Notes and Examples on Theory of Social Development
Table of Contents
Internet and Computer are Mainly Organisation.
The Importance of Perfection being Perfect
Power once held is felt forever
XIII. Role of Family, School, Society and Individual
86. Organisation, Institution.
Society has overcome its physicality.
Apparently Inverse Mechanisms.
A small man's great work never spreads.
Co-existence of Opposite Traits.
Do Right for the Wrong Reason.
Explanation of the Past does not lead to Prophesying the Future.
Computer as an Instrument of Development
Capacity for Blatant Falsehood.
Opposite People speak the same thing.
Help offends - Refusal to accept help.
The Other Man's Point of View.
Public Opinion (Democracy) -- Its Effectivity and Its Ineptitude.
V. P. Menon - Transfer of Power
National Events in the Light of His winning Freedom in 1910.
View of the Indian situation - Freedom, Hindu-Muslim unity. 85
Notes on History - Churchill, Johnson, Moore, etc.
Abbreviations of books used in these pages:
1) NPB/B by Brecher - Nehru's Political Biography
2) TCB - Twentieth Century Britain
3) RR - The Russian Revolution A very short introduction
4) VSI - A Very short Introduction
5) HTC III -- A History of Twentieth Century, Gilbert
Oct. 21, 01
Significance of the Theory
- Theory arises only when man is awake in his thinking mind, having crossed mental sensation, observation, relating one observation to another, imagining, judging, and discriminating.
- The first activity of the mind is mental sensation.
- Mental sensation enables the mind to be aware of the environment.
- Awareness of the environment is essential to protection and self-preservation.
- The vital relates to the environment enjoyably when it is sure of protection that preserves.
- Enjoyment of the vital is the enjoyment of energy.
- Mental enjoyment excels that of the energy in that the currents of energy undergo a further change into mental sensation.
- The mental sensation is the basis of thought formation though it does not compel mind to think.
- Mind's sensation is of five types which are initially unrelated.
- Coordination of these sensational experiences needs a centre. That centre is the vital ego in the mind.
- Thought takes shape in the mind when its components of observation, imagination, judgment, discretion, discrimination, analysis, synthesis, etc. are well formed.
- Initially when these are coordinated, the coordinating centre is the ego that becomes capable of responding to the outside.
- Response to the outside at best generates the capacity for analysis.
- Analysis, when it becomes objective, is capable of arriving at unity.
- Mind is capable of synthesis, which is essentially an inner process.
- Synthesis arrives at the inner unity in consciousness.
- When the outer analysis reflects inner synthesis, the whole man is born.
- A prior stage is Thought.
- For thought to deserve its appellation, it must be capable of some unity between the outer objectivity and the inner subjectivity.
- Theorising demands conceptual thought.
- Thought rises from below from the experience of the body and the exertion of the vital.
- They act and their role ends there.
- Neither the body nor the vital is capable of a self-awareness that leads them to discover what happened or how it happened.
- They act endlessly repeating their action and continuously learn whether their acts produced the intended results.
- When the result issues, they repeat for further results. When there is no result, they repeat in the hope of producing results. Neither the body nor the vital thinks, but the energy passing through them acts.
- It is the mind that records or observes their action.
- Thinking as we use the word is the act of coordination.
- It is the energy of this mental coordination that attracts the thought afloat outside and bothers the process of thinking.
- Concept formation is thought formation.
- Thought begins at the primary level of the first observation and proceeds until it can mature into will for action or thought that perceives the process of the act. Its final stage is its conception of the Absolute that moves.
- Our concern here is the concept formation that is capable of discerning the process of the act it takes note of so that a THEORY may be fashioned out of it.
- The process is the mind consciously looking for a process and a theory of that process.
- In nature, it happens unconsciously over centuries or long, long ages.
- That is a process of trial and error.
- Trial is there when you aim at a goal and you know a goal is there. Before that, every move is an act and it is neither trial nor error.
- The whole civilisation built up now is as a result of such efforts of Nature in us which, having stumbled upon some goals, went after them for repetition and consolidation. Nature acts and delights in acting. It learns in the process of acting which is incidental. It is not necessary for Nature to learn as it enjoys the very acting.
- Learning is a natural sequence which will rise at its own time, but Nature is not seeking for it or it does not know of such a goal.
- Man, who is a creature of Nature, acts, enjoys, survives and exists as Nature has infinity before her.
- Nature's process of learning, which is really not aimed at learning, is spread over millions of years, and when it consciously tries to reach a goal, its errors are as many.
- Man, the Nature in Man, takes over the effort when it becomes the unconscious effort of Man instead of the unconsciousness of Nature.
- At a certain stage, mind was born and it slowly developed the capacity to observe the outside at a distance, as the sky, and the outside inside.
- Astronomy and astrology were born thus.
- Mind in man acquiring the faculty of thinking, seeing the outside inside himself, has become capable of another type of observation different from what man knew of until then.
- This observation elevated man's existence. Copernicus's discovery is not out of the primitive sensational thinking, but out of the conceptual thinking that shaped in him.
- Man thus arrived at conceptualising his past experiences.
- Theory or theorising was born out of such concept formation.
- Such a theory eliminates millennia of trial and error and directly goes into action based on theoretical knowledge.
- When man, who had acted physically, moved to the mind after millions of years he became capable of thinking. Theory is the highest product of mind. Theorising is its highest faculty.
- By moving from trial and error of the body to the thinking and theorising of the mind, man moves millions of years in the process of civilising himself.
- In an act, there are three parts, one visible and the other two not visible.
- Result is a visible part and is considered most important.
- The process that brought about the result is occult to mind which when known enables endless results, while the result is a one time activity.
- Behind the process is the man who puts in the process. As there is the man behind the process, there is the Absolute behind all the processes and behind the man.
- To discover the man behind is to discover the spiritual Individual. To discover the Absolute behind is to acquire the capacity to monitor creation.
- Theory formation results by the discovery of the process of an act.
- The vast experience of humanity that civilised itself needs such a theory so that its future march can be conscious, error-free and swift.
- Now that documented results are there in all fields, the raw material for such a theory building is available.
- No theory issues out of the raw materials, but it does from the mind.
- Theory, whether it is arrived at from below from experience or from above from thinking, serves as theory equally well.
- To test the validity of such a theory is not difficult.
- The significance of the theory is different from the significant uses of it.
- That man has moved from the bodily functions to thinking is its primary significance.
- Theory is a pure mental activity that codifies the physical acts so as to extract the process by which it resulted.
- It abridges Time in a vast way.
- It eliminates errors in an enormous way.
- It brings the next millennium or the next century now.
- By theory building and acting on its basis, man ceases to be an active animal and starts being a thinking human entity.
- The physical tragedies and vital sufferings are changed into mental obstacles and confusions to be sorted out by thinking.
- Psychologist Kurt Lewin says, "Nothing is so practical as a good theory".
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Oct. 26, 2001
Internet and Computer are Mainly Organisation
- Organisation is the middle stage in which act is the first and value is the last.
- By organisationwe mean the execution of an act is efficiently coordinated with all its parts and agents effectively in Time and Space.
- What gives the organisation its power is the sequential arrangement that yields the result.
- When a work is to be done at one point at a given time with the help of 2 or 20 other forces at various other points, all those points and their work are to be in tune with the first point in Time, volume, quantity of material, and quality of coordination. When they are only points of supply, it becomes possible in one sense. It is not always so.
- The advertiser and the newspaper are examples of two different organisations producing their own product but relating to each other in advertising.
- Here the internal organisation to coordinate with the external organisation rises in quality, if not in complexity. It is the beginning of integration.
- Organisation converts the productive energy into productive power.
- This process of conversion of often done by a machine or a system or an organisation of several systems.
- Energy before it is converted into power undergoes that change which makes it into force by direction.
- Mental energy becomes a power of education by the organisation of the mind.
- A lone thread becomes the power of a pattern by the organisation of weaving.
- An event becomes news, sometimes a news essential to making the public opinion by the organisation of editing.
- Data becomes information that is useful by the organisation of statistics or a theory in the field.
- The mechanical organisation of internal combustion engine converts the heat energy into power of movement.
- Personality is the organisation that converts the life energy into power of inner growth.
- To approach Internet and computer from this point of view will help us understand their structure, function, role in development and evolution better.
- We see any new organisation gradually integrating with every existing organisation to further development and evolution.
- The old integrating with the new is an entire subject by itself.
- Taking the Internet and computer and tracing them as formed organisations from the very origins of their components and halting at every major point of its merging with the social forces, we will get a full picture of their history and growth.
Nov. 6, 2001
The Importance of Perfection being Perfect
- Perfect Perfection was His conception.
- In this world of ours, perfection is a dream.
- To go beyond that will be to answer His description of the idealist stung by an indomitable energy.
- Is there a truth in it? Or, what is the theory of that conception?
- The smallest error at the bottom magnifies itself at the top many, many times. This is a theoretical fact.
- In locating longitude by the difference between the local time and meridian time, a change of 1/10th of a second sends one floundering along. This is the experience.
- Measurement of mountain heights in the 18th century that used the geometrical method of triangulation used rods of six feet long whose error was less than .001 inch over a distance of 7 ½ miles. The Himalayas were measured to be 29,002 feet at the peak of Everest, after thousands of such measurements confirmed the height. Modern methods that use the satellite, computer, etc. found that measurement of 200 years ago acceptable.
- Today precision in instruments of microns are spoken of. The extraordinarily precise results of the computer is due to that physical precision which fits the description Perfect Perfection.
- Scientific industry testifies to its presence, possibility and its practical necessity.
- When Nehru proposed the appointment of Lal Bahadur Shastri, the palm leaf astrology "nadi jyosyam" read that "tomorrow a short man will be appointed to the cabinet as an important member." It was written 500 years ago.
- Astrology can predict the meal one will eat a hundred days later.
- If such a perfection is there in material science and subtle science, it is better we accept it as a reality without disputing it.
- For one who has crossed the intellectual barrier in understanding The Life Divine, it is possible for him to know the contents of the book with that thoroughness. Three stages of such a perfection are:--
1. Holding the various aspects of the knowledge of The Life Divine in the mind as a precious possession of the mind.
2. To apply that knowledge to the planned description in the field well defined as conceived by the mind and work out their correspondences fully.
3. To have them well expressed in work in details during execution.
The first will break the ice and show the nature of expansive force. The second will concretely achieve the impossible as a one time miracle. The third is a permanent possession of it as a power of organisation.
X - Authority
Point No. 9: Authority exercised in utter freedom is that of the emerging Godhead.
- This idea is rephrased as the other man's point of view.
The story of the British headmaster acquitted and exonerated for not taking his hat off to the king.
The ‘Hindu' dated 18.1.01 under "Fifty years ago" has a news item. "The House of Lords, the Supreme Court of England, having listened to the appellant counsel for over 7 hours, said to the opponent lawyer, ‘It is no longer necessary to listen to you'". The other man's point of view so well developed by Law at the lowest court had not matured to its apex court.
- King George when he became mad the whole palace showed him the same deference as when he was sane.
He had 15 children. When he regained his sanity the Queen told him as others' opinion that he should have had other women and been normal!
His loyalty to her created a tension that resulted in madness.
- The extent to which physical pressure succeeds
Prisoners of war revolted in camp, arrested the American Camp Officer, demanded the right to have a communist organisation fully equipped with telephone and mimeograph machine. The Vietnam authorities conceded the demand and secured the release of the officer. This occurred in Vietnam after firing killed 75 prisoners (P.6, A History of the Twentieth century Vol. III - HTC III).
Form of Government
The world is painfully but actively searching for a right form of government for 50 years and in the process has activated fragmentation. Maybe in this effort about half a million and 1 million men died as heroes and victims. The right form of the government should have the authority the population will enjoy in terms of the comforts they have. Instead of trying to discover it physically or by aid or tyranny, the MIND can arrive at it easily.
- 760 TCH III) The Israeli Prime Minister Peres told his Palestinian opposite number Abu, Ala'a "The fate of Gaza can be like that of Singapore. From poverty to prosperity in one sustained leap".
- There were no kings in Germany. p. 22, HESP
- In the film "Catherine", the lady-in-waiting suggests to her that she could conceive to another person. Catherine consults her lame friend, the British ambassador. He says the suggestion should have come from the Queen. In a royal palace, even a suggestion must have the sanction of Authority.
- p. 229, TCH I, A station master in Japan committed suicide when a train in which the Emperor was traveling was delayed twenty minutes, having jumped points.
- p. 361 (TCH I) The French officers in WWI had orders to shoot their African soldiers if they were found retreating from the front. It is the authorityof death punishment that made the soldier fight bravely.
- p. 238, Supreme Court Reborn. North Carolina State Legislature enacted a law that offers death punishment to anyone who criticizes the state government, however mild it is. In 1735 the right to criticize the government was established by acquitting an editor for libel.
- p. 191 Winston ChurchillIV. Northcliff, the owner of three dailies, promised Churchill that all his newspapers would do what he wanted. There was NO editorial independence in 1919.
- In a democracyruled by the Parliament and run by the Civil Service, we must remember that ALL decisions are the decisions of the Prime Minister. Any adjustment must be made ONLY by him. The organisationof democracy, be it noted, has the power structure of monarchy.
- C. Subramaniamtook over Tata Steel Company when he was the Industries 1987 Minster as he felt his authoritywas not sufficiently respected. Tata had to have it reversed by the Supreme Court. The person who wields the authority of a post identifies himself with it so much that he can at no time see himself devoid of it, long after his retire must.
Power once held is felt forever
- P. 139, 'An Introduction to Social Anthropology' - Lucy Mair (S.A./L.M) Pre-literate societies do not enact laws - they issue commands.
- P. 33 Vol. IV HESP. When William IVspat out of the window of the state coach, a reproving voice from the crowd said, "George the Fourth would have never done it".
- P. 49 Ibid. "The fact is, people like a certain degree of obstinacy and presumption in a Minister. They abuse him for dictation and arrogance but they like being governed". Robert Peel Prime Minister of England said.
- The desire of being governed is subconscious.
- Abusing for dictation is of the surface.
- Penderel Moon says the policemen stopped saluting him, the Revenue Minister of state, while the Hindu population was uprooted.
XIII. Role of Family, School, Society and Individual.
Society creates the individual and submits to his leading it.
- Privacy in not opening others' letters enables individuality to grow.
- Dr.Thorne--Frank's mother refuses to read Mary's letter.
- Scarbourough's Family--Florence's letter are not opened at Brussels.
- Refuses to receive moneyfrom others.
- Middlemarch- Will's refusal of the banker's ₤500,000.
- Phineas Finndoes not want Madame Max's money or anyone's recommendation.
- George refused Alice's money until she agreed to marry him.
- Burgorefuses Planty's money.
- Mr.Clennam in Little Dorritcould not accept Amy's offer of her wealth.
- 760 TCH III) 'Israeli Prime Minister Peres told his Palestinian opposite number Abu Ala'a, "The fate of Gaza can be like that of Singapore. From poverty to prosperity in one sustained leap".
- Churchill
He called his wife cat and his children kitten. She called him pig. In a letter he wrote his wife, he signed by the figure of a pig.
XII - Stages 1 to 9
Level No 9, Point 1
Man begins his existence as physical existence at 9.
The adult power symbolises this.
Leadership goes by age except in extraordinary cases.
All followers of Gandhiji were his juniors.
Stalin asked Churchill not to boast about his age, as he was only four years his junior.
Until 60, one does not get office in Britain.
Age in matrimony does matter. Physically a younger man cannot be active with an elderly wife.
XIV - Superstition
No. 9
Not to see a strange phenomenon can be true, is a basis of superstition. (Making the unfamiliar familiar)
Today USA is the leader of the world, rather the cultural leader of the world. No one from India wishes to go to UK anymore. Migration from UK to USA is considerable. Just 150 years ago, here is an opinion of the English aristocracy about an American given to us in the words of a character in Trollope's novel Mr. Scarborough's Family on page 428: "An American was to him an ignorant, impudent, foul-mouthed, fraudulent creature. To have any acquaintance with him is a disgrace". Not that people are foolish or ignorant, but when people are responding to a situation they do not know, they fabricate an opinion based on what they know and exercise their imagination. The result will be like the above comment. To be able to see human creativity going on such lines and organising itself into an opinion is one essential characteristic of superstition.
Nehru called the communists traitors, accused them of extra-territorial loyalty. His tirade was a superstition as it is untenable.
- Buddha was accepted by other Asian nations.
- Jesus is followed by the whole world.
- Gandhi has disciples in America.
- Our democracyis born abroad.
- Our freedom struggle itself has no native origin. It is rarely possible NOT to be irrational or superstitious.
- (P.15 TCHI) The Boxersof China who rebelled against the Government believed that foreign bullets could not kill them.
- (P.48. TCHI) Children in Poland who were flogged for refusing to say their prayers in German were supported by their parents. They were sent to prison. A widow with six children received the highest punishment when she was asked in what language Christ spoke and she readily answered Polish.
- Skunks tried to scare away the railway engine when they were introduced.
- The British army refused to use the tankin the beginning.
- Not to walk under a ladder is a superstition in the West. (p. 55, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.)
Other statements
No.10:-- Imitation can be so perfect that it can be detected only by its perfection.
- P.440 - Scarborough's Family.
" He spoke English so well that he could not be detected as a Belgian unless he was detected from its perfection."
- In ‘Pygmalion' the foreign languages expert decided Eliza was a Hungarian princess because she spoke English too perfectly.
No.11:-- Habits die hard.
- The story of Chettinadabout deleting an inauspicious word and its failure in the beginning.
- English gentlemen do not swear. But, from the previous generation the habit lingers. Mr. Prosper swears about a lady to a lady in the presence of his brother-in-law, a rector, which he regrets unspeakably (Refer to P.426 Scarbourough's Family by Trollope).
- The story of the boy who wrote an imposition 500 times to correct his bad grammar -- "he had went". His committing the same error in a letter to his teacher after completing the punishment. Physically learnt errors cannot be corrected by a physical method of imposition. His own mind corrects his habit. Even then, it will surface occasionally, especially while he is in ill health, which means the correction had not touched the subconscious learning.
- Pork and Mammy refused to do field work as they were house niggers. (Gone with the Wind, P.445)
118. Subtle Plane
Subtle plane is a Reality, whoever accepts it or not. As the fragrance of the fruit and flower travel beyond them, as the sound of a man walking is detected by the African Negro at two miles distance, everything announces itself. Telepathy is the only thing examined. What Sheldrake is trying to discover, among other things, is the subtle plane. Those who try to deny its presence can as well deny intelligence and emotions. This is downright superstitious, born out of crass ignorance.
- p.589:- Trollope's novel Mr. Scarborough's Family.
"When a girl really loves her lover, the very atmosphere tells her his whereabouts".
- (P.26 TCHI) Hitlersurvived several attempts on his life - Good or Evil, the man with a mission has a protective cover.
- (P.401 TCH I) As I was drowning, my entire past flitted across my brain - a psychic phenomenon.
130. Unfailing success
Of the various aspects of unfailing success, one -- the capacity to be oblivious of one's natural endowment -- ensures the unfailing success for it.
- Burgowas unaware of his good looks in Trollope's novel ‘Can You Forgive Her'.
- P.592 of Trollope's novel ‘Mr. Scarborough's Family'
‘But in one thing - Harvy and Mountjoy - they were alike - neither of them counted aught on his good looks'.
86. Organisation, Institution
When an organisation becomes an institution, the values are taken over by the population. In doing so, the value oscillates from positive to negative.
- P.600 - Trollop's novel Mr. Scarborough's Family.
" It may be that I am a fool, and that my idea of honesty is a mistake".
The original value is the Law is sacred to the letter. People try to live up to the Spirit of the letter. In the changing situation, honesty is interpreted as the letter of the law and anything, however dishonest, that does not offend the letter of the Law is honesty.
- Money, Business, Organisation are three graded things. For example, a bank is more likely to respond to a business plan than to a financial presentation.
When man respects money, money dominates him and keeps him small. When Man disregards money in favour of life, more money comes to him.
The boom of Indian prosperity around the eighties has this principle behind it.
- In 1913 Russia suffered acute ford shortage while food was in a glut. P.14 Russian Revolution, A very short Introduction. (R.R)
- Henry Mintberg, the Canadian Researcher in management says, "Our modern life is completely bathed in by organisations".
- P.306 Winston Churchill III. At the eleventh hour the soldiers of the navy sailing for Dardanelles discovered they were without a doctor or drugs.
