intensity of the higher plane. One who frequently rises to such peaks without any damage to his fabric, gradually moves into the next higher plane as the water crystals that form at various points after a while settle down as ice all over.

The initiative Lady Catherine took backfired on her as it was negative. In her own normal circumstances, he would be scoring such victories. Here it was a miscalculation.

The two successions to the Prime Ministership in India in 1964 to 1966 were such. The initiative Kamaraj took was one such and it brushed aside all other lesser considerations. Of course no one knows the extra factor of Mother's Force that acted through Kamaraj.

After Indian freedom was won in 1910 Sri Aurobindo wanted armed revolution which would have pierced through all resistances like that.

In all social transitions and evolutionary movements we see this phenomenon. When a family is rising, it always happens that their moves overcome all the existing resistances.

29. Inner approval or appreciation of any goal or a person who has attained that goal makes one eligible to the same accomplishment. That appreciation reaching a certain fullness - say when it reaches the substance of a plane - readily accomplishes on the strength of that appreciation alone. Suspicion, mistrust, and sarcasm expressed or unexpressed have the opposite effect.

(Appreciation is accomplishment.

 Inner perfection is eternal perfection.

 Imperfection is imperfection expressed or unexpressed.)

  • Cultural education is consummate education.
  • Devotion to the leader or his cause is determination to accomplish.
  • Schools give education of information of facts.
  • Society outside informs of secrets of living - literacy of life.
  • Family imperceptibly and by over discipline inculcates values social, cultural.
  • What a man is given is outer, external, and objective.
  • Receptivity is subjective, inner - individualizing the universal.
  • Surface receives instructions.
  • Inner mind receives the essence of instructions.
  • The subliminal absorbs the subtle environment.
  • Manners are of the surface.
  • Character is of the depth of the surface and can open into the inner being.
  • Subliminal is of personality.
  • The cave of the subliminal crosses Nature into Being.
  • School - society - family - one's own - Society for the adult - subjective education - inner opening in society - inner opening in psychology - inner opening in the Spirit - Social being - psychological person - striving soul - evolving Spirit.

School                     Information                  Education                   Social survival

 

Society

Practical facts

Experience

Social accomplishment

 

 

Family

Practical values

Psychological experience

Inner accomplishment

Social graces bringing laurels.

One's own

Higher ethical values

Psychological self-discipline of collective inner values

Idealistic personality

 

Society for the adults

Values of public life

Setting standards of public idealism

Rising in social accomplishments by one's inner strength.

 

 

Subjective education

Development of psychological personality

Self-education

Social eminence

 

Inner opening in society

Collective inner personality

Spiritual education

Spiritual realisation

Spiritual leadership of society

Inner opening in psychology

Moving into inner mind

Spiritual personality

Growth of spiritual leadership

Spiritual enlightenment recognised by society

Inner opening in the Spirit

Subliminal opening

Evolving spirit

Peep into simultaneous integrality of Time

Psychic opening

 

30. Strength of accomplishment is that which operates in a lower plane than its maximum reach. It goes straight to its goal brushing aside all dissent.

(Invincible strength of accomplishment.

 Lower plane makes strength invincible.)

            Central Ministers after retirement accept lesser posts like that of a Vice Chancellor, governor, etc. where they are unquestioned leaders. K.L.Shrimali, S.Chandrasekar were Vice Chancellors. Mohan Kumara Mangalam became the chairman of All India Football Association.

            Rich people who have lost their wealth become clerks and are extremely efficient and popular there by virtue of their residual capacities.

            T.Govindarajan by virtue of his capacity and intelligence should have been a governor or leader of CPI. Mother's darsan gave life to his idealism and made him a shining star as a staff member of the university.

            Girls from higher castes or higher culture marry into lower positions and become almost a leader of the family or the community. It is not real accomplishment, but strength of accomplishment that has been denied opportunity in its own plane, and by virtue of difference, out-performs in a lower situation.

  • Edmond Dante
  • P.K.S. Warrior as a college lecturer. He was one of the 18 claimants of the Zamorin of Cochin whose share of wealth in 1950 was Rs.36 lakhs of rupees.
  • All Brahmins in the shops as assistants, clerks in the office, managers in companies.
  • Political leaders quitting politics enter into professions and easily dominate the field.
  • Tata Tea where business management methods were used in agriculture and 50% profits earned.
  • Veterans turning into entrepreneurs.
  • Research findings in the military released to civilian uses.
  • Sanskrit pandits in USA.
  • Westerners working in Indian organisations.
  • Students from English medium schools continuing their education in village schools.
  • Engineer running a workshop.
  • TVS mechanic running a lathe.
  • Lalitha, Padmini from a royal house seeking a film career.
  • Sadasivam using his contacts in Delhi Congress head office to boost his wife's popularity as a musician.