- Alexander'sfather rose to world eminence by an organisational technology. He chose to win by strategy rather than by numbers. Chengis Khantoo had employed an idea like that. In 1920 you see the British Generals relying on the numbers of men. Khan, when he conquered a place, allowed himself to be absorbed into the local culture. That was his strategy of empire building.
- P.100 Vol. IV HESP. The cooperative movement in dairy created in New Zealand external trade far outstripping any other country.
- Organisation of Humanity
Nature has led India to the spiritual quest, an upward movement from Mind. Naturally, Europe has to go in the other direction of studying Matter. That India sought the spiritual quest is natural for the reason that her civilization is the oldest. Sri Aurobindo has said somewhere that the present day star movement study will confine the Vedic period to 18,000 years ago by their reference to stars.
Experience
It is experience that leads to success that is wealth. Those who inherit wealth, inherit it without the experience of having earned it. They lose it to a clever partner or a partner of experience. "If you have not lost money, you will not have learnt" is a piece of wisdom.
- P.601. Trollope's ‘Mr. Scarborough's Family'. The story of an American rich man who had lost his capital to his partner of experience and exclaimed that he had gained experience.
Human Nature
Contrary to common understanding or common sense, events occur, people behave. This is so because common sense is confined to the surface and man, in spite of what he is, loves to believe the very opposite or different.
- Lear's daughters drove him out. This is according to the rule that the beneficiary will hurt.
- Mercedesmarried Fernand. It is a TRUE love but a love of social circumstances. When Fernand was exposed, it never hurt her.
- Lord Krishnabroke all rules of dharma He came to establish. To win for truth in a plane of falsehood, a pinch of falsehood is essential.
- There can be pure selfish affection. It turns against us when circumstances change.
- Meanness and affection coexist. (TG)
- Bhasmaasuran
- Shakti needs to be pulled up when Ishwara wants to fulfil Himself by surrendering to Her.
- Beaten severely, a man adores the tyrant and seeks him as a leader (Kapil Mohan'sexperience)
- P.620. Trollope's novel. Mr. Scarborough's Family.
‘A lover who is anxious to prevail with a lady should always hold up his head - writers know this - and yet the man in love, truly in love, never does hold his head high'.
- The BurmesePrime Minister handed over power to the Military Chief to go into meditation. One year later he returned to power. After some time, the Chief whose experience of power asserted took over.
- P. 452 Winston Churchill IV. The Dublin Police cannot be relied on to suppress the Irish population.
- P.250 Vol III HESP.
While the Duke of Wellington was a young officer, he had an audience with Prime Minister Pitt and noted in his diary. "He imagines a scheme and feels it was done."
Small Significant Events
Some ideas of the above are:
- The small is not really small.
- It is the infinite hidden in it.
- The nature of the small in its own plane is small.
- The small from the higher plane coming indicates the possibility of moving there.
- The small that is missing or resisting at the time of completion reveals the impossibility of moving up.
- Trollope's novel Mr. Scarborough's Family.
Mr. Prosper's easy marriage when settled was wrecked on the rock of two ponies.
The marriage never came off. P.420.
- Elizabeth agreeing to visit Pemberley and the family not being there were the smallest of circumstances that helped complete her marriage.
- Sir Stafford Crippsadvised Lord Mountbattenthat sensitive Nehru, the aristocrat was irked by the ‘ruler' attitudes of Viceroys. Lord Mountbatten's adherence to this advice is a significant factor in the successof 1947. (P.412. NPB-B).
- P.360 NPB-B Sketch Map
- PunjabGovernor getting a sketch map from Boundary Commission led to Gurudaspur going to India.
- Pakistan was soured - Denied Mountbatten passage over Pakistan years later.
- Jinnahand Liaquat trusted in Mountbatten's fairness.
The basic attitude of divide and rule of the British led to partition. It was seen in Attlee's statement of December 6, 1946 that promised Pakistan. All the magnanimity of Britain and Lord Mountbatten could not prevent this basic attitude expressing in a sketch map.
- Erin Brockovich, when she received the award, forgot in her thanksgiving the original give who performed the miracle. It is not forgetfulness but unwillingness.
- In the post First World War period Sundays were tranquil and trains did not run. Shops and theatre were closed in Wales and Scotland (P.25. Twentieth century Britain, A very short Introduction) Mrs. Proudie wants trains not to run on Sundays in vain. It was in the 19th century England.
- Powerful industrial leaders appeared in the Government during the war (P.7 TCB) Ford's President joined US Government in World War II. T.S. Krishnaentered Government of India in World War II.
- (P.347 Gone with the Wind) Negroes are proud to be the bearers of bad news. (Reflection of how they were treated).
- Churchillmemorized his speeches usually (Churchill - A Life, P 164)
- Churchill'sbiography by Gilbert Martin does not mention the date of his death. Instead it says he had a stroke on January 10 and died two weeks later. The actual date of death January 24, 1965 is not there.
- In 1953 Churchillabolished rationing for chocolate and sugar amidst protests that England would run out of sugar. There was a glut of sugar. P.910 Churchill: A Life
- Edenwas pestering, compelling Churchillfor months to resign in 1952. Churchill wished to be there for a full term. Yielding to circumstance, Churchill agreed to resign on April 5, 1955. He called Eden and Butler to the office to announce it to them and by a slip asked R.A. Butler to sit on his right and then corrected himself. On meeting the Queen she asked who he recommended. He said he recommended none and left it to her. (Churchill; A Life page. 939)
- Winston Churchillunveiled his own statue. (P.945 ibid)
- Churchilllost in his American stocks 18,000 Pounds. A friend offered to buy the stocks for their original value to neutralise his loss (From the film Churchill not found in Martin Gilbert's book)
- Rajivhad acquired the reputation of telling everyone he meets what he heard the previous day. It means he is physically impressionable.
- On February 29, 1956 Pakistanofficially became an Islamic Republic.
- On March 2, 1953 when Stalindid not come out of his room till evening 6.30 no one had the courage to go in. The result was he had a hemorrhage and could not be attended in time.
- Serious pronounced conviction is not conviction when it comes to action. The PalestineArab refugees of about a million people received only $ 5 million from Saudi Arabia and nothing from other Arab countries, while the total of $800 million came from industrialised nations.
Jehad is terrorism, not religious fanaticism.
- P.300 HTC III -- A black's longevity is 7 years less than a White. He has half the chance to be a professional and earns about half. (Study if there is any correlation between longevity and prosperity)
- In 1973 Idi Amin, the dictator of Uganda arrived at the meeting of African Heads of State uninvited.
- Nixonduring his last days in a broadcast, instead of saying ‘get rid of this obsolete system' said "obsolete President". He resigned on August 9, 1974.
- In 1978 Burkima Faso (formerly upper Volta) of the military regime voluntarily transferred power to civilian rule. (P. 534 TCH III)
- Seat belts in cars reduced death on the road to a third in a decade in Britain. (P. 606. TCH III)
- Biscuits baked in WW II were edible after fifty years though somewhat dry. They were sent to Somalia as food aid. (P. 751. TCH III)
- Kim II Sung, King of North Korea died. His son succeeded him. But no official announcement was made. (P. 770 TCH III)
- (P 12 TCH III) Chinese women used 5 pound earrings known for their beauty.
- (P 384 FF-TCH I) Prisoners of concentration camps freed and then fed richly died because of the richness of the food.
- Finns were the only people who became silent after getting drunk. (Michael Lewis - The Future Just happened. P.5)
- Robert Clive, the founder of the British Empire, committed suicide is a subtle fact that indicated the British withdrawal in 1947.
- P. 570 Toynbee'Mankind and Mother Earth' -- AJT mentions that in the Origin of Species the subtitle refers to Natural Selection.
- P. 582 ibid. Petrol had been a secret component of the East Roman Empire's deadly weapon "Greek Fire".
- P.178 HESP. Henry V(1420 AD) was the first King to use English in his letters home from the battlefront of France.
- P.90 Winston ChurchillIII "20 naval guns would equal 50,000 men of the Infantry."
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Social Codes
Society is bound by laws, not ethics which is personal and of the mind. The rationale of the social codes is strength, not conscience. In the lives of the gentlemen of aristocracy, we find the behaviour of the individual rising to a pinnacle. Even here, we find the individual conscience NOT elevated to discharge his obligation voluntarily which means
Nowhere among this gentry do we find one person willing to pay voluntarily for the extraordinary services he had received.
- Society is organized by strength, not conscience, not even in their best individuals.
- Out of the 53 stories of Sherlock Holmes NO one came forward to pay him. Still the services he had given were not there in the world then and even now.
- In India the code was Spiritual as evidenced by Manunidhi Cholan and the Cholan who cut off his hand for having knocked at the door of a soldier by mistake.
- Prices are a great market mechanism. Foolish philanthropists trying to sell at a lower price will be self-defeating. P.84 of 'Castle Richmond' of Trollopespeaks of famine in Ireland where low subsidised prices did not reach the poor. The product comes back to the market and the trader benefits.
- In the film on Billy Mitchell when he was court-martialed, the wife of his friend deposed. As she left the court, the entire court was on its feet as if out of respect for her, which is not a courtesy witnessed in other court scenes.
Society has overcome its physicality
The end of World War II ended the rule of the body, i.e. physicality, as a global phenomenon. Its local versions are seen in 26 countries and as terrorism. As the end of a phenomenon will not be abrupt, so its appearance too will not be sudden.
- Any phenomenon gradually builds up from the individual to the collective and disappears in the reverse.
- P.1. Trollope's novel ‘The Bertrams'.
"This is undoubtedly the age of humanity, as far, at least as England is concerned. A man who is beating his wife is shocking to us". Here there is a description of a colonel, operation under chloroform, schools, and infliction of bodily pain.
- To be plump is to belong to the Royalty - a belief that arose from poverty consciousness.
- P. 273 HESP. The initial capital of the East India Companywas ₤72,000 while the entire revenue of the British governmentwas ₤3,00,000 just 25 % (Here we see the physical work raised to the vital moneyenables them to found an empire that lasted three centuries. The ₤72,000 did what a far greater labour physically could not have done.
- In 1832 an Eton Headmaster birched 80 boys in one day. P.46 Winston Churchill Vol. II
- H.G. Wellsreferring to the exile of Trotsky says it was mild compared with the savagery of the French Revolution. How does USSR fare then?
Transition
Change from one type of productive organisation, social living or cultural existence to another is Transition. In that sense, a transition is going on all the time everywhere. But we limit the use of the word to transition from backwardness to prosperity) which will cover Asia, Africa and South America.
- General Transition is advance in civilisation.
- In the 20th century or even from the 17th or 18th centuries, particularly in the post war world backward nations had a great opportunity to become industrialized. This compelled them to induce a process of social development artificially. Thus the phenomenon of Transition came into being.
- USSR, East European countries face this issue acutely.
- Considering Transition confined to ORGANISATIONS which means creating the organisational infrastructure needed for the future welfare, the THEORY offers us the solutions.
- All these nations are outmoded in national and industrial organisations needed for the level of prosperity expected.
- The FACT is there are two organisational levels -- 1) the Present and 2) the Future. It is easily possible to construct or visualize the intermediate ranges and the process of transition at every stage. There is another process of escaping several intermediate ranges.
- Once this is created, the question is how to implement it.
- The Theory gives us the knowledge of links, the strategies required by them and tells us where it can be pushed through and where it cannot.
- Apart from the theory, the experience of 40 or 50 countries is there.
- Suppose some of these nations attain to the level of prosperity desired in fifty years, one can see the changes they passed through. Those stages, they will then know, could have been crossed in five years. The Theory gives that knowledge now.
Apparently Inverse Mechanisms
It is common knowledge that a long cherished project comes to fruition when we forget it.
- ‘Mr.Clennam, in Dickens' Little Dorritwho gave up Amy finds she had sent undying love for him.
- Silent will belongs to this category.
- To remove your real support voluntarily is the same phenomenon in the reverse. Napoleon divorcing Josephine, Congressdisregarding Sri Aurobindo's advice are examples.
- Napoleonordered the shooting of Charles, Josephine's paramour. She vehemently protested and Charles was released. One who is below gets his demand by a strong plea. One who is above does it by silent will. The 4 variations are of significance.
- Good comes out of evil P.346 'Castle Richmond' - Trollopesays thinking minds know good comes out of evil.
- The black plagueby wiping off one third of the population removed the serfs and the feudal system. The peasant was thus liberated.
- Ramsay Macdonald said the WWIachieved more than the campaigns of Trade Unions by raising the wages, productivity, health services, housing, etc. (P.8 A Short Introduction to 20th century Great Britain). In the same is a remark that war that killed men, raised the living conditions in the home country.
- (Page 11. Twentieth Century Britain TCB)
Lloyd George who triumphed in war as Prime Minister found his party was crushed in election six years later even as Churchill was defeated in 1945.
- 'Safety first' of Baldwinwas seen even in the 1926 General Strike in the absence of violence against blacklegs and was a fortress in Great Britain. It is the same police that destroyed the safety of the world by refusing to see Hitler's rise. (P.28 TCB)
- p. 308, Paul Johnson, Birth of the Modern World: Technology undermined serfdom in Russia while it strengthened slavery in the USA. The determinant is human choice.
The Value of Promise
- Churchillvaluing his word to Lord Mountbatten.
- 10 examples from Novels.
- In the film "The Ideal Husband", the word is honouritself. Even in a man who already took a bribe, the longing for Truth revives and becomes alive. (Full note is in typed form with comments.)
- (P 910 TCH III) In 1907 in an international conference of 44 nations an idea to banish aerial bombardment was accepted by all except Germany. Then it was decided to attack with bombs only military installations. It is all precarious but largely followed for 100 years. A promisehas its value.
- P. 253 Winston ChurchillIV
Churchill alone wanted to crush the USSR Communists. Labour in UK fully supported USSR. Cabinet and Lloyd George were not for it out of expediency and not policy. Lloyd George had the wisdom to see crushing Lenin would lead to the success of Lenin in Russia and UK would go communist. Churchill, like a true gentleman acted in the Paris conference as he owed to the cabinet, not as he personally believed. It is magnificent to see that VALUE of promise.
- p. 175 HESP I. That England was held for Richardin his long absence (for crusade) against all these powerful and subtle forces is a proof of the loyalties of the feudal age.
A small man's great work never spreads
- Glenn Doman.
Organisation
- The Black Plague that killed 30% of the population was the seed of democracy. Labour became short. Serfdom was abolished and wage earning and peasant farming came into existence ultimately making way for democracy.
- Page 171 "The History and Power of Writing"
Writing is an organisation that enabled taxing. Evasion is enabled by the power of writing. The tax burden was shifted to the poor. The rich become richer with every new power that enters the society.
- Page. 33 Winston ChurchillVol IV
"More than 50 departments were competing with each other for labour and material without reference to the Chief, the Director General of Munitions".
- H.G. Wells.
The British believed that Science and Industry should be kept apart. To mix them was vulgar. The Germans combined them with great advantage.
Co-existence of Opposite Traits
- When Gandhiji was fasting, Churchillof great courage and world fame, sent a telegram to Wavell asking why Gandhi had not yet died. Churchill lost his job.
- 'Computerising common sense' project was joined by Doughent, The field's high priesthood was stopped by an absence of common sense.
- Wellington was sad when Napoleon died.
- Computer scientists are boyish.
- Siddharthain 'Siddhartha" of Hermann Hesse (P. 74-75P tells Kamala that she, like him, can retire inside and that was why she was able to love.
- Herman Hesse's Siddhartha P.144
"In every truth the opposite is equally true"
- (P. 90 T.C.B.) The American commentator Bernard Nossiterhad even claimed in the late seventies that the apparent economic rundown and unemployment in Britain marked something more positive - a deliberately creative use of leisure in which the British middle and skilled working class rebelled against the norms of ever increasing mass production and opted for greater freedom from the drudgery of automated labour.
- Churchillwho was a born warrior whose hands always itched for the war front advocated negotiations all his life.
- p. 614 - Second World War (abridged) Churchill. Based on one thousand years of Arab experience, the British military forty years ago adopted thick underclothing, a helmet to protect from the sun. Now white soldiers in tropical Egypt go about naked. There are no sunstrokes. How does the doctor explain this phenomenon?
- Intellectuals - Paul Johnson last page: The falsehood, egoism, irrationality, deceit, selfishness the great intellectuals- Russell, Tolstoy, Marx, Jean Paul Sartre- exhibited.
- pp. 318 ibid. Intellectuals have sometimes a strange fascination for violence - Tolstoy, Russell, Sartre. This is so in spite of their being pacifists.
Do Right for the Wrong Reason
- As the Congressopposed the war effort and hindered it, Wavell who was the then Commander in Chief came to dislike it and inclined towards the Muslim League. This is doing wrong for the right reason.
- Rajajisupported the war effort, as he mentally arrived at the right decision, not spiritually. As he was inwardly opposed to Truth, he was led to the conclusion by his not wanting to resign from the ministry. This is doing the right for wrong reason.
- Do the wrong thing for the wrong reason.
In US sterilisation of the mentally feeble was carried out in several thousand cases with the approval of the Supreme Court. This is no different from Hitler killing the Jews en mass. The character is the same, scale differs.
The Touch of Reality
- All talk, especially idealist talk will evaporate the moment the basic requirements are to be procured. When the sensitivities are touched, anyone will drop the whole idea.
- Patel, Nehruand C.R.listened to Gandhijion non-cooperation, individual satyagraha, jail going, Quit India, etc. At the final negotiations in 1947, NOT ONE of the working committee was willing to listen to Gandhiji.
- p. 489: The Second World War - Churchill - President Rooseveltdid not reply to Churchill's congratulatory telegram on his re-election in 1940. The reality is USA is supplying Britain ammunitions. USA is the giver and UK the receiver.
- pg 221-2, Paul Johnson, Modern Times: In about a page Coolidgedescribes how national prosperity naturally develops through free market in a political democracy, in spite of the crude adverse powers of the underworld. He touches upon how it can be organised.
Sensitivity
- Naamagiri, Rajaji's daughter, while in Rashtrapathi Bhavan would wash her hand when Westerners kissed it.
- Brown called Victoria‘woman' publicly.
- Sore throat:When the personality is under stress for physical people, the first thing affected is the voice and throat.
- P. 707 Winston Churchill, III
Churchill was to go to a function where his portrait was to be unveiled. He said he might make a speech there. The Westerner does not have the sensitivity of the Indians in matters of personal modesty. P. 708. The unveiling was then - 1916 - abandoned but Churchill himself unveiled his portrait in 1941 when he was Prime Minister.
- Bhuvanawhen threatened with the loss of her job here asserted, (Tamil....................................................................... The comforts and status of being a domestic servant here, have not penetrated her personality of an independent soul.
Silly Errors of Great Men
During periods of transition, especially on the verge of it, the wisest of men, not being able to see the tide of transition and not willing to accept it, commit the grossest errors that spell their own doom. C.R. has exhibited this trait all along and made it strong in the New Education Scheme. When the physical part of a previous generation is endowed with power or is given to feel that they have the power, it will exhibit an inability to give it up voluntarily.
- Maadu virppavan panam petra pin maatai thane tharuvathilai.
- In "Nina Balakta" of Trollopethe Jewish lover shows this inability to give up examining the cupboard of the beloved.
- Gandhiji could not attend Independence Day celebration.
- Thappu sayya santharpam vandaal , thane maruppathilai.
- Balaraman could not stop visiting me on his own.Parts of Nature - mind or body - are not under their control. Self-discipline there is given to the psychic, not to the part.
- P. 87. Winston Churchill, Vol III Churchill tactlessly suggested to the King to name a ship after Cromwell.
- P. 90 Ibid. -- Prime Minister Asquithregularly wrote Cabinet secrets in his love letters to actress Viola or Venetia and asked her not to speak it out.
- P. 557 Winston Churchill III Kitchener, who was the Secretary of State for war did not read the telegrams and others were not shown them. The telegram that said the Germans had crossed the Danube 20 hours before was unknown to Kitchener.
- When Indiraentertained Nixon at her own house, she was bored by his stupid behaviour and before twenty minutes were over she asked the officer in charge in Hindi how long it was to last. Though spoken in Hindi the tone revealed her mind which later soured the American opinion against Indira.
- p. 266, Intellectuals, Paul Johnson. Edmund Wilson, a celebrity, had not filed his income tax returns from 1946 to 1955 in USA, a crime there for which he could be jailed.
- p. 321, Ibid. Many intellectualshave a genius for self-publicity.
Stages 1 to 9
1 To be able to see all sides of any issue --Rajaji.
At each point one can be honest or not.
He compelled Hindi in 1937. In 1960 opposed Hindi.
5 Churchill was pure courage. He belongs to No.5 when the occasion calls for it.
When in leisure, his physical energy rises craving for an expression and lays
bricks which is his hobby. There he is in No.7.
3 Napoleon was pure courage which will assign him to No.5. He exceled his courage in his ability for organisation where his resourcefulness found effective play. In his leisure he wrote 3 love letters a day to Josephine. There he is assigned to affection that finds linguistic expression of mental sentiment. It is No.2.
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Explanation of the Past does not lead to Prophesying the Future
Explanation of the past is not easy. Where facts are concerned, a certain uncertain explanation can be given. History has done it at one level, apparently satisfactory. As life exists at many levels, one cannot understand the present unless he knows all the levels. The success of the US has been explained in physical terms. The fall of the empires has been explained from the point of view of supply. Even those who have done this fairly successfully fail miserably (refer False Predictions).
C.R. who was known to be wise, miserably failed when he described India as a puppet, in spite of his many other right predictions will dissolve in 25 years). This is so because he knew the Congress but he did not know the force behind Indira.
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Decision-Making
- An act is a field of energy with a centre of will.
- Splitting the field into outer and inner, the outer is made up of material forces and the inner by mental forces.
- The centre lies either outside or inside. The will is at the centre.
- The outer will determines; the inner decides.
- The outer as well as the inner divides into physical, vital, mental.
- The higher one goes, the direction is more powerful. In the descent the lower one comes down, the effective determinism is more powerful.
- An act is an equilibrium of these forces, initiated and determined by the central will, shaped by the other forces in the periphery.
- He who is determined by the outer forces is incapable of decision.
- The physical can decide as well as the vital like the mental.
- The expression ‘decision-making' is confined to a mental process.
- As the outer determines against the decision of the inner, the lower--physical, vital--determines while the mental decides.
- Decision-makingis best studied if it is separated from the outer or lower forces that determine. That makes for theoretical clarity.
- The present connotation of decision-making is that decision that results in determining the result. Study aims at clarity while combining these at the beginning organises confusion. But, as scholars are understood this way, we can take decision-making in this sense.
- When Duke Wellington was a young officer in India, he met Willam Pitt the Prime Minister and said, "He conceives of a project and considers it done". P. 481 HESP. Purely mental characters do not act, their thought is action.
- Vol III Winston Churchill When he was in the trenches in 1916, he changed his decision to return several times and NOTHING moved. As soon as he DECIDED, things moved, conscription was conceded which he had been asking for long and in one year the Ministry fell.
- P. 15 Vol. III Winston Churchill Churchill told Bonar Law in the House of Commons that rhetoric of the public platform would not do for the House, an expression of self-realisation. Soon the PM took him into confidence and sent him to France.
Joint Family
- P. 35-36 in Vijayalaxmi Pandit's memoirs:
- All old people stayed at home happy.
- Any relative could visit and stay.
- Long journeys were undertaken to attend weddings.
- Everyone spoke English.
- Old people kept the equilibrium between husband and wife.
- Tyranny of mother in-law is not the whole truth.
- Young parasites were there too.
- Education and jobs for men and husbands for girls were found.
- Cf. old age homes in the West, which were a psychological horror.
- Joint familyis the physical base of the emotional life of the collective.
Life of Spirit or thought needs the solitude of celibacy.
Thought and science developed in the West because of individuality. Mysticism and religion belong to India an Asia where the thought is the thought of emotions - ethics - which is the spiritual thinking.
- Saravanan, Nandan's nephew, after living in the US for two years, recalled his childhood growing up in a joint family with many cousins, aunts and uncles. He said the most wonderful memory of his childhood was waking up in the morning and feeling all the relatives sleeping around him in the huge hall where around 15 people slept, and experiencing a glow of warmth and belonging.
Fair-mindedness
- Indians were allowed for all posts from 1833 according to the charter. P.6. History of Congress.The Conqueror is a tyrant, but we see this fairness in him.
- Fair-mindedness, as everything else can arise from above or below. Feeding the poor during famine is to prevent riots, not out of human sympathy.
- After the London fire of 1666, when 85 % of the city was burnt down, a real estate builder offered to rebuild any house destroyed if it had been built by him.
- There is a reason Hollandhas given birth to the concept of World Army, because it is their tradition to have as many opinions as there are people. Still, to work together they have to have good will. Government, industry and labour cooperating made the lowest percentage of unemployment. The insistence on independent individual opinion is the basis of good will in collective work.
Efficiency
- The charter for the Princely States to merge with India was required urgently, V.P.Menon offered to do it in two weeks. Mountbatten wanted it that evening and got it.
From First Principles
- Reason is to know why and how from the first principles.
- Superstition and indoctrination disregard analysis.
- "Working class is the vanguard of the society" is not an elementary definition, it is an assumption. Neither the working class nor the aristocracy is the vanguard of the society. Can the military be so? At different periods different classes play the role of vanguard. This wrong assumption seventy years later led to the collapse of USSR. The Third International wanted the working class to be the vanguard of the society.
- To know the vanguard of each society and define vanguard itself will be intellectually rewarding.
Culture --Lack of culture
- " What are you going to do? It is better your father died, with B.P. and a weak heart, is it not good he died?"
- Nehrusaid that any Indian going abroad should not first go to USA but last, as it is devoid of manners and culture.
- In the film on C.S.Lewis his co-professor tells the American lady that men have intellect and women have souls. She asks if he was merely offensive or simply stupid.
- Give me the HMP factory.
- "Are you giving your car to Seyril for prestige?"
- Two announcers on US radio - Educational programme.
1. When the US announcer was heartily appreciated, he said that he enjoyed the ideas he speaks of as he believed in them.
2. When The Tamil announcer was told by a caller about the innumerable errors in Tamil history, he answered he did not know them at all, but got them from others whose errors they were. The value of Truth in the American and the utter irresponsibility of the Tamilian stand out in utter contrast.
- When Annie Besant visited Narayana Guru to see the child J. Krishnamurthy, they washed the house to remove thittu. The Kuravas of Malabar wash the walls of their house with cow dung if a Brahmin enters the house. The Brahmin's mind is as cultured as the mind of Kuravas.
- In 1920 when a Tahsildar was paid Rs. 60/- (60 Pounds a year) horses in Mesopotamia were fed at a cost of 70 Pounds a year. That is the difference between man in a poor country and a horse in the rich country. They were English horses in the English Army. P. 549 Vol IV Winston Churchill.
- An American who bought a hat from an English shop in London said to them, "Thank you very much. What I would have accomplished in ten minutes in the US, you have enjoyably entertained me in one hour and forty minutes." The acts of Americans are unadorned by cultural trappings.
- p. 936, Bande Mataram, II: Writing in 1907 about the Tinnelvelly shooting, Sri Aurobindo says at such a pitch of excitement, the European mob would not have shown the restraint of the Indian masses. Sri Aurobindo brings out here the sedate restraint of innate spirituality which the European has not.
Revival of the Past
Vanishing Discipline reviving
- In the 1960's strikes were the rule and disrespect had reached the limits of cruelty in colleges and factories. In 2000, students in engineering colleges are put on the bench, beaten and denied TV in the hostel. Political leaders are making pranams to Jayalalitha.
- Erin Brockovichwho made a polluting company pay $ 320 million to clients and earned $2 million out of it, bought a house in Los Angeles for $ 750,000 and found it infested with toxic moss. Spending $ 700,000 she removed the moss. (Subtle infection).
- P. 588 Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth.The future cannot be predicted by extrapolating from the past.
- The public schools of England meant for aristocratic children were horrible places. In the 20th century the concentration camp continued that tradition.
Form and content
- Vijayalakshmi Pandit developed a complex about the lack of formal education.
p. 67. - Her Memoirs Her husband deprecated her self-pitying.
Finally Gandhiji cured it. "It took a national revolution to start a revolution in my mind".
- P. 33, 34 Winston Churchill Vol IV
Newly appointed Ministers were obliged to seek re-election.
- P XXVII Winston Churchill Vol II
Northcliffe who owned The Times and founded several other newspapers was self-educated.
- Calculate the money value in different periods by how many acres of produce or how many man-hours are required to build one institution like a college.
Literature
- Nothing will happen to a person without its being in him.
- Mercedesbetrayed Dantes. She was unaware of any betrayal as Fernand was fully and happily acceptable to her. She asked Edmond why it mattered to him if Fernand betrayed the Pasha. This is gross and bitter. After 14 years of love and training Dantes disbelieved Faria. She was unable to see Fernand was loathsome, as Edmund was unable to see the truth of Faria's love or wealth.
- Shakespeare is full of Life Responses, especially Merchant of Venice and Winter's Tale.
- We cannot be fully right. When someone hurts us there will be a small part in us of the same. Assuming it is not there, the man who hurt you will come back, apologise, appreciate you for his suffering, as Darcy did to Elizabeth.
Computer as an Instrument of Development
Feb 21,02.
The newest of technologies is computer which is invading every walk of life and offering Indian youth a career opening. This is common knowledge. Rarely can one soul on earth or in India conceive of that.
Computer is the eleventh Avatar which can do and is doing in a tiny trickle what the million temples in India and the thousand gods we worship can do or ever have done.
There is no known God or godhead man worships that can make India equal USA in prosperity in the next fifty years, but computer can do it in half the time. If those for whom the infinite benefit is in ever-increasing store awaken to this reality and are eager to avail of it, that miracle can come to pass in FIVE years of 365 days each.
We know computer is spreading fast. If a study is undertaken to enlist all the areas computer can enter and the extent to which it is really useful and a count is taken of its actual use, I am sure it would be less than half in the most advanced nation. Maybe it is only 10%.
This is not true of computer only. This has been our long tradition in receiving anything new. Jesus and Socrates, car and phone, xerox and email have originally received this treatment.
For any new revolution, any educational scheme invented at any time in the past, the greatest of opposition came from the parents and the governments. The Indian farmer opposed fertilizer tooth and nail at the time of its introduction.
Man resists change. More so, he resists change for the better. It is an age-old story but it will stand one more repetition here. Let us embrace the freedom in our minds to contemplate flights of fancy along some new lines of thought.
- What are areas in India where computer software programmes can be beneficially used at once, as these programmes are already in the world market.
- Assuming that it has been done, it will do well for the planners to calculate the GDP per capita at the end of that project.
- Suppose a school flush with funds decides to introduce ALL the software educational programmes available, where will their pupils be at the end of 2 or 3 years? Every child will be one class or two years ahead. No child in any class will secure less than 80% in any subject.
- Let the community of computer companies gather and evaluate the existence of the market for their software and hardware if all the present potentialities are fully developed. What happened in the past 15 years will occur in the next twelve months.
In a country like India, people have come to look to the government, and look up to the government for any progress. It is an unhappy state of affairs, though very desirable and very necessary. Before the war, the idea that one could expect help from another was unknown. That the government will offer any help for anyone to develop was inconceivable, not only in India but all over the world. Now the whole public mentality is one of expectation.
No progress can ever come to one who expects external help. A sculptor from Virudhunagar was making Gandhi statues. In his younger days he knew Kamaraj. When Kamaraj was the Chief Minister, he approached him to instruct all the municipalities to buy a Gandhi statue from him. Kamaraj could not bring himself to believe that such a request could be made to him. He answered, "It is your job, you must fend for yourself". There was a time when each man took care of himself. All progress in the world is there because each man progresses on his own.
The scope of such progress in India is enormous. One component of that progress is the skill needed for such progress. That skill is known to be the vocational skill. In India there are available about fifty such softwares for fresh entrants in the labour market. In USA it may be ten times more. Suppose someone who has a computer and a self-teaching programme for carpentry invites the son of a carpenter to learn from the computer, and succeeds in it, it will be news among the community of carpenters. This individual has all the possibility of becoming a success especially when the boy trained on his computer is found to possess the skill. All the training a good carpenter may need which as an apprentice he may learn in a few years, will be learnt on the computer in 50 to 100 hours. Here, one who is already a carpenter-apprentice will suit our purpose.
The learning programme on the computer incorporates in itself several special features.
- It eliminates the social stigma of failure before another person or persons who look on.
- Skills can be learnt in a work place only on those occasions when such repair work is brought there. The computer eliminates this. Hence time is abridged from years to days.
- The apprentice has to learn on his own. Usually masters won't be interested to teach. Apprentices are errand boys for the Master. The computer teaches all facets of the skill without demeaning the apprentice.
- He can come back to the computer anytime to review, re-learn, check, correct, without invoking the wrath of the Master.
- One who acquires such skill can become a teacher of that skill on the computer to another, thus opening another avenue for earning.
Every year 12 million youths are entering the labour market. Each one of them is an eligible candidate for one skill or another. Imagine the potential for serving the nation. Commercially it is a vast opportunity for the software companies. The software companies, once they sense the reality of the market, can
- Import such software for local use.
- Create new software suited to Indian conditions.
The greater market here is those who are already employed. Their number is legion, especially those new entrants who struggle to acquire the skill. It will be commercially resourceful for the software companies to look at the few hundred software programmes catering to all these skills now existing in USA and modify them to our conditions in the local language.
Another service these companies can render is in the field of education. For all the subjects of the curriculum for those in schools and colleges and dropouts, software programmes can be made. Beyond this lies adult education.
One market in India which has only recently been recognized is for spoken English. It is well these companies recognize that there is not one person in India who does not highly value speaking English fluently. One lady of 60 exhibited such an enthusiasm that she did not leave the computer for hours till she exhausted the programmes on her CD. It is not a stray event. It is the symptom that planners and software companies may well pay attention to.
What computer is doing now, every new invention did earlier. Most notable among them are the engine, internal combustion engine, the motor, electricity, telegraph, phone, car, advent of plastics, petrol, coal, airplane, railway, etc.
When a new technology emerges every existing ones try to avail of it--integrate with it. Every existing organisation integrates with it. We see that phenomenon in plastics now. That does not stop till the whole society is covered. The period required is being abridged with the passage of time. Computer is doing it faster still.
Such full coverage, as education, at its best leaves an enormous scope uncovered. In a backward country like ours, this is an opportunity for planners and commercial people. Consider the following experiment.
Choose a village and enter there as angels of computer technology. Open computer classes through which vocational skills, agriculture, modern methods, education for children in the schools and dropouts, English speaking for youth are taught with a view to covering all eligible population for any particular course.
- Every aspirant for a job will get one.
- Every acre there will produce more grain.
- Every boy and girl will do far better than their present performance in the school.
- All school going children will speak English.
- Life in the village will be energized and people will have greater self-confidence.
This can be done by a computer company or a group of companies or by the government or a voluntary organisation.
- The planners will readily discover the enormous scope of development of rural life through computer.
- The computer companies will be able to evaluate the future market potential for them in India.
In fact, it will be desirable to choose two places 1) a village and 2) a locality in town so that the market we are trying to create will cover representative areas. The above will reveal the real potential and market scope on the basis of which one can decide the course of action.
The above examples are confined to walks of life we are familiar with. The wider market lies outside this structured life. Just now it will be of theoretical interest. Once this movement begins, it will not be difficult to see that there is no walk of life as we know or as we can imagine which will not acquire a substantial help from computers.
Assuming some agency or agencies are doing this, it will be more than clear to them that there is an ever growing market for their own companies to benefit by. What is of greater value, or the greatest value is this tiny move will directly or indirectly serve to awaken the slumbering nation to self-reliance and a hope that there is a bright future beckoning them.
(P. 321 T.C.H. III) In 1964 a chemical calculation that took 3 months was done on a computer in ten minutes - factor of acceleration 128 000.
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Instantaneous Miraculousness
- The Origin of Species was sold out on the day of its publication.
- Depositors returned the deposits to the bank on FDR's appeal.
- Tom Peters sold six million copies of his books.
- Mahesh Yogi's appeal was similarly received.
- Gandhi's satyagraha and Churchill's appeal to RAF men had instantaneous appeal.
- On the day the encyclopedia was put on the Internet, over a million people visited that site.
- 'Gone with the Wind' sold 176,000 copies in the first three days of its publication.
Capacity for Blatant Falsehood
- Lenin said that people when they differ can argue on the validity of a geometrical theorem.
- Sir C.P. said in public that Nehru did not represent the mass feeling. (Autobiography of Nehru P.576)
- A DMK student leader said in 1945 that the few followers of Mahatma Gandhijidiffer from his leader.
- Venkataraman told me in 1964 that with respect to the medical shop there was universal support to him. I was the only exception.
- Not one of the people who maligned me at Cuddalore mentioned my work in Ramapuram.
- Eisenhowerassured Nehruin 1954 that arms supply to Pakistanwas in no way directed against India.
- P. 119 (VSI) History.
Attempts are made by historians to say that the systematic killing of 6 million people in Germany never occurred.
- P. 660 IV Winston Churchill. Sydenham who fully supported the Jewish homeland in 1917, bitterly attacked the same in 1922 when the tide turned without the merest apology. This is a classical example of being on the opposite sides. He was one of three such MPs.
- The Iraqi foreign Minister during the American attack of Iraq in March 2003, addressing a conference in Jordan exclaimed that the Arab brothers of Kuwait had stabbed them in the back!
- p. 243. "Intellectuals' by Paul Johnson Descartes' dictum: There is nothing absurd which was affirmed by one philosopher or another.
- Saint Simon's disciples went to the Suez to dig the canal where twelve of them died of the plague. They later turned over all the documents to Ferdinand de Lesseps whose official account did not even mention the name of Saint Simon (p. 214, Saint Simons biography The French Faust)
Computerising Common sense
- If a tube is open ended and is filled with materials, carry it with the open end up.
Opposite People speak the same thing
- When CR asked people to pray for rains, the CPI and Nagaraja Sharma, Professor of Philosophy ridiculed the idea for opposite reasons.
Gratitude - Ingratitude
- "Swept from the Sea" - Yanko dances with the wife without thanking the lady who gifted the cottage and lands.
Help offends - Refusal to accept help
- In Somerset Maugham's novel "Up at the Villa" Mrs. Panton gives a hundred liras to the bad poor violinist who ends up in her house dead, committing suicide.
- Self-respect is in direct proportion to the prosperity of an individual or a nation. (P. 21 and 22 of 'Gone with the Wind') The small farmers in the Civil War who had no horses or mules of their own resented the charity of the rich. So a plan to pool all the available horses was evolved so that each could receive one from the pool inoffensively. These were men who had not earned $5 a year.
- (P. 165 TCH I) Count Potocki, the Governor of Galicia and a Pole was murdered by a Ruthenian student Siczynski who accused the Court of oppressing the Ruthenians. The court had been making a special effort to establish good relations with Ruthenians.
- Scarlett'sfeeding the convicts in 'Gone with the Wind' directly leads to her being attacked.
- Kuwaithas gone anti-American now in 2002.
- P. 103 (VSI) Politics. During a famine, a rich Roman fed the poor. Other Romans executed him.
- Churchillsaved England about £60 million by his Turkish policy. There was no appreciation anywhere of it.
- p. 491 Second World War II Churchill
It was no idealism that actuated the USA to supply arms to the Allies. It was 'cash and carry'. There was no aid to speak of. Payment was militarily insisted upon. On one occasion, Roosevelt offered to send a warship to collect his dues. (This point is in this notebook elsewhere)
- p. 5, How Wars are Won, Bevin Alexander The US started ‘nation building' in Somaliapouring food and money in. The clansmen ambushed 18 American soldiers, killed them and dragged their bodies on the road.
Common Sense
- A man who goes to the ice cream store every night found only when vanilla was bought the car wouldn't start. The engineer from the company found out it was the time needed for the engine to cool down (original paper is in the final).
- ARD asking Garry whether his driver was a local man instead of giving the route to his house, is eminently a stroke of common sense.
- Rajaji'sabolition of ration in 1952.
- (p.3. T.C.B) Voluntary recruitment met the demands of the army more than necessary. It was better than conscription.
- (P.31 Weaving the Web by Tim) "As for the application, my gut told me I had to pursue a larger vision." People wedded to science speak of gut feeling which is true in this case, while they must be speaking of rationality.
Greed for Gift
- The public buses in Hollandtried to gift rides free and found it would cost only 15 dollars per head a year as tax. In the experiment, it was found that traffic rose eight times.
Honour
- P. 275 "Castle Richmond" by Trollope
Owen to whom the title and property was legally due, on knowing it from Mr. Mollett, kicked him down the stairway and denied to the lawyer his own right that would disgrace his own sense of honour.