31. The same operating at its maximum possible level becomes weak and can be toppled by any move to the contrary.

(Weakness of strength in a lower plane.

 Blind spot of the big.

 Theory of blind spot.)

This world is run by inconscient energy. Knowledge becomes Ignorance by choice, but acts as ignorance and is hedged in as true ignorance. The act of becoming ignorance naturally creates blind spots in knowledge, as its focus at one point makes it vulnerable at all other points.

  • Nehru lost in his emotional idealism was unaware of the gossip in the society, intrigues in the party, the resourcefulness of the anti-social elements in the society.
  • Einstein who forgot to cash a $1500 cheque and used it as a book mark could not have known the frustration building up in his wife, who left him.
  • Mental life that is truly absorbed in thoughts cannot know abuse of oneself even when he is reading it himself.
  • Man who adores his wife will never be able to see her blind spots but would be able to trust her.
  • Magnanimous owners who give in to the submissive attention of their managers entrust them with their rights and property, little knowing the truth.
  • Consciousness of the whole in spite of its absorption at one point can know what concerns it elsewhere. This is all-inclusive concentration. It is a concentration which is equally intense at all points.
  • The criminal, the clever man, the negative man who is resourceful is usually one who had possessed Truth in a previous generation and now misuses that energy of Truth to work in falsehood. They are endowed with that thoroughness.
  • Priests who are not pious turn to science or learning or black magic. They possess this capacity which is invulnerable.
  • Governments, men who have accomplished, chiefs of organization have developed espionage, tale bearing, sycophancy, etc. to overcome this deficiency. Morally good people frown on such habits as mean. As a neutral endowment, society possesses what is called word of mouth, which neutralizes this natural lack in people who are highly absorbed in their work.

- Subtle awareness can be alerted through this medium of the impending disaster, as words will fall on one's ears indicating the shape of things to come.

- All Life is such omens for one who has that subtlety.

- Perfection in motives and consciousness or perfection in work will always have the inner strength to fully protect or adequately warn in time.

32. The Inner Determinant is the choice.

(The Inner determines.

The Inner chooses.

Choice is Determinant.

The Determinant chooses.)

It is spiritually true that the world is created in the inner and at the supramental level the outer moves into the inner. As we move from the physical man to the mental man, we see the steady movement of the outer into the inner. In the higher realm of action where man moves to the highest level of effective action as a Member of the Planning Commission, the outer is less important than the inner. Almost there is no outer. In the magician, everything is inner.

The ordinary man who is not perceptive sees the result and does not now remember the decision he has made earlier. To him the above comes as a surprise or a mild shock. The results in an election when announced appear as the work of the counting. Obviously, the counting has nothing to do with the result. The result was decided in the minds of the voters.

It is a common experience among uneducated ignorant people that a result often surprises them. When others draw their attention to what they had done to bring it about, it surprises the victims, as their inner and outer are separated very much. Against the experience of every one around and even against their express advice, someone gives his money to a cheat and loses it. It is no surprise to any one. Still it is a surprise to the lender. It was his choice, an express choice. For the purposes of our theory we can stop here saying that there is only one determinant and it is the inner. Man chooses it deliberately.

Spiritually the subliminal compels the surface to seek what it wants to enjoy against the predilections of the surface. The subliminal wants the experience of lending to a cheat and wants to learn out of it. Therefore, the surface is overruled. The overruled surface finds some contextual reason for justifying the action. It is an experience of Ignorance outgrowing itself. The ignorance - deceit - in oneself wanting to gain knowledge, desiring the knowledge to emerge out of ignorance, seeks a fit instrument to do the job. The stronger deceit of a known culprit by virtue of his strength attracts the weak deceit to destroy it. That is what the subliminal wants. Looking at it morally, in a social sense, we say 1) That man has cheated or 2) He is a fool to lend money to a known cheat. In either case, what determines is the inner, the CHOICE of the Inner.

33. The outer determinant is one's social acceptability.

(Man is a social being.

 Social living is essential existence.

The outer society.

The Inner man.)

A clever lawyer met someone who was doing some work that had an idealistic edge. He praised the other man. It was open flattery but he ended by saying that only through people like him - the idealist - great things were accomplished. The lawyer was sore about the Christian schools and very much wished a Hindu school to be established. He desired the idealist to start a Hindu school, knowing that the other had no resources. The cleverness of the lawyer was consummate. His information was the idealist had a rich friend. This lawyer belonged to a faith that deeply believes or persuades itself to believe that

  • We are all here ready and willing to bless the whole world.
  • Our hearts are big and our Spirits are great.
  • Let the world exert sparing no pains and feed us all with gratitude and receive our blessings.
  • You are here to work and we are here to be fed.