- In 1901 the defeat of the British Army in the Boer War battle was euphemistically informed home in a six word telegram "No panic, and all did best" (P.53 TCH I)
- p. 645, The Second World War (abridged - Churchill: When Churchill was running after Roosevelt and Stalin and was gladly meeting their seconds, DeGaullewho was in hiding refused to come to meet Roosevelt and Churchill. Perhaps it is a measure of French sense of dignity while their countrymen surrendered to Hitler.
Give and Take
- The rule that there is no giving without taking has no exceptions.
- Only when one rises above mind to Spirit it reverses.
P. 350 'Castle Richmond' of Trollope has the extraordinary behaviour of Owen who, insisting on justice, refuses to enjoy his legal rights to the title and property but asks for Clara as a bargain. This is a case of giving rights, money, property, status in exchange of justice to love. Whether there is a higher instance in life or literature is worth finding out.
Mind over Matter
- Honour is the spiritual value of the physical as well as vital. What is honourin the physical is knowledge in the mind. When the Mind understands, the body seeks no honour, as Albert, having heard from Mercedes the family secret, had no further desire to duel.
------
The Other Man's Point of View
- Attendance in Sir Isaac Newton'sclasses in the college became thin and finally no one ever came. Day after day he lectured to the four walls. Newton, obviously, could not plan his lecture from the point of viewof the students. He did so from the point of view of the subject perhaps!
Human Personality
- Natural Goodness or Beauty has an overmastering power over others ' "Ralph, the Heir" - Trollope. The girl who comes from Argentina is like that.
- Brown, the horse groom, called Queen Victoria ‘woman' in public. The inherent superiority of man emerges when the relationship is intimate.
- Thomas Babbington McCauleywas a great talker. His father was grave and silent - an example of inversion in the child. p. 325, Paul Johnson, Birth of the Modern.
Napoleon
- England, Germany and Russia were given the duty of winding up the consequences of Napoleon's rule. All of them opposed socialism. USAtook it up. Socialism of Marx is more fully accepted by USA. Sri Aurobindo said that that nation which took the thread of Napoleon in the early decades of the 20th century will lead the world. (Vol. 17. C.E)
- P 494 HESP: Napoleon played cards at Elba and cheated his mother at cards, as was his custom.
- Bonaparte and Wellington were born in the same year 1769.
Position of Women
- "It was a man's world. She accepted it as such. Men owned property and the womenmanaged it. The man took the credit for management and the women praised their cleverness. The man roared like a bull when there was a splinter in his finger, the women muffled the moans of childbirth, but she disturbed him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put them to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving." 'She did not expect life to be easy, and it was not happy, it was woman's lot.' p.61 Gone with the Wind.
- Mr. Brown called Victoria 'woman' in public.
- p. 292 Paul John, Birth of the Modern: Unmarried women and widows capable of childbearing were compelled to find partners so that the birthrate might be raised in Russia.
Hospitality
- In fertile tracts where food was in plenty, men were hospitable and longed for company that lasted for months and years.
- Hospitality arises out of plenty and gregarious nature.
"Southerners visited their friends for weeks on end, often for months, even for years. The houses were abundant with food and they longed for company and enjoyed their patronage". P. 152 "Gone with the Wind".
Churchill
- P. 93 'Churchill: A Life'. "Death in action was only a sporting element in a splendid game."
- He was a totally neglected child, more so by his mother who was an American.
- He became a bully because of his excess energy unabsorbed into emotion.
- His ideas are integral in that when implemented will yield full results. He was a genius of action, endowed with infinite resourcefulness.
- Was unable to exercise self-restraint, would run the government from one ministry. He was a part that was greater than the Whole.
- His energies were excessive. Morality, idealism were not part of him.
- Totally defeated when he went against the Russian Revolution and Indian freedom.
- All his ideas about India were right from his point of view, but life was wider than his conceptions.
- Had no liberal education.
- Was immune to death by absorbing the energies of security from others to whom death moved.
- Had Nil relationship with his wife or children.
- His genius was personal, expressed in action and resourcefulness, not impersonal. It never expressed in pure ideas.
- Never had the cultural, spiritual maturity to wait for life coming to him. He was impatient in the extreme, more than pushy, pushing everyone and everything around him.
- Churchill had no vision of social evolution. He was not a democrat by conviction, was of service to international democracy as it was an excellent field for the expression of his personality. In spirit he was anti-democratic and autocratic, as he chose to decide others' need of democracy.
- His strength lay in his efficiency, not in his rightness. If anything, he was self-righteous i.e. selfishly right.
- He was always humourous. If lost, it quickly returned.
- He was fat, fell sick often, had no exercise, ate uncontrollably, drank without limit, had a mild heart attack that would need 6 weeks bed rest, worked till late at night and lived upto 91 years. As in the cases of Rajajiand Periyar, the case of Churchillis the spirit overcoming all imbalances.
- His wife speaks of his chronic unpunctuality.
- His oft quoted statement that he had not become the Kings' First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the Empire became true in the next few years.
- Churchill pleaded in vain for summits with US and USSR at a time he was weak. When he was Prime Minister in 1940, had he exercised his strength to grant freedom to the colonies, now, in spite of military weakness, he would have moved the world.
- Churchill during his 2nd term was pitilessly pressed to resign. Age apart, it was clear how he was fighting this battle on his own resources now, which is only a windfall without a mission. The Absence of the Spiritual support is apparent.
- Churchill's mean telegram to the viceroy asking why Gandhi had not died translated into a practical political prophesy when he was meanly hooted down in House of Commons to resign.
- Churchill had a social conscience that upheld the values of his society. He never had human conscience.
- Churchill who was a born warrior whose hands always itched for the war front advocated negotiations all his life.
- He took counter revolutionary stands twice and at both time was removed from power 1. Against USSR and 2. Against Indian Freedom.
- While commanding his Battalion Churchill told his officers he would help those who supported him but would break those who opposed him. In spite of this native violence, he had a soft side which refused to punish a lax corporal sentry because of his age. He once ordered on the spot a pair of boots to a limping soldier. This mixture of hardness and softness makes his personality great and complete.
- In the Dardanelles issue Churchill, a junior member, vigorously defends himself. It falls flat. It even goes against him. Churchill tries to prove he was right and efficient. He certainly had not known that his own efficiency will hurt his opponents and no one in opposition would accept him because he was right. They would accept him if he was one with them.
- Churchill was faced with the demand for higher wages in his munitions factories to which he agreed. It snowballed in the industry. He was a conservative by inheritance who was living out his American personality of higher wages for higher work. This was the positive side. Mentally he chose to oppose Socialism and called labour socialist and therefore Nazi. That was his negative side.
- Churchill'sability for practical organisation and the knack of entering the larger rhythm were from his American birth.
- It is known Churchillwrote down the full text of his speeches. He committed them to memory. When he was to speak in a hurry without notes he saw he excelled himself P.96- IV Winston Churchill.
- P. 194 & 195 Vol II Winston Churchill
When Churchill was to visit German Military maneuvers he was informed by a German official as to what he should wear then and at the dinner.
- P. 305 Ibid Insurance brought the miracle of averages to the rescue of the masses - Churchill.
- Churchill who campaigned tooth and nail for the abolition of the House of Lords, in his later years was there as the leader of opposition.
- An Oxford undergraduate vehemently argued with his tutor that Churchill had ordered tanks against miners at a time no tank had been invented. P.378 Vol II Winston Churchill.
- Ibid P.409. Churchill as Home Secretary went to the scene of burglary where the burgled house was on fire. He was much criticized for this visit. Danger attracts Churchill.
- Second World War - Churchill p. 37: England was NOT ruled by common sense of decent households.
- Churchill called Nehruthe leader of a tiny minority in the abridged volume of Second World War, p. 967. A great example of rationality even in FACTS.
- It took two years or more to make a soldier said Churchill.
Subtle Infection
- Talking to Somanathan made me perspire, a contagion from his heart attack.
- All diseases, good luck, ill luck are thus contagious in the subtle plane.
- England was ruled by Romans for 400 years and later by Normans and the French. Their empire, their ruling over the world is the inverted subtle response.
- (p. 139, TCH I) San Francisco invited an Italian to sing. Vesuvius in Italy erupted, but his voice was fine. At five in the morning, an earthquake hit SF.
- p. 172, Paul Johnson's Birth of the Modern: William Huskisson was badly injured in a smashup of his coach. He survived but he was the first person to be killed by a train. Paul Johnson calls the man accident-prone. This subtle knowledge was there in the West.
Science
- P.5 (V.S.I. Sociology)
"Sociology has itself played a significant part in undermining the grander claims of science by showing that its ways of working are often similar to the mundane methods ordinary people use to make sense of the world and that scientists are not immune to the interest and values that compromise their claims to detachment."
- P.11 (VSI Sociology)
It is human consciousness that is driving things ultimately.
- P. 570 Toynbee "Mankind and The Mother Earth'.
Darwin had observed the process of selection but did not explain it.
- P. 582 ibid
Einstein said the observer himself is a part of the physical cosmos whose motions through Time and Space he is observing. Totality of existence
An identical event is experienced in two ways that not only differ but are incompatible and cannot be experienced simultaneously. Yet both are valid and both indispensable. Mind's perception
- Europe has for some time ceased to produce an original thinker. P.88 (Essays Divine and Human).
Technology
- P. 381 'Churchill: A Life' In the 1st WW tank was introduced. 300,000 in killed and wounded got back 54 sq. miles at a cost of ₤84 million. Introduction of tanks retrieved 42 sq. miles losing 10,000 men and a cost of ₤6.6 Million.
- "The loss of an acquired technique, technologyis rare. In the Aegean area the technique of writing was lost in the 12th century BC but this was an exceptional event." (P. 590 Mankind and Mother Earth, Toynbee)
- P. 178 HESP. Henry Vdied of dysentery for which the medicines of the 15th century were of no avail.
- P. 8 Winston Churchill IV Churchill pleads in vain that machine must be used in war to save life. Mankind now as then disregards such simple pleas when it is not used to it.
- P. 47 Ibid. Employing tanks, the casualties were reduced to 15 instead of the usual 600 - 1000.
- Telegraph -- From 1870 to 1920 till the plane arrived, TELEGRAPH upheld the two major activities of the world - War and the Press. "The priority prefix for urgent Government telegrams is "clear the line".
- P. 100 Vol IV HESP. The invention of the refrigerator enable Australia to compete in dairy products with Europe and England 13,000 miles away.
Dharma - Justice
The Spiritual Individual
- The first social philosophy expounded by Karl Marxremains to this day the only social philosophy.
- Mother says Catholicismattempted it earlier and retains its sway over 1.6 billion people.
- Sri Aurobindo says the Indian institution of sannyasa tried to deliver man from darkness but remained a pious wish.
- Socialism has succeeded abundantly all over the world of capitalism. Technologyis trying to deliver man the social goal of communism while politics is yet unaware of it.
- Social justice, legal justice, administrative justice, natural justice, human justice are partial concepts which have strong, though small element of injustice which finally overthrows it.
- o Nature needs no justice, but efficiency.
- o Justiceis a passing phase. Even dharma is to be discarded ultimately in favour of Freedom.
- The champions of justice rely on objectivity. As long as man is under the sway of falsehood, he can only reach partisan objectivity, i.e. true facts arguing in favour of his own prejudice. Justice is too refined a concept to be administrated by an ORGANISATION. Nobel committee known for its impartiality is incapable of having members who can evaluate genius- Einstein, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo. It degenerates into awarding a prize for Teresa and Luther King.
- To defend democracyit founds an anti-democratic UN.
- Romance rightly holds the attention of entire humanity. Society tries to perpetuate Romance through marriage, which perpetuates hypocrisy.
- Scarlet of 'Gone with the Wind' becomes the heroine. Rhett Butler is permitted to be the hero. The book sold 176,000 copies in 3 days and 10 million finally.
- Mercedesmarried. Her priority was not Romance but the biological claim of a child Albert.
- The Brahmins tried to possess Truth and ended as the incarnation of intense falsehoodand poverty.
- Napoleon who came to revolutionize the world degenerated into seeking an heir and turned hostile to his own mission. Royalty came back.
- Cromwell ushered in democracy and it was presided over by the anachronism of royalty but the Russian Revolution must be crushed for the violence against the Czar. It puts up a Diana who was harassed to death by investigative journalism which is a menace against sacred individual privacy.
- Scientific Superstition and Investigative journalismare the two great menaces of the 20th century basking under the warmth of objectivity, which is false prejudice.
- The shameless mercenary journalist is the psychological counterpart of the terrorist.
- The awakened Individual must denounce the organised hypocrisy of science and journalism.
- Without Truth in the Individual, advancement in technology will not solve the human problem.
- Strength of Truth is Prosperity of honesty.
- Armies have to be professional at some point, cannot always be patriotic. Professional means mercenary. The deep-seated hypocrisy in any system is met with rebels, as the U.S. youth rose against the VietnamWar.
- All ideals create organisations for their perpetuation which turn against them.
- The Force works outside the organisation.
- The Individual is the KEY. His Truth is the basis. Strength of that Truth alone will deliver the goods to humanity.
- The Force works far and wide through Mahesh yogi, Tom Peters, Chinmoy. The organisationkills. The falsehoodin the Force grows as a world organisation quickly. Tom Peters was false.
- The practically successful organisationis crude and far from cultured, whereas the psychic is soft, velvety. Crudeness is the falsehoodof energy as weakness is the falsehood of organisation.
- Norway and Sweden are neutral without strength. It is a weakness that will turn hostile as it did in WWII.
- "An ominous precedent was thus set for what the Germans politely called Realpolitikwhile Britain and France looked on. Realpolitik meant that standards of morality in international affairs could be ignored whenever material advantage could be gained." (p. 504, HESP) The world has NOT gone beyond that. We need a leader, a nation, a governmentthat can stand by these moral values. History shows that such gains for which moral standards were given up, even in terms of material gains, had not proved to be so. This world of ours is certainly built on values, if not moral values.
Public Opinion (Democracy) -- Its Effectivity and Its Ineptitude
- In national causes that may bring about a revolution or emotional issues, an enraged public opinion moves the government to action.
- The organised entity of government representing the unorganised fluidity is far more powerful when it comes to action.
- Refugee problem: If there is sensitivity in the governments all the refugees anywhere in the world can be called back to their own land and rehabilitated. It is unthinkable. Public opinion here, as elsewhere, is dull, inept, inactive.
- Leadless Petrol: Britain gave seven years for its introduction. To redesign the engine was not enough. Realisation of the hazard overcome the resistance (P 606 TCH III)
- Fund raising has never been an easy task or a pleasant one. There are moments when the public is in tune with the cause. In one such appeal for relief operation Britain raised 500,000 Pounds in three days. (p. 692 TCH III). The Jewish Community in US raised $100 million in one hour on the phone when Israel was attacked.
- (P. 587. H. G. Wells, Short History) Information must precede consultation.
- (P. 709. TCHI). In 1926 US prosperity was the talk outside. As it grew, there was increasing criticism of US collecting its war debts.
- Democracy is a shift from physical leadership to that of the mental.
- Readership moves from the Individual through enthusiasm and information to the collective. Power is initially shifted to the masses by voting.
- The individual self-interest is in a position to demand of the collective leadership attention.
- The shift occurs through enthusiasm of caste, community, local interest, information, adulation, superstitious preference, religious bigotry, tendency to terrorism.
- As the masses are corrupt, the leadership is corrupt. Awakening of the masses leads to prosperity which panders to corruption.
- Shift of power to the masses is preceded by power to the party, causes, national waves of short term sympathy tempered by education that offers information.
- Corruption does not abate till the system is rendered useless. Demand for quality education and quality product is the saving grace.
- Depending upon the tradition, awakening, education and other unforeseen circumstances, dictatorship has a field day.
- International forces exploit this situation for military power, diplomatic advantage, economic market, cultural superiority in the measure national sincerity is organised. Role of technology is decisive in the secondary plane. Role of money is further down the list.
- Atmosphere of the Third War that became the Cold War was a fertile field for all nations to exhaust their field of mean advantages, through machinations, chicanery, open mean betrayal which culminated in dictatorship as well as expansionism.
- Unconscious exploitation of every evil tendency such as terrorism, individual violence, corruption reached the climax in the Gulf War and Sept. 11, 2001. (Personal tragedies, Ashram attack, Sri Aurobindo's accident all are parallel to Sept. 11, 2001)
- Organised falsehoodin international life - which reacted in USSR's state violence and society's mafia - reflects the individual's exploitation of personal falsehood that even wins a world prize. Truth of goodness and strength will save the world.
- P. 27 (VSI) Politics
European nations are democratic, as rainfall there is well distributed requiring no large dams or irrigation systems to be constructed as in China and India, which require a strong central power.
- Uncle Tom's Cabin. P.123 Vol IV HESP.
In September, it is said, 10,000 copies were supplied to a single firm of English booksellers.
- By the end of 1852 more than a million copies were sold in England, probably ten times more than had ever been sold of any other work except the Bible and prayer book.
From the First Principles
- Understanding ideas from first principles is Philosophy.
- - It prevents superstition, reveals the resourcefulness of any situation.
- The Jewish lobby in USA is asking for greater emigration from USSR and getting it, as it goes back to the Trade Laws of 1972 in USA where the Jewsdo have a say. Suppose one goes to the roots of present world issues, all the solutions will be readily there. P.476 TCH III.
- P.99 Vol IV HESP. 'By women and land men were lost' says a Maori (Australian) proverb. The older chiefs realised that if they lost their lady their tribal life would be extinguished.
Great Possibilities
- Singaporetook a great leap forward in 25 years because they did not go in for full-blooded democracy. Apart from the part that helps prosperity they accepted a level of democracy suitable to them.
A form of government that wisely combines Authority at the top and humanitarianism at the bottom can be worked out for all countries. |
- (760 TCH III)
Israeli Prime Minister Peres told his Palestinian opposite number Abu, Ala'a, "The fate of Gaza can be like that of Singapore. From poverty to prosperity in one sustained leap".
- (P 932 TCH III - The very last line in the book is a quote from another historian Barbara Tuchmam.
'We can only muddle on as we have done in those same three or four thousand years, through patches of brilliance and decline, great endeavour and shadow'.
- History analysed, studied and documented gives a historian only the above. All the progress the book reports is incidental, i.e. unconscious. Change it into conscious efforts, ALL problems will vanish and inconceivable opportunities will rise.
- p. 105, Vol. IV HESP. As in all post-war periods the major political issue was that of finance. (War destroys the monetary equilibrium). The ideas of Alexander Hamilton on Protection and Banking were reluctantly accepted. New England turned from her shipping interests to manufacture and laid the foundation for her nineteenth century prosperity. The old suspicions of Jefferson (of landed interests) about Federal banking system were overcome.
- P. 119 Ibid "In all material affairs Americaexcelled anything known to history till 1850.' - Absence of cultural social restraints and vast physical scope resulted in this.
Prejudice
- The prejudiceof Europe against Americans till 1950 was famous.
- It arises out of the sense of one's own greatness, the importance of an upstart, race, religion, superiority. Till 1950 Europe was the world. Now USA is the world. Asia and Africado not exist in their minds.
- Even Nobel Prizedenied to Tolstoy, Einsteinfor his theory, Gandhi, Nehru, Sri Aurobindo, The Mother and awarding it to Luther King, Teresa, Noel Baker are instances of unconscious prejudice of racial and economic inferiority.
- Martin Gilbert gives a long list of assassinations. Even there Gandhi and the two Indian Prime Ministers are missing. (P 915 TCH III). Behind this lies the selfish unawareness of another person.
- Charlie Chaplinparticipated in a 'Chaplin look-alike' contest and was judged fourth.
- Famous music stars trying to collect money in disguise on the streets of London collected little. The best could not get a pound in an hour.
- P. 216 Paul Johnson, Modern Times
Edison chewed tobacco. President Harding too did. So Edison remarked, "Anyone who chewed tobacco is all right."
- The outside world rarely spoke of the material progress of the USSR. H.G. Wells says there was great material progress which only the most biased observers can ignore. (Outline of History, p. 911)
The Unusual
- (p.92 TCH) Railway tracks have to be laid on the ice of lake Baikal.
- (p.207 TCH) Tolstoy was offered the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1910 but he refused.
- The Swedish people built a bridge from drawings of Leonardo which even by today's standards is revolutionary.
- (P. 314 TCH I) Britain was the only European power in 1914 without a policy of conscription.