Cleverness is the psychological falsehood in the society that is low. This idealist has earned a small reputation of offering sundry free service. So, the lawyer, who glimpsed that streak in the other man thought quick and fast, " Here is a fool who renders service. Behind him is another rich fool. If this fellow is inspired all the wealth of that rich man will come to us. We can pretend to do some service and enjoy forever in the name of the school".

It is true the idealist is not clever, but he is a practical man. He believed that any work will take shape by responsibility. He knew there were 150 lawyers in the town. In those days of sixties Rs.1,50,000 would have  been enough to start a small school. When the lawyer enthusiastically declared that his community of lawyers would do all in their power to start a school if only there was an idealist to run it, he asked the lawyer to propose to his community to donate Rs.1000 per head. The lawyer was dismayed and chagrined.

Before the lawyer recovered from his disappointment, the idealist proposed that each lawyer can take his own quota of teaching as his recurring contribution. Like a hot cake the proposition of the school was dropped.

The outer determinant is social acceptability which has no life and is hence false. The only determinant is the inner determinant. By discarding it or shifting it to the outer, one lands in illusions or wishful thinking. Thereafter the only progress is to shed the illusions. Foreign aid in the post war era of the world  is the best example. Except in the Marshall Plan countries where there was the psychological infrastructure to build on, everywhere else AID sapped the natural energies, created resentment and antagonism and halted progress. Seeking foreign aid in cash is the best way of destroying a nation's progress and development.

34. Objective - outer - accomplishments can stand on social structures.

  • Even those objective accomplishments and their needed structure needs to be created inside as psychological structures first.

Spiritual philosophy declares that the whole creation emanated from inside out. All historical achievements have been created in the minds of men - the inner. Once the inner expresses as outer in some level, a certain amount of work can be done outside, but the fact remains that inner first, outer next.

Whether it is social service of the Red Cross International or the two world wars fought all over Europe and Asia, it may be apparently right in saying that work means OBJECTIVE, outer, practical. So far as it goes, it is true. These objective structures are secondary structures is the primary truth.

  • Government often prides itself on some scheme forgetting it was initiated by its predecessor.
  • We speak of innovative curricula. They are all improvements over the past work.
  • The son is proud of his achievement. He builds on what his father laid foundations for.
  • A son reverses what the father did and builds where his pride is legitimate. Here the foundation his father laid is psychological and in the reverse. In the absence of his father's folly, the son would have to pass through that folly.
  • Every accomplishment has its predecessor on which one builds.
  • When the chain is completed and there is nothing further to stand on, one moves from the outer domain to the inner. Ultimately all beginnings are in the inner.
  • He who recognizes this truth has no chance of error.
  • The social collective is subconscious. The individual is subjective.
  •  What is subconscious in the collective is subjective in the Individual.
  • At least we have a few great examples of the greatest outer accomplishment like the victory in World War II having come out of the inner courage of one single individual - Winston Churchill.
  • As the outer society is itself the creation of the inner consciousness, that question of social primacy has no basic validity.

35. Subjective - inner - accomplishments can stand only on psychological sanctions.

(Subjective psychology.

  Psychological subjective.

  Sanctioned accomplishments.

Inner subjective.)

Each level of accomplishment requires its own skill, energy, attitude, strategy, or sanction. Here we are formulating a theory of development which is, to us, a process of descent, mind leading the body, abridging Time and centuries into years. The theme here is,

  • The higher the centre of functioning, the higher is the accomplishment.
  • The inner is the higher.
  • The achievement of the inner is not by analysis, but by synthesis.
  • Synthesis is not by conception, but by perception.
  • What becomes perception is Self-conception.
  • Self-conception proceeds to Self-absorption through Self-limitation.
  • Self-absorption has two extremities of the Superconscient and the Inconscient.
  • Social accomplishment in our sense is

- The vital accepting the mind

- The body enjoying the energy of the vital expressing through the knowledge of the mind in its own consciousness.

- The inner in the society is the psychologically awake individual.

- Rate of accomplishment rises as the submission of the lower to the higher increases.

- What increases that submission is the values of work.

- Those values are infinite. One is shift from the outside to inside, objective to subjective, analysis to synthesis, profits to service, selfishness to self-giving.

  • We know social accomplishment rises with

- Increasing education.

- Replacing school education by self-education.

- Following by initiative.

- Changing imitation into innovation.

- Capacity becoming faith.