- (P.346-349) In the First WW German and British soldiers met during Christmas for hours in some places and days in others to exchange friendly greetings without an iota of unfriendliness. There was merry making at all levels.
- (P.451 TCH I) German soldiers that were wounded were entertained in the British hospital ship. British soldiers went out of their way to help the Germans.
- (P.529 - TCHI) Cemeteries for enemy soldiers were erected in Vienna in honour of the dead.
- (P.786 - TCH I ) Stalin spoke for 10 hours. Mustafa Kamal spoke for 3 days locking the Parliament for 2 nights. VKK Menon spoke in UN on Kashmir for 11 hours, Zafrallah Khan replied for 7 hours.
- Sanjeeva Reddy dismissed Shah, the Madras Governor for not supplying him fish and smoke. The Gandhian in Shah lost his gubernatorial post.
- In 'The Greek Interpreter' Lallimor kills Sofia's brother. Holmes discloses to her the fact she had not known. She said would do anything her fiancé wanted in spite of his murdering her brother.
- The highest cost of a wine bottle of 1787 is 105,000 pounds = $ 1,50,000.
- P. 200 HESP. The King arranged the marriage of a twenty-year old man to a Dowager Duchess of 80 years.
- P. 361 Winston Churchill III. The Foreign Secretary goes on a fishing holiday in the middle of WWI.
- P. 696 Winston Churchill III. F.E. Smith, Attorney-General, a member of the British Cabinet was arrested for a brief while by a manipulated telegram on the plea he had no pass to enter the front line.
- P. 8 Vol I Winston Churchill. Spencer, his ancestor was a rich sheep farmer whose flock never reached the figure 20,000. Always it stopped at 19,999 because of disease, etc.
- In the British Parliament the House takes great care and offers its courtesy by cheering the maiden speech of a member, regardless of its value. Contrast this with the habit of school children in England practising pranks on the new teacher which, unless he survives, will determine his future service.
- An Englishman refusing the Governor-Generalship continued his research in the history of the Vedic period. It is Mount Stuart Elphinstone. P.26 John Keay, 'India -- A History'.
- P. 217 Vol II 'Winston Churchill'
- Cullinan Diamond- Uncut 3025 3/4 carats, five times as big as Koh-i-Noor Diamond, was presented by South Africa to the English King in 1907.
Life Response
- No country has so large a population as USA. She has fought a war to liberate them. Had they not exterminated the native Indians, now taking care of the Negroes would not be there.
- News report - A 12 year old girl, finding 2 rings in the swimming pool handed it over to the authorities. Later when she was eating an apple, inside the fruit was a diamond ring. Someone explained that the ring must have fallen on the flower before fruit setting.
- P. 585 Winston Churchill III When Churchill was a Major in the French trenches the General sent for him. Churchill walked a long distance only to learn that the General did not wait for him. On his return to the trenches he found his place hit by a bomb and in shambles. God called him away in the guise of his General.
- Winston Churchill III.
Kitchener, a soldier of repute in colonial warfare sitting in the war office in 1916 prevented every right strategy of Churchill in the Dardanelles while Churchill was blamed for the debacle. When out of office, returning from the trenches, after the P.M. refused to publish the Dardanelles document, Churchill in utter frustration sat with a friend of his sorting out the telegrams of that period with a view to publishing them. Outside there was a shout of the newspaper boys, saying "Kitchener drowned, no soul was saved." As the time was ripe, a determined action of Churchill at the outset yielded the final results.
Spread of Socialism
- (P279 TCH I) The International Commission of Enquiry into the Balkan Wars attributed the evolution of public opinion to several things among which the dread of socialism and the unknown have been more efficacious in forcing the governments to think than any exhortations.
- (P100. TCH I) The editor of The Times took extra care NOT to offend the susceptibilities of Germany. I am sure they all did the very opposite to Stalin.
- Churchill deprecated USSR for its rule of terror and not having a rule of law. In Ireland, under his own direct authority he was unable to check the IRA as he was not attacking the root cause in both the places. In Ireland it was not so much Catholics vs Protestants as the undeveloped Ireland vs prosperous England. In USSR it was the cause of Socialism.
- P. 72 Vol IV HESP. 'Prosperity was spreading through the land and with it went a lull in the fiercer forms of political agitation'. Expenditure of energy to avail of opportunities of prosperity renders all other forms of disturbance energyless.
- p. 275, 276 Johnson, Modern Times: Anna Louis Strong and Bernard Shaw have praised the prison life in the USSR, saying those who entered as criminals emerged as human beings. The criminals are not anxious to leave. Some even apply to enter the jails.
- p. 291, Johnson, Birth of the Modern: Russia had the largest forced labour on earth.
- The Jews in Germany had a monopoly of jobs through wealth. The Brahmins in India had a similar monopoly of jobs through education. Organised total social opposition nearing hatred arose in these events because of elimination from jobs.
- The bases of Revolt:
- Extreme poverty that disqualifies earnings for survival.
- Monopoly of jobs for one reason or another.
- Discrimination of one kind or another.
Great Depression
- Investments boomed and soap industry too boomed in 1930.
- 'Barter Exchange' in 1930 permitted doctors to accept eggs or chicken for their services. (P.820. TCH I).
- The Great Depression was created by MONEY power exercising its negative power of speculation. At a time the US was in a boom, and economy was heading towards a glut, forces of Money intervened to stifle it. It was a moment that will turn the death knell to capitalism by its own inherent structure. Capitalismis a device of Nature. Nature cures her own ills, by her own methods - here war.
- The best method would have been by the Spirit. That was not possible.
- The next best was planning for global prosperity. Even that was not possible.
- Available methods are 1) by Being of the Becoming, 2) by Being , 3) by Mental planning, 4) by vital harmony, 5) by physical skill.
- At each level there is a corresponding negative method. The Depression was cured by the World War, a negative method for higher consciousness. It is the natural method for the force, a method of Nature.
- During the crash, the birthrate fell by 15%. Poverty breeds more children. Here is an opposite trend.
- An egg in Russia cost 10,000 rubles. One dollar was equivalent to four billion paper marks in Germany.
- Russian government introduced a new ruble worth 10,000 old ones and in 1923 again replaced it by a gold ruble equal to that of before the war.
- Russia did not receive the same shock as other nations. No long unemployed queues, no factories closed down. (Wells, Outline of History)
- Cause of the Depression: Apart from booming production, rising standard of living, the economy was extended and overextended on the strength of MONEY being the monitor, as Indian economy is booming now on bank and market credit. Suppose credit is entirely withdrawn in India now, what will happen? A crash.
- In the USA it was not conspired. The Crash came because capital became shy and withdrew precipitating the Crash. This happened because of the speculation on the Stock Exchange. The extension of moneypower was overextended by speculation. If this theory is conceded:
- There need be no more recession anywhere in the world.
- No more wars or pollution.
- No longer can karma rule the Indians.
- It can be extended to psychological domains so as to say No more divorces, child abuse, violence. etc.
Money is controlled to avoid depression. To avoid wars, POWER is controlled. Pollution can be controlled by no permitting pollutants. Karma is escaped by dissolving the ego. Happy home is created by GOOD MANNERS.
History
- P. 186. HESP. Norfolk family had 1000 letters that explain how people lived in the 15th Century.
- P. 255 HESP Landlords saw vast profits could be made from wool. They could see it when England became Protestant on paper. Freeing the Spirit, releases the prosperity. This could happen as the monasteries were rendered powerful by closures.
- P. 148 Winston Churchill III Prince Louis, the First Sea Lord received anonymous letters during the first world war about his German birth.
- In spite of all aristocratic reticence and NOT seeking power, at the highest levels of courtesy, everyone hints at what he wants. Power has that reality of substance. It has to be courted.
- P. 242 Winston Churchill III To keep the typists ignorant Borkum was referred to as Sylt.
- P. 291 Ibid IV It is characteristic of Russians to draw up plans without any consideration of the means to carry them out.
- P 393 Winston ChurchillIV Cavalry was in existence in 1920 and was fighting.
- P. 569 Vol IV Winston Churchill. The Jewish troops, says Martin, came up to the level of Indian troops, making the latter a standard.
- P. 807 Vol III Winston Churchill. The Arab is a born plotter but a coward - General Haldane.
- P. 846. Ibid "It is the custom of Orientals to put forward extravagant demands".
- P. 24 'India - a History' John Keay. The Vedic Aryans had no word for plough, which means they were not using ploughs.
- P. 242. Vol II 'Winston Churchill' Superiority of written documents over oral reminiscence. An example about Churchill. Written records speak of refusal of Board Trade while the oral version says Churchill asked for it. The Muslim sect Jinnahbelonged to performed many Hindu ceremonies.
- P. 29 'The Man who Divided India' - Zakaria British hirelings instigated communal riots.
- P. 162, On Aug. 14, 1947 Jinnah arranged a luncheon for the Mountbattens forgetting it was Ramzan. He changed it to dinner later - Ibid.
- Ibid p. 179, Prime Minister of Pakistandismissed by the Governor General appealed to the English Queen to restore him to power as he had the majority!
- 'Future of Freedom' by Fareed Zakaria P. 33 'Caligula, a Roman king, famously had his horse appointed senator, an act that probably violated implicitly, if not explicitly, rules of that once august body'.
Public Opinion (Democracy)
- P. 27 (VSI) Politics.
European nations are democratic, as rainfall there is well distributed requiring no large dams or irrigation systems to be constructed as in China and India which require a strong Central Power.
- Uncle Tom's CabinP. 123 Vol IV HESP.
In September, it is said, 10,000 copies were supplied to a single firm of English booksellers.
By the end of 1852 more than a million copies were sold in England probably ten times more than had ever been sold of any other work except the Bible and prayer book.
V. P. Menon - Transfer of Power
- P. 88, On June 17, 1940 Congressworking committee refused to endorse Gandhiji's non-violence for the state.
- P. 59 On. September 3, 1939 war broke out. The Viceroy met Gandhi and Jinnah. Jinnah said, "The Viceroy treated me equal to Gandhi." His ego decides on another course.
Feb 2, 02.
Rajaji
- He arrives from a wide but negative point of view to the same conclusion as Sri Aurobindo. E.g. World War, Cripps Mission, China's character etc.
- He was prophetic, wise, statesman-like in all areas where he was informed and experienced.
- He and Radhakrishnan were the only two VIPs who came to Pondy and did not visit the Ashram.
- His talents were great, intelligence was unsurpassed, sacrifice unparalled. His petty mindedness robbed him of the greater possibilities.
- He was campaigning for the untouchables as a complex.
- His utterances always included a fake remark.
- Even he could expect Indira to be a puppet in others' hands shows the length of folly the wisest man can indulge in.
- His mind could see the other side of the issue shows he was trying to outgrow mind. His honesty at that flight deserted him.
- Basically or psychologically he was more wise than honest.
- His great energies were physical especially where he had power. There, like an ordinary inexperienced ignorant person, he was not under his control.
- He won the arguments, turned the listener against him.
- The treatment his colleagues and the country gave him was the same as he gave his father.
- For a son of a father of Rs. 5/- pay, he was exceedingly generous with money.
- He was perverse and delighted in it.
- His modesty was ironic. His shyness made him charming.
- Every village has at least one Rajaji. He is not unique in that sense. He represents the Indian wisdom. The important part of his personality is that he took risks at every stage which some Indians can take. Any Indian will take that risk if that education is given in an atmosphere of patriotic fervour.
Indian Spiritual Tradition
I made a careful study of Rajaji's biography. My aim was not knowing his personality. I was trying to relate to the period of transition. The book gives all the possible details about his family.
The collective that expresses its greatest intensity in one individual, also gives a minimum to every individual. The US society today enables anyone to take a Ph.D, become a successful entrepreneur or politician of a very high level. We may call it social efficiency. Such a potential exists at several levels, from becoming a millionaire to enjoying a life of $ 30,000 a year. In other fields, one can construct similar gradations.
At the higher end it comes as an opportunity, at the lower end it is a collective compulsion of the individual.
Indian spirituality can be explained thus in social terms or spiritual possibilities. You will understand U.S. conditions more easy. The opportunities are availed of by those who risk, who choose them. It will be interesting to know these gradations in several nations today. Knowing them in previous societies or civilizations will be a mental exercise. To know
1. What Mother offers in this regard
2. What exists for the Indian aspirant
3. How the US citizen can rise from this social achievement to spiritual possibilities will be a meaningful exercise for us. To put them briefly,
- Mother offers the maximum of Supramental being and a minimum that is our social maximum.
- India offers the maximum of Jagat Guru - World leadership- and a minimum of US prosperity.
- US offers its people a maximum of spiritual culture and a minimum of the highest culture civilisation can attain.
In USA today the ability to be her President, to rise to the topmost status of any of her walks of life exists as rich potential to any serious aspirant. Similarly, India can generate a Rajaji from each of her villages. He can be put on the levels of either Gandhiji whose vitality can preside over a nation or Nehru whose emotional integrity can charm his country. Rajaji is an average personality with the highest mental ability and a good small heart of charm with a marked tendency to be negative.
India apart, the above thoughts I recorded contain a vast field of research which can make one understand,
- Human personality that rises to leadership.
- One major possibility for the world in the coming decade.
- The field that enables the striving soul to exercise itself.
- Society that can cross into psychological status.
- Social openings that enable the low to outperform the high.
- The process of dark veils over the body politic unrolling.
- The emerging CENTRE of the united world of the future.
- The reality of Human Cycle and Ideal of Human Unity.
- The striving of one's own soul on the surface.
National Events in the Light of His winning Freedom in 1910
- In a month after Motilal Nehru agreed to support Gandhiji's satyagraha, Jallianwallah bagh tragedy occurred. India needed an armed revolution. In 1916 the very strong went over to ahimsa. Life reacted with a tragedy.
- Sri Aurobindo said about Congress leadership that of all the leaders Patel was the only strong man. Patel was joking that his phenomenal rise was not indicated by the rays of his palm, a sure sign of grace acting.
- Pattabhi Sitaramayya wrote Sri Aurobindo shone like a star in the Indian political firmament for a short while.
- p.308 Nehru's Political Biography by Brecher (NPB-B) Feb 19,1946 RIN Ratings. Patel rushed to Bombay and asked them to withdraw the Mutiny and surrender. Nehru too did so. Indian Freedom demanded armed revolution which the RIN Ratings supplied. It is characteristic that those who took to Ahimsa were forced to speak against it.
- p.338 (NPB-B) The Kingpin of Northern India was the Province of Punjab, the most populous and wealthiest. (It is His Province). The slaughter there was on a massive scale.
- p.341(ibid) More than any other statesman of the age, Nehru responded to the mood of his immediate surroundings. Brecher says this about Nehru's response to the Asian conference in March 1947.
- Churchill, who received Sri Aurobindo's Force, could not refuse to support the Bill of Transfer of Power.
- Gandhiji, the architect of Indian Freedom was removed from the leadership when Freedom was ushered in.
- Nehru's emotional ideal was successful till 1947 where Britain was concerned as Nehru drew upon HIS spiritual strength. With Pakistan in 1947 or China later work was in the physical plane. Nehru's emotional ideal utterly gave way.
- India seeks unity of territory and unity of people. Language and caste only tend to fragmentation. Religion does more so. States Reorganisation Commission went very far but luckily it did not go to the very end destroying what is there. 1947 raised religious bigotry and fortunately it subsided.
- Questions
- How can the territorial unity be restored?
- How can the unity of people be created overcoming caste and religion?
- Surely in USA prosperity drew up the energy. Is there anything better than prospects of prosperity?
- Can you not release the original spiritual urges?
Lord Mountbatten
Refer pages 410 to 413 of NPB-B for why Lord Mountbatten was able to perform this task of transfer of power. Nehru and Mountbatten were both aristocrats devoid of the formality that distances them from the common people. As with Gandhi, so with Mountbatten, Nehru was attracted by his quick decision-making.
View of the Indian situation - Freedom, Hindu-Muslim unity
in 2002 according to an understanding of Sri Aurobindo's Life as well as Teachings.
Sri Aurobindo reached the Supermind in 1910 and had in Alipore the universal vision. The Supermind descended into His physical consciousness between 1926 when the Overmind descended and 1934 when He expected it on earth. In 1914 when Mother met Him world war broke out in a few months which means their coming together could initiate action by conflict. Again in 1938 when He tried best to avoid a second world war, He broke His thigh bone and finding the war inevitable, he helped to win it for the Allies. The Supramental Force descended on earth in 1956.
He reached the Force and those who received the Force directly from Him by faith were able to solve their problems - the Force was effective in their emotional domain - but not beyond.
1916 - Jallianwallah Bagh.
The Force was in His being down to the physical, not as Supramental or overmental Force but in His mind. Its Presence can distantly activate the nation's physical consciousness. As Punjab was His origin 800 years ago Punjab stirred foolishly. The right strategy of the active force would have been silent waiting without walking into the trap of the Britisher. The impulse of the British General to massacre unarmed Indians is the same vicious impulse of children to kill hundreds of yellow lizards on Oman day. Jallianwallah Bagh was the clearest warning of life against satyagraha.
1943 - Bengal famine.
If Jallianwallah Bagh was the physical brutality of the Britisher, Bengal famine was the vital tyranny of Indian businessmen.
1946 The mutiny of Naval Ratings on 19th February, 1946 led to the announcement in House of
Commons on the 20th the cabinet mission - not ahimsa, but the armed revolt, the sign of it, brought about freedom. The wounds of partition of ten million refugees is the result of the mind in the physical substance waking and trying to solve the problem of unity.
Administration - Banks, etc.
SBI remains to this day, in spite of Mother giving it her symbol, an ardent instrument of destruction of Indian industry. Nor do the other banks or the Administration play a positive role yet.
Solution
HE & SHE have given the solution individually to those who had faith. It is not yet received universally by anyone so far. To receive it universally, one should identify himself emotionally with India or the world.
- Indian spirituality became cloistered, caste-bound, lost its vitality when Muslims invaded. They imposed unprecedented military order which was obeyed. Their revenues stimulated production and spurred market growth. (P. 2 The Mughal Empire by Richards. ME/R)
- Tyranny creates efficiency and social life grows as commerce.
- When Kuwait was invaded the whole world came to her rescue. The world should have acted like that in Kashmir. It did not act like that as there is an Indian contribution in creating the problem. Should it be removed now, Kashmir will be free.
- The British took over from the Muslims - Mir Jafer - and the country or a part of it going back to Muslims is a natural law. The Hindus who first lost India to the Muslims and then to the British could have overcome their karma had they accepted Sri Aurobindo's leadership. The Spirituality of Gandhi was false. Sri Aurobindo could not do better through the falsehood of Gandhi.
- Kashmir
- Patelagreed that if Hari Singh chose to join Pakistan, he too would endorse it.
- India's policy was plebiscite where the rule and people differed. This was too generous or unrealistic an attitude to meet Pakistanwith.
- Ghazhi MohammedLIVED in Jinnah when we consider the origin of the tribals.
- It was Mountbattenwho insisted on going to UN while UK voted for Pakistan.
- Geographical Unity of India.
Vast territories like India cannot be united by a person, however great his personality is. It can be united only under a SYSTEM. No such system emerged till the Britisher arrived on the scene. Democracy developed in Europe because of its geography of mountains and rivers, not in China and India where vast plains gave birth to great monarchical empires. So, India waited for its unity for democracy to be imported through foreign invasion.
- World War II: this was a war for the survival of democracy. The effort of the world to crush Hitler naturally strengthened the national aspirations. No wonder Indian freedom was furthered by the war.
- Foreign invasion:
- Muslim brotherhood of equality was superior to the system of untouchables of India.
- Industrial Revolution and its manufactured products of Britain in an agrarian Indian society swayed.
- The disunited petty kingdoms of India were powerless against the united Muslim states or Great Britain that was well knit, as one unit by the 16th century.
- Islam was nascent and militant when it invaded India.
- Protestantismwas equally nascent and militant when the Britisher arrived in India in the 16th century.
HISTORY
(Continued from Note Book No. 23 - page 84)
- The Church held about 1/3 of land in Europe at its height. Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria - Page 34.
- The archbishop of Milan compelled Theodosius who massacred his guests to ask for forgiveness dressed like a beggar of 8 months. Ibid page 34.
- So did the Roman King Henry who challenged the Pope's power of investiture. Ibid page 35.
- The plains of Asia that made free movement of troops enabled centralized empires whereas the mountains and rivers of Europe effectively prevented every emperor who tried world domination Ibid p.36.
- African under-development is because of its shorter coastline that is shallow and the non-navigable rivers which together prevented the development of trade. Ibid p.36 footnote. Dramatic scenery makes for disastrous commerce (in the case of Africa where waterfalls abound).
- Martin Luther's denunciation of the Roman Catholic Church opportunists coincided with the advent of the printing press which distributed his tenets in printing all over Europe. In 150 years, half the territory of Europe was Protestant. Ibid page 39.
Page 107 Ibid. Nehru described himself as the last Englishman to rule India.
Page 198 - Vol. IV of HESP
- ‘The enunciation of first principles has always been obnoxious to the English mind' - It is a practical mind, would not let the inquiry go beyond.
Page 199 Ibid.
- William Pitt became the Prime Minister at the age of 24.
Page 275 Ibid
- ‘On December 5' Napoleon abandoned the remnant of his armies on the Russian frontier and set out by sleigh for Paris'.
- It was the same December 5 when Sri Aurobindo abandoned his body.
Page 248 Ibid.
- ‘The bulk of their (USA) industrial capital came from British, Dutch and German investors'. The labour and capital of USA came from Europe. Integration of humanity is always done by the resources of one nation being exploited by other resources of other nations.
- Rockefeller and Carnegie created vast economic empires. Though the morality of their business methods has often been questioned these men made industrial order out of chaos. They brought the benefits of large scale production to the humblest home are quintessence of the theory that what is apparently negative is positive in the long run. The stages are :
- Leadership (here economic leadership)
- Physical resources (raw materials - oil, steel)
- Building Institutions (monopolistic companies)
- Humblest of homes enjoying the benefits of large scale production (Serviceto the masses)
The robber baron offered protection to the masses by creating monarchy in the earlier period. The corrupt leaders of India by their extreme cleverness to rob the treasury have created conditions of service and economic, educational awakening.
- Theory - Service in conditions of unconsciousness is rendered through corruption and dishonesty.
- Genius - Military, Political, Economic, Social, Moral and Spiritual. Commanding power and consummate skill for accomplishment in utter disregard of all other values.
- Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Churchill, Roosevelt, Gorbachev, Patel in India, Stalin, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Indira qualify for organisational genius.
Page 251 Ibid.
- Congress granted to two companies a million acres in the West which initiated the occupation of the West.
Page 303 Ibid.
- Nearly a hundred years of peace and progress carried Britain to the leadership of the world.
Page 75 - Vol. III - HESP
- While the inimitable Marlborough had excelled for ten continuous years on the continental battlefields, the negative subtle forces of intrigue in the persons of Harley and the Queen were at its successful zenith much to the discomfort of Marlborough. Note Harley's fame steadily rose. "One cannot accomplish fully in spite of consummate powers unless he has mastered the negative forces in the same field or even lower". Robert Clive who founded the British Empire and Warren Hastings who consolidated it - one entirely corrupt and the other incorruptible - both were ostracised by the House of Commons.
DEMOCRACY
Page 37 - Vol. IV HESP
- ‘A (Parliamentary) seat was a thing to be purchased as a house or an estate" was the idea of Tories.
- Coalition govt. often ruled Britain. The deeper democratic tradition of Britain is more due to the absence of a democratic mandate of majority which compelled them to offer greater respect to democracy.
Page 288 Ibid
- Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister had difficulty in recognising his Cabinet Ministers when he met them in rare social occasions.
Page 347
- Britain tried to master the new radartechniques the Germans were using. As soon as they mastered it, the German attacks ended. Critics complained of wasted funds. When you are mentally prepared to protect yourself, physical protection arises.
THE UNUSUAL
Page 101 - Vol.IV HESP
- Many of the reforms introduced in Great Britain - Industrial arbitration, old age pension, factory legislation, State insurance, medical service, housing acts - in 1906 regarded as extreme innovation had already been accepted by New Zealand. The tradition and prejudices weighed less heavily than in older countries.
- Jean Paul Sartregot into the habit of reading 300 books a year and maintained it. "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson. - Page 227.
Page 321 Ibid.
- Mailersaid of his third wife, "Lady Jean gave up $ 10 million to marry me but would not make breakfast for me". He married a fourth wife.
VIEW OF INDIAN SITUATION
(Continued from Page 90 - Opposite side) Note Book No.23
- P. Moon's book ‘Divide & Quit' gives cogent arguments how Pakistanwas not inevitable till 1942 in his ‘Summing up'.
Page 15 Ibid.
- In 1937 elections when Muslim League fared badly had Congressinvited them into a coalition government, in spite of Congress having a majority, the confidence of Muslims would have been won. It was a fatal error that created Pakistan. Sri Aurobindo broke his leg in 1938 and war was in 1939. Had Congress not exercised its strength but went all out of its way to absorb the Muslim, having in mind the basic historical problem, Jinnahwould not have left Congress.
- Radcliff - Boundary Commission - tore up the £ 2000 cheque as he was accused of partiality. As the work of separation was not paid for, Pakistanwill rejoin India.
Page 295 Ibid.
- Communal conflicts occurred only in the British Indian Provinces, NOT in the princely states.
- Suhrawardy, under the spell of Gandhiji, in spite of being a rascal, controlled the Muslim hooligans, Gurmani and Moon found, under dutiful action, carnage could be averted. Sri Aurobindo's spiritual conquest retains the possibility of avoiding a catastrophe, if Man makes the right choice. This is always true. The capacity of the representative to choose light, hastens evolution.
- Foreign invasion of India started 800 years ago by the Muslims. It is at that time Sri Aurobindo's family left Punjabfor Bengal.
- The one strong man of Congress was Patel. He is from Gujarat where Sri Aurobindo spent 13 years, the longest period he spent in any part of India, outside Pondicherry.
- Communal carnage in 1947 did not wait for Partition or even Direct Action say of August 16, 1946. It started in the Punjab in March 1947.
- Nature removed the protection of HIS family being there in Punjab so that invaders would enter.
- The fighting spirit of the Sikhs - physical rigidity needs to be broken for Freedom to descend on India.
- Penderel Moon's book explains how the physical man manages to avoid Grace when it is successfully bypassing an otherwise inevitable catastrophe.
- The same town where O'Dyer killed 1000 people - Jallianwala bagh - was razed to the ground by Muslim mobs in 1947 March. One cannot miss the significance. Page 80 - ‘Divide & Quit' by Moon.
Page 81 Ibid
- Mountbattenspeeded Independence because of the Punjabkilling. It looks as if He was acting from the perspective of the dark imperative.
Page 225 Ibid
- When the Hindus were evacuated from Bhawalpur State, there was unusually heavy rains in the Punjabeven beyond the monsoon months. Does it mean the evacuation was an act of Grace?
- The narration in Moon's book about the Carnage reveals more of greed for looting than for revenge on the minority community. Not religion but greed for MONEY.
- Jinnahwas not ashamed of Direct Action in 1946 even as Gandhi was not ashamed of Quit India in 1942.
- The East India Companycame here initially to plunder indiscriminately. When they left in 1947 indiscriminate plunder was the order of the day.
- NWFP and Ghaffar Khan who remained a friend of India till his death at the age of 98, their boycott of the referendum where as many boycotted as voted for Pakistan(280,000 vs. 289,000) shows Pakistan was not inevitable (2800 voted for India) P 405 ‘Patel - A Life'.
- The transfer of Poweris legal. Every effort at all levels especially was made to keep the legality of procedures but when the Afghan tribesmen invaded Kashmirafter Hari Singh acceded to India, legality was thrown to the winds. Transfer of Power was an ACT of War. It can only have the legality of war. There was NO legality in East India Company taking over India. The British mass now exert themselves at legality but life will be inexorable.
- Kashmir ruler Hari Singhjailed Nehru in June 1946. It is natural that all Nehru's support to Hari Singh will backfire.
Page 440
- "Patel - A Life". Raj Mohan Gandhi.
- The Kashmiri Commander Mr. Singh, answering Patel's question whether his Muslim soldiers were reliable, said "More than the Dogras". A few days later, those very Muslim soldiers deserted Mr. Singh and shot him dead. Military discipline will not stand in good stead when religion rises.
- U.N. cannot be an impartial judge. It is the creation of power balance. Any issue that comes to UN will be handled only by the interests there are at stake then. Kashmirwas one issue in the Cold war. U.N. was not made for justice. It was founded to avoid the third World War. If Kashmir, for any reason, serves that purpose, solving its issue will pave the way for ruling the world.
Page 440 Ibid
- ‘All Muslim soldiers in Kashmir deserted or refused to co-operate. India by 1947 had not built up the fervour of patriotism that demanded of one his life. Satyagraha was skin deep. Neither the nation had the strength or character to rise as one man to lay down her life at the altar of Freedom. How can we expect the Muslims to stand by India overcoming the glamour of a Muslim nation, Pakistan? It is like asking the worker or student to attend the work without attendance.
- NWFP which was betrayed by the Congress' acceptance of Pakistan supplied the tribals to invade Kashmir.
- Britain made much of paramountcy, legal procedures with respect to the Princes, forgetting how Britain came to rule India and these Princes. For their own reasons, Britain connived at the Pakistan invasion of Kashmir. Patel threatened the Princes, compelled them to merge with India without consulting the Cabinet which Nehru was lamenting about the procedures. UK had not followed any procedure to leave India nor had Jinnah honoured any promise. Wavell, after Jinnah's Direct Action invited Jinnah to join the Government. Transfer of power was a silent war. The procedures there must be procedures of war, not Parliamentary procedures. Hari Singh's accession should not be waited upon to send Indian troops to Kashmir. Afghan tribals had not waited for anything. The Future Ruler should overcome that superstition.
- Patelasked the Socialists to select a province and demonstrate their policies - Page 491. Ibid.
- Nation took over the Kashmir issue from Patel's States Ministry which was itself a transgression.
- The destruction of Jewsin Germany, the inhuman atrocities in the war cannot silently witness Indian Freedom avoiding the war. That is one reason for the communal carnage.
- Penderel Moon in his ‘Divide & Quit' explains how the communal carnage could have been FULLY avoided. Winston Churchill explicitly claims that the Second World War could have been avoided. Both show Sri Aurobindo's work and illustrate the principle that human choice is most powerful.
- No wonder Jinnah stabbed Congress in the back as India did so to Britain.
- In 1910 when India was free in the subtle plane she could have become physically free from the British had she fought them. That would have ended British destiny. Having missed that battle for whatever reasons, Britainwas to fight two world wars.
Indian Freedom
- The British had an axe to grind in divide and rule. Nor did they exert themselves to nip the communal trouble in the bud. The weapon Congress used was negotiation not armed resistance. Negotiation does not have the fervour of armed resistance. Armed resistance could have united Hindus and Muslims. Pakistan would have been ignored.
Notes on History - Churchill, Johnson, Moore, etc.
The Second World War - Vol. I Churchill (The Gathering Storm)
Page 9
U.S and Britain heavily financed Germany after 1914 totaling £ 1500 millions. Germany also borrowed heavily elsewhere. It looks as if Germany was financed to arm herself. "We make guests of our enemies".
Page 65
‘The opinion of the press and the public was in no way founded upon Reality'. This is a universal truth which the media chiefs need to look into - For each man his own impression is the reality.
Page 80.
The moral authority of the League of Nations had no physical support (to avert the Japanese tragedy.) The last paragraph on this page summarises the tragedy. Also Page 83 & 84.
Page 83
‘Wars come very suddenly' Churchill explains at length on Page 84 how wars precipitate suddenly - No war comes suddenly. No disease attacks of a sudden. In fact, no problem shows itself of a sudden. The theory requires one to trace each problem to its origin. It is a process of becoming conscious. The moment one becomes conscious of the cause of the problem, the problem disappears.
Page 89/90
- Description of how Hitlerpersonally arrested his rival. Hitler was an hour earlier than the rival men arrived. That hour could have avoided World War II. This happens as long as his strength is in excess of his weakness.
- There seems to be a complete parallel between Britain's disarmament in 1935 and Gandhiji's trying to win the heart of Jinnah and Muslims during the same period.
- Churchillsays England is wedded to democracybut does not know why. It is so because she was a subject nation for long. Page 188.
- Nehruis anxious to borrow the tradition of Britain in all issues of democracy. What right has he to complain against communism? - Those who speak against communism are all advocates of their own pet theories and issues. They are all conformist. Please note that any given period some theory or some fashion or some technology was spreading. Man wants his doctrine to spread, condemns others spreading theirs.
Page 191
- Churchillobjected to USSR aiding the communist movement in Spain and elsewhere, forgetting the Allies tried to crush USSR in 1917 - An intelligent animal. Christianity, Buddhism, Science, Arabic Numerals, knowledge in general spread all over the world. Democracy too, why not communism? Is not Christianity consciously spread?
Page 281
- Plot to arrest Hitlernever came on. Another instance of great events relying on small occurrences.
- This gives the clue for the smallest act to trigger the bigger ones. One needs FAITH for that to work in his life.
- Chamberlain's dedication to Peace is just like Mahatma's dedication to non-violence.
- Britain following Prosperity ignoring Hitler is a parallel to the Mahatma following ahimsa ignoring the war. Ultimately one can discover a complete parallel between any two events, in fact between all events.
Page 359
- The Britisher is more fearless when the danger comes closer. At a distance the mind thinks which can cause fear. Closer, it is the body that exults in resistance.
- The closer the FEAR is, the greater it reveals its Brahman.
Page 365
- Churchillwas sworn in on the 5th September. He could not wait till then. He joined duty on 2nd evening as soon as Prime Minister gave the word. - Where patience and form give way to work in a genius.
Page 429
- Churchill at the Admiralty had his own sources of information. Though small, they were related to all other pieces of information and were integrated.
- Such information is indispensable to WORK.
- When the French Army failed in 1940, Churchill wished the war to be converted into a war of people. The French refused. The English were determined to do it. They were spared of the occasion.
- The British preserved the integrality of action. The intellectuality of the Frenchrose above action and lost it. Wine led them to women, so there is no energy for action. Hence intellectuality developed.
- India stabbed Great Britain in the back in their fight against Hitler and was rewarded with Freedom. U.S.A. was unresponsive till she was attacked, and she became the superpower as a result of Britain's total sacrifice. Alongside, USSR expanded territorially becoming another superpower at the expense of UK.
UK which ruled the world, saved the world. As a rule, the savior is sacrificed.
In destroying a demon, another demon rises to power. Often a demon destroys another.
The power of Great Britain was Military Power in the 19th Century, political power in the 20th Century. Next comes the economic power. USA that was developing economically, especially during the war at the expense of the Allies, attained that Power.
UK that was oppressed for the first thousand years was free to rule later. As their exploitation of their colonies was economic, they couldn't hope to be an economic power.
- The two world wars were the assertion of dark physical forces in the subtle plane. Conquest in the physical plane leads to the RULE of the vital plane. The Cold War kept up the negative intensity of the vital for 45 years. The physical had not exhausted itself on its own. It was kept under check by the Spiritual Force while it was threatening to break out all the time - Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, China on Indian borders.
- The self-reliant rebuilding of Russia in the post war equipped her to get rid of her overgrowth of police states.
- The post war period has effectively replaced the political majority expressed as military superiority by the growing economic prosperity. The formation of European Unionmust be primarily viewed as an economic move.
- The destruction of the war demons is witnessed as the birth of human rights, abolition of capital punishment, economic equality for women, uplift of workers and the rising expectation of middle classes.
Page 278
‘There need have been no war'. Churchill explains that the thinking on both sides was the same. Only that they had not known each other. The other man's point of view helps to solve a problem.
Page 283,285 & 286
The supreme importance of August 15.
Page 304
- People in London crowded through the darkened streets, filled the theatres, restaurants, walked through bombing regardless of total risk to life. Courage that is born of a thousand years of freedom.
- Any people are capable of this courage if they are brought to it by the national culture. Those who are inherently incapable of this courage are of nature cowardice.
Page 308
All those houses destroyed in the Blitz were fully compensated at once. This is an extraordinary measure. Two things made this possible. One is the means to pay and the other the more important thing is the decision to pay.
Page 315
- No dictator, says Churchill had as much power as the War Cabinetduring the War.
- War makes governments more powerful than they are.
Page 317-318
- When sewers were broken into by bombing, Churchill's fear was pestilence. Actually, the health of Londoners was better than before as their spirits were roused. Churchill speaks of the mischievous microbes neutralising one another. He was unaware of the spirit working.
- Courageis health, even optimism is. Fear is disease. When Patriotism is kindled and courage rises, disease recedes.
- The Cabinet and the House of Commons remained in London till the Blitz. They never contemplated moving or providing themselves bombproof shelters. It is pure physical courage, which is the loyalty of the body. Cf. the cow seller and his clinging to his animals.
- It is common sense to protect the leadership. This move is higher than common sense. This is a psychological move that will generate courage as it actually did.
Page 401
- Aircrafts ran out of fuel in mid-air over sea as the stronger wind consumed more fuel. They were all lost. Never again did such a catastrophe occur. (Military is known for efficiency. Still such an absence of forethought occurs until experience teaches. Learning from experience is magnificent).
- Experience exposes unknowable weaknesses. Therefore, there is no alternate to experience. But not to think of higher needs of fuel against unfavourable wind, especially in a seafaring nation shows that man is incapable of thinking of an emergency until he faces it. Thoughtfulness is not part of efficiency.
- Churchill'seloquence roused the world to defend itself. Look at it from Hitler's point of view. What did he do which many others had not done before him? The British went all over and conquered nations. Were they less brutal in their conquest? In war and love, all is fair. The British who annihilated the entire American Indian population have no right in Churchill to protest the killing of the Jewsby Hitler. If there is any, we can say times have changed. But the course of true history would say that the British will learn their lesson - for killing the Indians - only when they destroy Hitler who killed the Jews. That, at least, is historical justice.
Page 969 Second World War - Churchill (abridgement).
- USSR did not veto UN resolution to prevent China's attack on South Korea. USA would have gone ahead even if the veto was there. That UN resolution had legitimacy - Mainland China and USSR voting for it shows the SANCTION to the UN's action and indirectly to the existence of UN.
Page 159 HESP II
- ‘Left to herself, England would not have broken into rebellion. It is in Scotland, the birthplace of Charles I the conflagration emanated'. Only those who are close can behead a person.
Page 604 Second World War (abridged) - Churchill
- What Churchilltook 4 months to explain to the British and American leaders and generals about the strategy of attacking Hitler in North Africa, Stalincomprehended in a flash, thus revealing his military Genius. Churchill who explained to Stalin was amazed.
Page 715 Ibid.
- Soviet officers refused visa to British troops to go to North Russia. Britishers were there to help USSR but USSRrefused visas.
Page 721 Ibid.
- ‘The Soviet machine is convinced that it can get everything by bullying' says Churchill to Roosevelt. In a relationship of giving, the receiving end wishes to bully in the measure of its lack of culture. Jinnahdid so.
- Stalin does not have the culture Churchill has.
- Stalin employs his ‘machine' to prepare the answer.
- Churchill belongs to the aristocracy who believe population deserve their Charity. He believed in the empire. USAand USSR are nation of workers who have survived the onslaught of the empire. As soon as the war started Churchill was relegated to a distant second by USA. Churchill went to Rooseveltand never the other way around. Roosevelt never came to the airport to receive Churchill or to see him off. By the time the war ended UK was a distant third rate power. Even Stalin never came to UK or USA, Churchill was not received or seen off at the at the airport by Stalin. Aristocracy bows to the proletariat at both ends. War was war on aristocracyby the labour in the capitalist as well as communist nations.
Page 735 Ibid
- Churchill presented Stalin in 1943 at Teheran a sword of honour from the King for the defence of Stalingrad. Stalin respectfully received it and kissed it, but Voroshiloo who received it from Stalin dropped it. It is a clear signal that USSR & UK are going to fall out.
Page 737 Ibid
- At Teheran Rooseveltsought a private interview with Stalin following which Churchilltoo met Stalin privately. When the three had come there for a common purpose, seeking separate interviews undermines the confidence. No wonder they later became enemies.
Page 742 Ibid
- Churchillbroke the porcelain vase presented by Roosevelt but it was remarkably reconstructed. A sign of things to come.
Page 743 Ibid
- When it was said Churchill was the Britain Constitution and the British Cabinet, Churchill said he could be voted out any time while the other two could not. Churchill was voted OUT.
Page 787 Ibid
- The Germans made the same mistake in 1944 which the French made in 1940. It is the power of the Act repeating.
Page 812 Ibid
- Churchill arranged with USSR that Romania and Greece are to be handled by them separately. When he consulted Roosevelt, he was offended that he was not consulted prior. This is exactly what happens with partners or within a family, Confidence is maintained by consultation.