- Social conformity giving place to initiative based on intellectual clarity of independent thinking.

- Form yielding place to content.

- The personality expanding to include wider sections of humanity out of sympathy.

36. Outer or inner one can accomplish what one chooses at the level of his motives.

(Choice of accomplishment.

  Choice accomplishes.

 Motive is the determinant.

 Motive accomplishes most.)

  • Physical, vital, mental, spiritual, supramental is one gradation.
  • Skill, capacity, talent, ability, understanding, attitude, motive, energy, force, power, results, will, direction, organisation, work, efficiency, dynamism, clarity, silent understanding, form, energy, comprehension, silence, are other gradations.
  • In fact, as there are 12 aspects of the Spirit, 8 spiritual determinants splitting into 24 ways, 8 planes expressing 12 aspects in 96 ways. We can visualize any number of gradations depending upon the extent of our vocabulary and our capacity to classify, systematise and render our perceptions precise.
  • What we know of human choice is the Freedom of the Absolute finding the play of delight in the unconscious human circumstances deliberately.
  • Man is given the freedom

- To choose between Nature and Soul  the joy of security and wild joy of adventure

- To choose between arduous progress and  complacent complaisance

  • Man is Man as he has the right to freedom wherever he is.
  • He does accomplish what he chooses to accomplish.
  • What he fails to accomplish is apparently inability which is in truth a choice to enjoy failure.
  • In the plane of Nature no success is complete that has not enjoyed failure fully.
  • That realisation gives one the ability to disengage from what he is and enter into what he wants to be.

37. Accomplishment is determined essentially by the way the gathering energies are collected and saved.

(Energy saved is energy accomplished.

  Savings determine safety.

  Gathering and saving is achieving )

Just now we know all valuable information is available to all. Theoretically at all times everything up to the Absolute is open to all, of course in its own fashion, not as one would like it to be.

  • Spirit was there for any one to explore either in the West or East.
  • Presently millions of technologies are there all around us.
  • The radio, TV, newspapers, word of mouth are not denied to any single individual.
  • Distant education has put the highest at the disposal of the lowest.
  • Word of Mouth, the greatest of educators, is abroad.
  • Each man exercises his choice of

- employing his time

- collecting facts

- organising as he chooses

- saving what he has collected

- desiring knowledge from any exercise at his own level

- gathering and saving which turns out to be his own determinant. It is up to him to make it a determinant or let it work to his detriment.

  • A look at different nations,

                            different sections in different nations,

                            different individuals in different situations

                            will reveal the truth of gathering energies and saving them.

  • How much one gathers depends upon how much he is willing to exert and what methods he chooses to employ.
  • Gathering is by the ability to conserve, saving is the result of ability to enjoy by spending.
  • Man at any point or at any moment finds himself at a centre which opens up in all 360 degrees.
  • We see here Nature is egalitarian.
  • The opportunities are equal; accomplishments vary.
  • One can see them as equality at the bottom or in equality on the surface.

Levels of Enjoyment.

  1. Energy saturating the vital harmoniously is enjoyment.

(Enjoyment is saturated energy.

  The vital is the principal enjoyer.

  Enjoyment demands harmony.

  Harmonious saturated energy.)           

Joy is energy overflowing. This is true of all the three or four planes but enjoyment and joy are the special province of the vital. We know Mind conceives. When the conception too becomes a mental sensation, it changes into mental enjoyment. When a public speaker is at pains to convince a reluctant audience or a hostile one, sometimes he fashions arguments that succeed. It is a moment of rare mental enjoyment, a mild thrill.

The athlete who scores receives a thrill in the body which is physical enjoyment. It is worth noting that he who cuts a branch of a tree feels similar enjoyment of a lower degree or type. Still, JOY is a prerogative of the vital.

The musician who wins the applause of an audience feels a high degree of joy of appreciation. When his music reaches higher levels his energies too reach a higher intensity and that gives the joy. Eating is a vital joy. Dressing too qualifies for that. Enjoyment of company increases with increasing energy. When the companion is harmonious with your emotions, you see that that harmony raises the level of energy and that in turn raises the enjoyment.

            When the companion is cantankerous, you do not like his company because he drains your energy. Joy needs overflowing energy. For whatever reason, when one is energyless, no company is enjoyable. There is no interest in reading or playing a game or even in listening to something.

  • Enjoyment needs energy.
  • Energy is enjoyment.
  • Enjoyment demands excess energy.
  • The excess must be an ever-present excess.
  • It must be harmonious.
  • It must be felt particularly in the vital.
  • The excess is necessary since enjoyment rises only  when the plane is saturated with energy.
  1. Enjoyment is emotional comprehension maturing in an act.