Page 874 Ibid
- Archbishop of Greece who led the nation's uprising in 1944 was an outstanding wrestler before he joined the church. Even as a stray exception, it is inconceivable in India. Physicality was never at a premium.
Page 922 Ibid
- Events at the closing hour of the battle for Germany moved so fast in such a fashion that Churchillsays it was cutting at the very roots of thought (up to that moment it was war, a phenomenon known to mankind). At that moment, history moves to a higher level.
Page 907 Ibid
The U.S. Presidential system permits the Vice President to be entirely in the dark while the personal aides of the President are in the full know of it. Eden knew all that Churchill knew. Truman was ignorant of all that happened in the war personally with the President. His knowledge was official.
Page 924/5 Ibid
After total defeat, Hitler made his will. There was a scramble for the post of Hitler's successor!
Page 931 Ibid
Trumanuses slang in writing to Churchill which annoyed the latter. Let us not "gang up" wrote Truman.
Page 953 Ibid
- Churchill describes how he, and all Europe as well as USSR were surprised by the 1945 election results when his party was defeated. This is a clear example of what Walter Lippman explained about war leaders defeated at once. Again, this is a great example of how the subliminal moves the surface.
1. India must be given freedom
2. War wearies
3. Concentration on war neglects peace
4. It is the voice of the HOUR
Page 212 HESP II
- After Cromwellwon the war, the war pay was in arrears for 15 weeks for the foot units and 43 weeks for the horse units. Pay is the basis - money and accomplishment are the foundation - and the army refused to disband without settlement. Parliament was thinking of paying 6 weeks pay in lieu of full settlement. That monarchy was restored after Cromwell is indicated by the fact Parliament had no money to pay the victorious army. War is a non-productive act that spends. Society cannot sustain it for long. Production makes for social existence.
Page 212 HESP II
- The army on the Parliament side which petitioned its leaders for pay arrears desired the royal assent to the order. "The opposition survives on our support" is a maxim that is valid.
Page 272 HESP II
- Charles II relaxed the life of Puritan rigidity that punished adultery with death. He himself took several mistresses and ridiculed chastity and faithfulness. Emergence of democracyfor Monarch, its restoration to be the constitutional head is, among other things, facilitated by the easy morals adopted by Charles II. Democracy cannot be rigid. It seeks certain laxity to preside over its functions.
Page 28 HESP I Daily Bath in England
- "As for baths, they were completely lost till the middle of the nineteenth century. In all this long, bleak intervening gap, cold and dirt clung to the most fortunate and highest in the land"
- The Indian who made cleanliness next to Godliness kept his outside dirty and filthy. He also collected psychological falsehoodwhile the Englishman collected DIRT on his person but kept his word inviolate, pure, one of TRUTH.
Page 51 Ibid
- Churchill says in the 4th Century migrations to Englandgrew. In that case, the progress of Britain in the next 1500 years may be due to the presence of several ethnic groups as we presently see in USA.
- Britain in a way resembled in the 4th century the America of today. She was the pioneer as she had been the melting pot of Europe.
Page 72 Ibid
- In the 8th Century the Vikingswho invaded Britain lived a luxurious life of bath, silks, beds, tents, beautiful women. If people that North can take bath, the Britons not taking bath was not due to cold.
- The human energy is spent in being truthful and just which was demanded by the formation of individuality. Somewhere the lack of energy should express. It did so in not taking bath. It is noteworthy that no bath was taken based on a belief advocated by the doctors. Hence it is the truthfulness of dirt.
Page 127 Ibid
- The wind which for six whole weeks did not blow blew when the bones of St. Edmond were brought to the shore in all military and religious pomp.
Page 171 Ibid
- The origin of Jury. Henry II used this institution of juryas a shield against the baronial influence. Any institution of democracyneeds checks and balances. These pages describe the political necessity that gave birth to Jury. Jury is an institution that keeps the court - the King - in touch with the people. The high-handedness of the feudal barons needs a restraint. The Jury served that purpose. Henry II actually gave life to that institution.
Page 322 Ibid
Henry V - 15th Century - was the first King of England to use English in his letters.
Page 880
‘Paul Johnson' Birth of the Modern World Society (World History). Most of the inventions were in the Napoleonic period. They were commercialised after the wars.
Page 1 Ibid
Louisiana was sold in 1803 by Napoleon at 4 cents an acre. So was sold 828,000 square miles to America. The cost was $ 15 Millions.
Page 849 Ibid
Bank of England, quite by accident, discovered in an unmarked chest thought to contain documents, £ 1.5 millions crammed into it..
Page 1 - Paul Johnson's Modern Times
Modern telescopes identified 43 seconds deviation in a century in the motions of the Planet Mercury. That is the precision science attempts. When details of this precision are exhaustively laid before our eyes, the law reveals itself even to a child.
Page 4 Ibid
Einstein says, "There is no absolute motion". To expand it : the totality, a physical phenomena is of such a character that it gives no basis for the introduction of the concept of "absolute motion".
Page 73-74
Churchill wanted Lenin and Trotsky to be captured and hanged. He said the Bolshevik tyranny was worse than any other of Huns or Tsars. Modern Times by Paul Johnson.
Page 21
- Paul Johnson's ‘The Birth of the Modern World Society 1815 - 1830. The British promoted their naval officers by birth, whims, influence and money. The American Navy did the same thing mostly by their records.
Page 231
- Paul Johnson ‘Modern Times', When Churchill invested in 1929 in the American shares he had no more experience than the corner store broker.
My thought
When Rome was civilized, Germany was barbaric. Not being able to destroy the empire, Germany developed other faculties to perfection : Music, Philosophy, perfection in physical skill. These developments could not cross the border of 100% perfection. Hence they can violently serve a smaller cause, often an opposite cause. Eastern Germany is emotional. Western part of it is more intellectual inclined to civilisation of France, Spain and England. The two wars were a result of failure of the emotion to neutralise itself. France is a country of dissipation because of wine and women. They have developed a highly intellectual French language at the cost of basic character. They have developed a high French culture devoid of basic morality. England was RIGID and is rigid bound by traditions. It has no spiritual roots. Hence rigidity becomes stone rigid. That qualifies them to go under water, but gives them extraordinary character, individual as well as collective. The dirt that physically stuck to them in 19th Century as the doctors warned against bath, prevented them from becoming Spiritual. As God has emerged in India in 1910 in the form of Indian Freedom in the subtle plane, both the wars could have been avoided, but there was NO leadership in West Europe. Sri Aurobindo had to choose the arch enemy of Indian Freedom to win the war. His was a FORCE that can accomplish even through the enemy. Had the West recognised USSR at its birth and adopted her socialist policies, USSR would not have become protective, isolated, violent, letting the peasant emotion rise in fulfilling the role of the industrial proletariat who was not there.
Page 71
Penderel Moon "Gandhi". Gandhiji suspended his satyagraha in South Africa when the Government was harassed by a railway strike. He said he would not harass the Government taking advantage of the strike. During 1942, Gandhiji refused the same argument from Rajaji. It is interesting to see that Gandhiji was truthful up to a point - railway strike - but when he was to play a role of the instrument of Truth in 1942, he chose to play into the hands of the hostile forces represented by Hitler. Adherence to Truth to the end is not given to the human instrument.
Page 103-105 Ibid
Moon feels, in spite of his great objectivity and sympathy for India, Jallianwala Bagh was the right movement of any civilised government in view of the behaviour of the population in the civil disobedience movement. He calls the event of violence to a British woman the "atrocities" of the Punjab and quotes the British public opinion that applauded Dyer and collected £20,000 to crown him. Objectivity cannot see patriotism and Patriotism cannot see the killing of the white population.
Page 118 Ibid
Gandhiji's emphasis was more on moral principles and abolition of untouchability than on Swaraj. When the order of priorities is Political independence first - it is natural that antagonisms to moral principles understood as moral fads arise. Hence the partition and communal carnage.
India was situated in a position of not being able to follow the natural priorities as in UK or USA, etc. because she had already attained spirituality. Now India is not seeking prosperity or knowledge as others but the revival of partial spirituality as the Integral Spirit.
Dr. Madusudan, a reader of Indian Express, who calls himself a philosopher - perhaps he teaches philosophy - says Truth, Time and Space are not defined in philosophy from the time of the Greeks. If this is true, it is a weapon in our hands to approach the thinkers of the world. The Great Depression that caused the catastrophic fall of agricultural prices all over the world must be studied in the light of Marx's prediction of capitalism dying its own natural death. Had the situation not been saved by the production for war, the Depression would have driven the world to socialism and communism. Two things can be studied.
1. The Depression was caused by the power of MONEYdetermining economics rather than production.
2. In post World War II the power of Money had gradually come under the political will while the service sector took over the leadership of economics. The post 1950 era could undermine the harmful effects of capitalism by several factors - welfare state that is an antidote to capitalism, regulation of money power which could have destroyed capitalism, technology that neutralizes the power of money, organizational power that can overtake the power of technology and the Value of the Individual that is a direct negation of capitalism.
- Gandhijiwas at the root of rooting out untouchability. It was more than essential for the progress of the nation. As usual in all cases in the mental plane, it was offset by his constructive programme.
- Harveyassumed the human body as a miniature of the universe and thus arrived at the idea of blood circulation.
- Paul Johnson "A History of the American People". Page 63. One cause of religious tolerance was land was in profusion, cultivators were scarce. The need to attract maximum number of settlers resulted in religious tolerance.
- Paul Johnson "Birth of the Modern" Page 324. William and Dorothy Wordsworth in 1797 sweetened their tea with honey instead of sugaras sugar was produced by the slaves.
Page 11 Barrington Moore "Social Origins'
Yeomen who were heroes of England in the sixteenth century were like the Kulaks of the Russians in the late 19th Century. The Kulaks were villains. Heroes of one period at one place are villains in another place at another time.
Ibid Page 11 - "the pre-capitalist and pre-individualist habits."
Individuality is presently the product of capitalism, though here it is seen in the narrow vital context.
Ibid Page 12
- Barrington Moore asks why old habitspersisted. Obviously, he cannot see the nature of physical habits. Here Moore gives a physical or factual explanation of what we will call the tenacity of physical habits. This is worth exploring, as we need to devise similar explanations for all physical, vital, mental, Spiritual habits.
- Commerce fostered democracy. Agriculture permitted monarchy, is a theme of Barrington Moore.
Ibid Page 13 - footnote
- The last peasant revolt in England was in 1607 - a sure sign of the country taking to commerce and industry that were the basis of Democracy.
- Cromwell was a brewer. It is only in liquor one makes quick money which raises a man above the old order. In India, quick money is made in liquor and they dominate politics - My own observation.
- Newer institutions act as reconciling agents between opposing old and new institutions - Moneyplays this role.
1. Between the two world wars, Britain & USA financed Germany. Money was used for repayment and rearmament.
2. Barrington Moore in ‘Social Origins' on Page 18 speaks of this role of money by which the Parliamentary side financed the Royal side while the Parliament cut off the head of Charles I.
3. My rent to C.S. Narasimhan energised my opposition. The offerings to the Ashram strengthened opposition to me.
Page 22 Ibid
- The civil war in England, in contrast to French Revolution, strengthened the hands of richer landlords. The emergence of commerce neutralizes the forces of destructive revolution.
Page 65 - Paul Johnson ‘A History of the American People'.
- Planning was defeated by the individualism of the Americans.
- Docile European peasant was an anachronism here
- Yeoman of England, producing marketable surplus, found USAtheir paradise.
The phenomenon of individuality is more American than European. Particularly the Puritans were for Government interference and they were against individualism. (Page 67)
Individualism does not believe so much in God as others. They believed in their own effort. (Page 67)
Penderel Moon, ‘Gandhi and the Modern World' - Page 222
Early in December 1941 all satyagrahis were released - Pearl Harbour was on December 7. When those who opposed co-operation to war were released, war spread to USA.
Barrington Moore 'Social Origins' - Page 353
India was peaceful between 1857 and 1947 in sharp contrast to the world. They were the years of his lifetime.
Ibid Page 385
Indian agriculture stagnated as the cities had not reached them to infuse fresh life. Agriculture flourishes by urban life.
Barrington Moore (in Amazon books review)
He found to his surprise that violent efforts to eradicate the ‘impure' were largely absent before substantial western influence. The French Revolution, he says, perfected terror and secularized purity. Protestants and Catholics massacred each other in Europe over their control of purity.
We know India is disunited, poor, and even independence has not brought Prosperity. What we do not know are
1. During His lifetime India was peaceful while no other country was.
2. The world wars left India unscathed (Churchill)
3. The bloodshed in Partitionwas in place of a decade long civil war towards which the country was heading in 1947.
4. Her oppressed classes have not sought revolution which all other countries sought, by choosing to evolve availing of legal and social opportunities.
5. Her social oppressors - Brahmins- were spared tyranny by Grace.
6. Studying the history of the world, we see even the USA -- a nation known for assimilating immigrants from all over the world -- had to pass through a civil war to liberate the Blacks. It will be a rewarding exercise in spiritual thinking if we compare (1) India with other leading nations and (2) the period of 1872-2004 with similar periods in the life of other nations and discover the active Presence of Grace. I expect India to be the first country to skip the agriculture phase and partly the phase of manufacturing and directly enter into Prosperity. Sri Aurobindo's Force and Mother's work have transformed every defect of India into its counterpart of perfection. This study will be able to let us know the future till 3000 AD,
- Barrington Moore "Social Origins" Page 142
The Civil War emancipated the slaves of the South who would not revolt - No wonder for over a hundred years they are poor. Only their own aspiration can raise them.
- According to Paul Johnson, this Modern World Society was born during the period of 1815-30, soon after the downfall of Napoleon. We see after Sri Aurobindo attained Samadhi and Mother also left, the World Society has entered a period of boom.
Page 357 - Paul Johnson ‘Birth of the Modern'
- He says Wordsworthwas nervous. He was appointed as Stamp Collector (Present Postmaster) on £ 400 a year really yielding £ 200
Page 358
Wordsworth initially supported the French Revolution and later withdrew the support because of the excesses
Ibid Page 360
The romantic movement heightened the sensibility all around especially sensibility to poverty. London starkly contrasted the riches and poverty.
Ibid 360 - 364
The last of famines in England was in 1815, in Europe 1830. England took all possible measures during the famine years of 1794 - 1801 to ward off revolution. Prosperity came because of the war against Napoleon.
Page 413 Barrington Moore ‘Soviet Politics - The dilemma of Power'.
As Churchill said, Moore also says the English refused to have any firm belief in first principles. - Maybe as practical men they refused to be philosophical.
Page 2
- Barrington Moore, "Authority & Inequality"
He says conceptual clarity is possible only after he has learned something. He pleads for conceptual consistency. (The importance of theory is underlined here, more than anywhere.)
- Page 55 Barrington Moore "Tolerance & The Scientific Outlook"
Moore accepts insights of literature and philosophy as part of science.
Page 368 Paul Johnson's ‘Birth of the Modern'
British Army prescribed 1000 lashes as punishment.
Page 403 ‘Critical Spirit' - Essay by Barrington Moore
By the seventh decade of the twentieth century, poverty has ceased to be objective physical necessity, if such it ever was.
Page 81 Paul Johnson "The History of the American People"
A man accused of witchcraft unjustly, refused to confess. He was pressed to death by heavy stones for contempt of court. This was the only instance of using this clause of Law.
Page 82 Ibid
Newton's library was full of books on astrology.
Page 88 Ibid
In 1741 eleven hundred Blacks were burned at the stake on the suspicion of a conspiracy.
Page 93 Ibid
A lot of phony statistics passed across the Atlantic in the 18th Century - not for the last time either.
A note from Internet E = Mc 2
- The equation of Einsteinwas simultaneously discovered by many others. It aroused jealousy in scientific circles. Poincare would not recognize it, himself being a leading mathematician of France.
Page 96 Ibid Paul Johnson
- In America hoggs sheepbefore their first shearing -- were fed better than duchesses in England.
Page 403 Paul Johnson "Birth of the Modern"...
- British election expenses in 1830 were huge - £ 150,000 - which is comparable with modern US Presidential elections.
- Of the £ 112,000 raised as subscription for fighting the election, the unused part of £ 84,000 was returned to the donors.
- Cartier Bressonsaw Gandhi falling dead 15 minutes after he met Gandhiji(Indian Express). Ramana Maharshidied on the very day he took a photo of him (check for its correctness).
- Page 2 - Rupert Lee "The Eureka! Moment"
British textbooks rarely mention the second industrial revolution perhaps because it was done by USA & Germany - British Prejudice.
- Page 3 ibid
Scientific research moved away from being a one-man pursuit to become teamwork, in scientific research in 1907 when Rutherford started this - a movement towards the small collective, destroying one man's ego.
Two examples on Page 3 and Page 4.
1. Watson & Crick could discover the structure of DNA as they employed a team while Rosalind Franklin, though more brilliant, failed, as she worked on her own.
2. The Manhattan Project for atom bomb was a team. Germans worked individually and failed even at the theoretical level.
- As soon as the Cold War ended, Internetcame on the scene. No one has power over Internet. Eg. Martin Luther and printing. Internet is global and is the penultimate step for world union. (Robert Van Harten)
Page 419 Paul Johnson's ‘Birth of the Modern'
Next to France, Scotland had been the chief forcing house of the European Enlightenment.
Page 422 Ibid
Scottish intellectuals were called vulgar names by the best minds of England.
Page 425 Ibid
Circulating libraries were a Scots innovation of 1728.
Page 425 Ibid
Historical consciousness was a striking feature of the age and a sign of modernity.
Page 426 Ibid
Disraeli read Pride & Prejudice at least 16 times.
Page 431 Ibid
- The pay of the editor of The Times in 1815 was £ 2000/- a year.
- Tocqueville in his ‘Democracy in America' page 26 says the Americans have greater love of moneythan elsewhere - Money has power, wealth has status. Concentrating on its Power, Money can accomplish more. This is one reason for the greater accomplishment of the Americans. It is a country where no one will concede a higher status to another by birth, as there was none. Naturally one saw the value of Money and used it.
Page 107 Paul Johnson ‘A History of the American People'.
Mobs are easily formed. Mobs ruled. There was no police to control. Militia was there. Members of the militia were in the mob. Eg. What the Archdeacon said, "Mob in USA, Jupiter in England rule".
Page 108 Ibid
America has been the lowest taxed country. It remains so even now.
Page 111 Ibid
Preachers in USA in the 18th Century dwelt not on God's anger but on his JOY - It is natural that God's anger leads to fear in Europe and joy leads to Prosperity in USA.
Page 629 Ibid
At Harvard Charles William Eliot entered his 40 year tenure as President of the College.
Page 639 Ibid
USA became the richest country since the Civil War. Income tax came in 1913. War is a benefactor always.
Page 638 Ibid
Income tax in USA ranged from 1% to 7%.
Page 647 Ibid
US army rose from 200,000 to 4 Million in World War I.
Page 648 Ibid
The American delegation at Versailles was most informed.
Page 652 Ibid
Lippman disapproved of the Versailles Treaty.
Page 654, 655 Ibid
Wilson's three strokes were suppressed and Mrs. Wilson was ‘President' for 18 months. Still he hoped to serve for a third term. Power will not be given up on their own.
Page 657 Ibid
American woman got the vote in several states (5) from 1869, 1870, 1883, 1893 and 1896. But overall they were 2 years behind the British women.
Page 667 Ibid
The real American is a fusion of all races.
Page 680 Ibid
Prohibition in USA has become a total failure and helped the anti-social forces organize more efficiently underground - An excellent illustration of the truth that a society cannot be organized against its will as it is the society that organises through its will - the administration.
Page 681 Ibid
- Torrio, the organizer of bootlegging made $30 million and retired to Italy. Al Capone was his assistant. He was less political minded and sought violent solutions, but this led to a decline.
- Bootleggers operated with the approval of the public.
- The grand vast success of the bootleggers was due to the fact that they followed the principles of business which are universally valid.
- Bootleggers bribed the entire administration at all levels in proportion to their importance - Paul Johnson calls this the political approach.
Page 689 Ibid
- Lenin made his famous remark on Communism on reading a book by a German scientist advocating an ‘all-electric State". This was the background for Los Angeles to be built as a big city.
- ‘Electricityis the road to health, wealth, happiness of mankind' was the slogan in California. This is true of many major inventions. Now it is very apt to computer and Internet.
Page 691 Ibid
Hollywood citizens petitioned to oust movie-making there. Hollywood became a city of films because movie-making was cheap there, the cost was almost half.