(Act of emotional maturity.

 Emotional comprehension is enjoyment.

Comprehension matures in an act.

Act of mature emotional compression.)

We often wonder, as with the Freedom of India, or her Prosperity, when something for which all of us are longing never comes to pass. Organisations devoted to some service are often promised funds, but those funds do not ever appear.

In the case of Indian Freedom, a struggle of satyagraha was launched in the twenties with a slogan "Swaraj in one year". Gandhiji was a man of action and quick action too, like Lord Mountbatten who was a military leader. Military leaders do not have the luxury of long winding debate or the choice of postponing a decision. They are compelled to act on the spot. Nehru admired Lord Mountbatten for ready quick action. Having been a lawyer - politician, Nehru had the training of leaving the judgement to the judge or had the necessity to carry all his colleagues with him. This is a time consuming process. Life did not compel him to act quickly. Lord Mountbatten had a mandate of completing the transfer of power by June 1948. He did so on August 15, 1947.

When he was asked to go to India, the two things he asked for were,

  • 1) He should make his own decisions and would not be under the Secretary of State or even the Cabinet and
  • 2) He should take with him his airplane.

One is psychological for quick action and the other is a physical tool to move as he liked. He enjoyed transferring power to India. His was an emotional comprehension. He was a man of action. Freedom was soon born. When Gandhiji started his satyagraha and said Swaraj was to be got in one year, it never came about because,

  • 1) Of the five components of enjoyment, emotion, comprehension, maturity and act, he had none.
  • 2) As satyagraha then was an untested method, comprehension of it was not there in the Congress leadership which was divided between No-changers and Pro-changers. At least the broad masses of India were not moved by either conviction of freedom or any comprehension of the method employed.
  • 3) The question of maturity or act does not naturally arise.
  • 4) Surely there was no enjoyment that could bring about the desired consummation.
  • 5) As the world knew until then, either in the Russian Revolution that was an armed uprising or the French Revolution that arrived at beheading aristocrats or in the American war of Independence which was a war, it was armed conflict for freedom. It had the physical experience of fighting behind it. That was its rationale.
  • 6) Had not Freedom been won in the subtle plane in 1910 by Sri Aurobindo and the atmosphere changed with that Force, no one would have listened to Gandhiji. The unexpected overwhelming responses to his initial calls of non-cooperation were possible because the energy came from Spiritual plane. Gandhiji offered no instruments in the mental, emotional, or physical planes for the spiritual energy to bear fruit.
  1. Accomplishment issues enjoyment.

(Accomplishment and enjoyment are synonymous.

 Accomplishment is enjoyment.

 Enjoying accomplishment.)

We can as well say this is a rule without exception. We can also say there is no accomplishment without enjoyment and no enjoyment without accomplishment. Sri Aurobindo takes this theme to its origin of Sachchidananda and explains the theory of accomplishment.

In manifestation Sat, Chit and Ananda split into six components in their collective action that converges at a point. So, He shows that they emerge in six aspects:

  • 1) The basic principle of Sachchidananda is Unitarian.

Therefore the first principle is - Unity.

  • 2) Sat that is subjective becomes Satyam that is objective.

Hence the second principle is - Truth.

  • 3) The interaction of Truth of Sat on the knowledge of consciousness  is pure GOODNESS.

Truth is a principle, Truth-consciousness is Supermind. We know the consciousness of Truth as pure self-existent GOOD.           

  • 4) Consciousness in its action is - Knowledge.
  • 5) The force of that action is - Power.
  • 6) Ananda is - Love.

So, Unity, Goodness, Truth, Knowledge, Power and Love are the six components of an ACT. Accomplishment is there when all the six of them are there in full measure. The accomplishment awaits if one aspect has not attained full maturity. Time matures what does not mature by its own inherent strength. In practice, the subsequent generation takes up the cue and completes what the previous generation was incapable of through comprehension. Incidentally, passing Time results in mature comprehension.

In the case of Indian Freedom when Gandhiji offered Satyagraha, the leadership was unconvinced. There were several striking results in several of his calls. It is noteworthy that he called off the civil disobedience movement when two policemen were killed in Chauri Choura. The warning was unmistakable that Gandhiji's ahimsa was an incomplete tool. Especially when we see that the stalwart among them, Motilal Nehru, consented to Gandhiji's leadership, and Nature or Life presented him with the massacre of Jallianwallah Bagh. It was the writing on the wall. Twenty years later when the inspired subsequent generation took the issue in their hands, it was the Naval Ratings who took to the streets in Bombay. Thus, what was left incomplete in the twenties became complete in the forties.



story | by Dr. Radut