Page 693 Ibid
- America has vast natural potential. This page explains how daring men achieved vastly there - Mother is an infinite spiritual potential. She is open to our adventure.
- Somewhere there is a reference that music is for the war and there was talk that it should be banned elsewhere.
Page 695-703 Ibid
These pages implicitly explain that America is a new nation out of the world population working out a great synthesis. Its main first outcome is human ingenuity seen in great abundance of overflowing PROSPERITY. These pages explain the negative side of the social experiment. Whether the positive effects have emerged at all is not known.
Page 701 Ibid
It is an American characteristic to make verbs out of nouns: itemise.
Page 704 Ibid
Lillian Russell, an actress with debts, multiple husbands and numerous lovers campaigned for New York Mayor on moral platform - Indian politicians speak of corrupt ministers.
Page 705 Ibid
- The electric microphone arrived in 1925
- They could not eliminate the Blacksfrom the movement of music, it was a failure - Here is a trend, we must locate it and all such trends too.
Page 712, 713 Ibid
In 1923 Coolidge was to be sworn in as President on the death of the President. He was at his father's farm. There was no phone, no electricity, and Post Office was 2 miles away. President's Secretary and Attorney General sent telegrams of the Oath. Coolidge was administered the Oath by his father, a Notary using a kerosene lamp.
Page 715 Ibid
- Coolidge, like Queen Elizabeth I, was a believer in masterly inactivity - Inactivity in a nation of abundant potentialities is creativity. The creativity of Elizabeth was in poetry. In USA it is the creativity of productivity.
- Coolidge as well as Elizabeth believed in strategies of Silence.
Page 716 Ibid
Coolidge says inspiration has always come from above.
Page 718 Ibid
When more money comes, governments as well as families, spend it first on education. Money is vital. Education is mental.
Page 720 Ibid
While Coolidge was President of USA sometimes he used to call people by ringing a bell and hide under the table to enjoy their sense of mystification.
Page 721 Ibid
Coolidge lost a son and father while he was President. He thought his father was overtaxed by his own Presidency. His firing a secret service agent who was guiltless was, according to him, the reason of the loss of his son - Seat of Power attracts the attention of forces inimical to it. As he is only a son of a Colonel, this may be true.
Page 724 Ibid
In 1929, USA's production was 34% of the world production, while the next best was Britain with 10% - The crash was MAN made, at least MONEY made.
Page 727 Ibid
The cause of the Great Depression remained unknown.
Page 731 Ibid
Ford had a mechanical strategy, Sloan a consumer strategy which is also mechanical - We must resort to a mental spiritual one.
Page 734 Ibid
- Bankers, businessmen, Wall Street experts, academic economists failed to understand the system.
- Keynes did not predict the crash or its duration.
- This was the second crash, the first being in 1825. As it is something of their creation, they cannot be aware of it. An initiative needs dynamism which means self-oblivion. An action requires energy of self-forgetful dynamism.
Page 744 Ibid
Paul Johnson says history has chronology, no logic or justice. Without the theory, one cannot see the logic of life.
Page 745, 746 Ibid
American Press indulged in deliberate falsehood publishing use of tanks, poison gas, bayoneting veterans - The capacity of the press for falsehood or truth is a measure of democracy getting established.
Page 617 Ibid
Churchill did not stand up when ladies came into the room - a subconscious resentment of his mother.
Page 750, 751 Ibid
Roosevelt had great capacities to manipulate a system as only he is in it - It comes from a knowledge of the system. Analysis from the first principles enables one to know the system.
Page 752 Ibid
Paul Johnson calls Roosevelt lucky - always lucky. To know it is not luck but the working of conscious policy is theoretical knowledge.
Page 751 Ibid
Hoover and Roosevelt were mean to each other. Hoover made FDR painfully wait on his crutches. FDR denied Hoover the bodyguard of Secret Service while his life was in danger.
Page 757 Ibid
Paul Johnson is severely prejudiced against FDR and New Deal. He discusses the view of Pro-FDR, Pro Hoover economists and speaks his own idea - The crash was manmade. Johnson never discusses Marxist view. New Deal did work a miracle. War came to the rescue because WAR is the worst expression of capitalism maturing into Imperialism. A minor disaster of capitalism - Depression - was overcome by a major disaster - war. The remedy for monetary meddling is public spending. The basic remedy is to abolish Stock Exchange or curb it. A deeper remedy is to abolish private property.
Page 758 Ibid
- Johnson notes that Hitlerand Rooseveltcame to power simultaneously - This coincidence needs to be thought about.
- Because Chamberlainwas unwilling to fight Hitler, Nature created a Roosevelt who would build all the planes Chamberlain would not build. This is Nature's way of destroying the British Empire, destruction of the physical by the rising vital.
Page 762 Ibid
The severely INDIVIDUAL American turned to the state for help.
The American individualism degenerated into arrogant independence wanting the government not to tax, not to enforce law. The slump sorely made them aware of the existence of the collective and its necessity to help. This is an evolutionary landmark.
The 50 or 60 vulgar abuses Johnson quotes against FDR primarily show his filthy mind and his intense hatred of success. That such a mind can produce so many FACTS show how objective the field has grown. It is the climax of popular vulgarity actuated by jealousy.
Page 763 Ibid
American wiseacre saying, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation" meaning in the election whoever wins Maine will win the Presidency. If this is true (and if such constituencies exist in other countries) it is worth studying them, as prototype of the Democrats in the House were 334 to 890 and Senate 75 to 17.
- Johnson is unpardonably venomous. His British prejudice against Russia, Napoleon, France and USA is filthy.
Page 769 Ibid
Pearl Harbour and World War II were not anticipated by Roosevelt or his administration - Obviously they were non-political national (local) leaders like Chamberlain.
Page773 Ibid
In 1930 US Army was the 16th in the World. It had one car which the Chief of Staff General Macarthur used - Perhaps USA had concentrated on her production and cities not on the Army.
Page777 Ibid
War was avoidable. Neither US, nor UK was aware of the possibility. They were unpardonably drifting - The subtle truth that WWII was avoidable is brought out by historical facts. It is characteristic that it is not the objectivity that brings it out but the cynical prejudice of Johnson for everyone except the Britain. It is easily seen that both the wars were avoidable, but there was no historically aware idealistic unselfish leadership in the world. It was for Sri Aurobindo to fight the wars in the subtle plane. Humanity needed the experience of destroying 50 million men for the physical to yield.
Page 780 Ibid
Invasion of India, Australia, US was never seriously attempted by Japan after Pearl Harbour - India because HE was here and USA as she was the evolutionary spearhead were spared by Japan. Why Australia was spared is not known unless she is too unformed to be taken notice of.
Page 781 Ibid
- US military efficiency reduced 3 months repairing work to 48 hours - Asian development can take on that efficiency if the Spirit awakes.
- Small ingenuities that excel world's performance.
- Devised a special trestle costing $ 1.4 million which poured 36 million tons of concrete.
- Erected the biggest cement plant in six months.
- All European nations were to US productive capacity as India is to the West now.
- The war economy with the state as the biggest purchaser and consumer was the natural sequel to the New Deal and rescued it from oblivion - The boom of 1929 was the boom of capitalist entrepreneurship which would have spread as a wave of Prosperity in the 30s all over the world. The meddling of Money Power converted into the Depression. War is the military expression of capitalist economic Depression. So war came, continued the boom before and after the war for 60 years. Nature lets man go his way, die in 50 million bodies, LEARN to practice SELF-GIVING (Marshall Plan), invent computerand Internet, enter the plane of subtle knowledge. Every country rose to this stupid occasion by putting up appropriate attitudes. Gandhi was the Indian symbol with Jinnah a counterpart. To discover the attitude of each nation and the leader who rose to this occasion is a good study.
- FDR created the phrase ‘Arsenal of Democracy' signifying the building of the world's largest cement plant, the first integrated steel mill - Pockets of production were the arsenals of democracy. Money and Wealth are the foundations of accomplishment.
- The first Liberty Ship they built took 196 days. Kaiser cut it to 27 days. By 1943 he was producing one every 10.3 hrs. Shipbuildingwas reduced to 10.3 hours from 196 days, more than 400 times. Physical Infinity.
- It is not easy to exhaust the physical infinity which is achieved only when the Supermind descends on the material physical. Ascent to any height is possible before such exhaustion. That is why anything is possible at any time if a determined right effort is made.
Page 782 Ibid
- Note the codebreaking intelligence is equal in the war effort to the productive powers described on Page 781. GE in 1942 alone raised the production of marine turbines from 1 Million dollars to $300 million. I believe Sri Aurobindo gave it to the British through Churchill.
Page 784 Ibid
- It was during the war tht for the first time Federal money was used for scientific researches in the universities.
- War is an occasion for amazing progress.
Page 786 Ibid
Marshall & Eisenhower were strategists, organisers, trainers, never commanded an army in the battlefield. They thus spent their time with politicians - By this experience they could separate by distinction the political process and decision making.
Page 786 Ibid
In World War I there were bitter rows that were destructive between politicians and generals. It was absent in World War II - It is by maturity of warfare, Generals such as Marshall and Ike who never commanded an army in the battlefield spent all their time with politicians and were thus seasoned.
Page 789 Ibid
- FDRlacked the clarity of Churchill
- Eisenhowerwould not take a political view in the war, which the British Montgomery advised, with the result Russia first reached Berlin - Page 788.
- FDR took Stalinat face value.
- His ambassador felt Stalin was genuine, a child would like to sit on his lap.
- New York Times believed in the sincerity of Stalin. During war, opinions are swayed by the war effort. Radhakrishnan said Stalin was a great man. It is true in the war Russia bore the brunt of it.
Page 790 Ibid
- FDR bypassed his own State Department and Churchill, and trusting Stalin, gave him what was not his.
FDR naively believed that Stalin was not an expansionist.
talin brutally killed 30 million people to make Russia industrialised and a Superpower. Compare it with the millions dead in USAto reclaim the land for cultivation -- 3 in 4 per acre died. It should be several times more. Without human sacrifice, no human accomplishment is possible, much less human freedom.
Pages 792-798 Ibid
- To Johnson, Truman who was the tail of Pendergast was honest, as he was poor even when the whole Pendergast team was jailed - In politics, particularly American politics, one is ‘honest' not because he is honest but the society does not put the stigma of dishonesty on him.
- Truman: Strength is followed by weakness, charisma is followed by flatness, the world Spirit is followed by emptiness, Greatnessis followed by smallness is a law of life which moves in a succession of crest followed by trough.
Nehru was followed by Shastri, Churchill by Atlee and Eden, Indira and Rajiv by V.P. Singh, Gandhiji by Nehru, Napoleon by Louis XVI, Roosevelt by Truman confirms the rule.
Page 798 Ibid
- Truman's connection with Pendergast was turned to his advantage by ‘Time' magazine - when the national requirement is for an empty personality, ‘Time' exonerates Truman. That is the power of time and rasi.
- Truman's ascendancy is the empty common man's ascendancy. During the ascent, all ‘sins' are condoned by life. If the ascent is from a lower depth, the sin is transformed into a virtue as corruption is in India now.
Page 818 Ibid
For unknown reasons, Stalin voted in favour of the creation of Israel - Is it a sign of anti-socialism becoming weak?
Page 819 Ibid
At the end of the war, 90% of the US population favoured continued rationing if food had to go to Europe or Asia to feed the hungry there.
Page 821 Ibid
As US aid flowed out, anti-Americanism increased.
Page 830 Ibid
- Eisenhowerdisliked generals in politics. He ordered a few of them out of the Chicago convention.
- He ran balanced budgets.
- He believed price stability is the best social security.
- American boom, he believed, would spread all over the world and it was the best antidote to the Cold War. This was a fact of world economy and world politics.
He was strongly against generals and arms industry guiding politics.
In this sense, his years were the halcyon years. A nation or the world can be prosperous and stable either way (1) on the principles of welfare (2) on the principles of MAN taking care of himself. Eisenhower believed and practised the latter successfully and that explains how he played golf for long. When both combine, the nation rises further. It is worth discovering whether it happened and whether the computer and Internet were the technological medium for that theory of social development.
Page 836 Ibid
Eisenhower believed that if he ignored and belittled McCarthy's Red witch hunting, the Senator would eventually destroy himself. Eventually Eisenhower was proved right. Rajaji ignored Periyar wiping out the Hindi names in the railway stations. Make a list of such historical events, at least 100. (Page 837) McCarthy died of alcoholism when he pushed his campaign to CIA and later to the Army. - Virulence of weakness destroys itself. Virulence of strength will destroy the opponent. In 1959 Periyar was successfully ignored but in 1967 DMK came to power with the support of Rajaji
Page 837 Ibid
Upward mobility was the aim of USA - It is this one aim and the full opportunities that could be freely pursued that absorbed ALL the new energies the creation of USA released. The Civil War was the one exception. It was there because the Blacks had no strong urge to become free. The North took upon itself the goal of freeing the Negroes, an artificial aim. All wars and Revolutions are violent because of their artificiality. A small elite wanting to accomplish on behalf of an entire population is the cause of Revolutions as well as wars.
Page 837 Ibid
Eisenhower appointed Charles -- the Chairman of GM -- as Defence Secretary. Robert McNamara, President of Ford, was made the Defence Secretary by Kennedy. T.S. Krishna of TVS was drafted as Joint Secretary by the Viceroy during the war
Page 838 Ibid
Explains how the collective subordinates the Individual and blunts the Individuality's intransigence.
Page 839 Ibid
Fulton, a famous evangelist, received 10,000 letters a day, equal to what Indira received when she was Prime Minister.
Page 845 Ibid
- Eisenhower was the oldest man in the White House, the cry was for youth - Age alternates with youth especially when the age of age passes away.
- Prudent men commit folly - Such folly is the door the present opens on the future.
Page 846 Ibid
George Washington was the first and the last President to deny the right to others to shake hands with him. To avoid shaking hands he bowed.
Page 847 Ibid
Nixon's political achievements were great. Still the media ran him down. Mother called him a brute and removed him - What do we learn from it? Full maturity in old consciousness and success there would not qualify one for the new consciousness.
Page 848 Ibid
Kennedy's father knew that to secure political power one needs an enormous fortune. Many have come to power without that fortune but it is a truism that that fortune is the foundation of accomplishment. He did succeed in making Kennedy President.
Page 849 Ibid
Kennedy was not interested in money while money was all to his father - A natural result in the second generation.
Money value is for the FIRST question of progress.
Vietnam War
- Sri Aurobindo says it was USA saving the world from communism.
- US went there to bolster up a dummy government.
- For the Viet Minh, it was a patriotic freedom fight.
- Millions of US soldiers could not overcome the patriotic guerillas.
- Nixon reconciled with China and Vietnam war stopped.
- Here we see USA serving the evolutionary goal through imperialistic methods.
- To study in detail the right vibration emerging out of an unholy mix is our job.
- Nixon'srole (the role of an arch reactionary) here is to be understood as how Mother uses a negative instrument for a positive result, as Sri Aurobindo used Winston Churchill.
- Watergate& Clinton's exposure
No longer can individuals lead the nation. Only law and rule matter. Therefore, life exposes leaders at their vulnerable points which are universally present.
- The Republicansrepresent the early settlers who relied only on themselves, resented law and were horrified by the idea of tax. The Democrats represent the ideal of the welfare state. The extraordinary popularity of Eisenhower, Reagan and the success of Bush and his son show the vitality of individualism. The popularity of FDR, Kennedy, Carter and the prosperity of Clinton's years show the meaningfulness of an organized state. The individualism of USA should dissolve in the emerging state. If the Brahminswill not give up rituals, the society will go ahead keeping them outside or on the margin.
- In Paul Johnson, one sees the anxiety to plead for a lost cause, like the Brahmins of India. Trollopeespoused the cause of aristocratic values when aristocracy LOST all the power and gave up their own values. It was a lost cause. What is to be preserved is the value of aristocracy, not the aristocracy. As a historian, Johnsonamassed FACTS, an act of loyalty to truth at the physical level, but actively organises falsehood of all types to bolster the cause of Ike & Reagan. He discovers values in Reagan! Nature compels Reagan who builds up armaments to sign for DISARMAMENT. You may be Spiritual, you may be a war hero or an aristocrat, you may espouse the higher cause like communism or Catholicism, but when you try to make the part whole, you become the centre of organized FALSEHOOD. Truth is a whole, expresses itself in the whole, not in the part.
Page 950 Ibid
- The legal profession is overcrowded. Each further lawyer entering the profession reduced US GDP by 2.5 million dollars. If this is so when lawyers are in short supply, each additional person entering should increase the GDP. Extend the argument to the unemployed and fresh employment.
Page 961 Ibid
- About 2 billion people use Englishas their first, second or commercial language. They use the American idiom.
- English immigrants speak it as first language. Colonies speak it as second language. Traders with USA learn it as commercial language.
Page 974 Ibid
- Women-owned business were expanding more rapidly than the economy as a whole - Mother says women can handle money better than men.
- Downward mobilitycompletes the upward mobility making the approach to society a whole. It is horrible to think of.
- For monarchy, democracywas a downward mobility. Universal education, removal of the priest as an intermediary, treating the physical man as equal, leveling of income, emancipation of women, insurance that pays for one man's misfortune, scientist offering his discovery for all to be used, medicine that fights the disease, inheritance of father's property and all progress so far made are movements of downward mobility. Now making all language slang, allowing drug addiction, perversities of all kinds, gambling, etc. are on a footing of war where man has proudly died for the nation - where he was forced at bayonet's point to fight - etc.
Page 125 Ibid
- By continental standards, Britain is a liberal state.
Page 132 Ibid
- Evading custom was a universal passion in England for rich and poor - The physical man has the physical value of possessions.
Page 152 Ibid
- George Washingtonrefused a salary to lead the Army and asked only for the expenses.
- The value that a serviceshould be rendered FREE is a value of the old culture, a culture of non-money economy, as people felt insulted by their names in the press in the beginning of the press.
Page 167 Ibid
- Britainlost America, but the war boosted British economy and the country was ushered into the Industrial Revolution - This is a great theme worth researching into especially because Johnson says all the aristocrats who helped USA lost.
Page 169 Ibid
- Slaves in USA lived twice as long as in Africa. America got her freedom but inherited slaves- Where the greatest freedom is to flower, the lowest form of slavery existing is one natural condition.
Page 205 Ibid
The English Parliament began its proceedings every day with a prayer.
Page 236 Ibid
John Taylor, a Senator in 1800, felt paper money robbed the farmer as the feudal lord and priest tyrannised over him - The truth here is very little. This passage is an eloquent argument about the real value of paper money. Marx belonged to this category.
Page 248 Ibid
The pay of US President in 1800 was $ 25,000 a year.
Page 249 Ibid
In his time (c.1800) labourers worked for a dollar a day. The then rupee equivalent may be Rs. 3¾ - it is an unknown - Even if it is Re.1/-, compare Indian conditions of 6 paisa a day. Two things are responsible for this 16 times or 50 times higher wages. (1) Their capacity to work (2) The virgin lands and a social life of all opportunities, whereas in India it was the life of a subject nation. In U.K. it was one shilling, i.e. 75 paisa. At $1=3.75 the US wages were 5 times higher. At Re.1/- it is 30% more.
Page 250 Ibid
- Jeffersonreplied all his letters himself, opened them himself, filed them also. Except the abusive ones, all were paid for and taken care of. Duke of Wellington answered thousands of letters in his own head, by the same post.
- The only time a Supreme Court Justice was impeached was in 1804. It failed. In Indian history Ramasamy of Punjab High Court was impeached. There was nil vote in favour. He was a very corrupt judge from Ramnad district.
Page 253 Ibid
Means - justified - the -- end - manner.
Page 263 Ibid
The first successful submarine dived 25 feet, sank a French ship for the British.
Page 264 Ibid
The first steamship was in 1814 in USA.
Page 188 - ‘Birth of Modern' Paul Johnson
Each transition as from agriculture to commerce offers matchless opportunities for the lowest to rise to the highest.
Page 274 - ‘A History of the American People' Paul Johnson.
The military skill of the Indians against the Americans was astonishing.
Page 278 Ibid
- "Castlereagh was the first British statesman to recognize USAas an entity in existence" - This was in 1814. From 1776 to 1814, it took 38 years for USA to win an external recognition.
- One who has known the Process of Creationwill benefit by knowing it again in the territorial expansion in the British Empire and in the economic empire of USA, as both are well documented. That knowledge will assume a concrete shape if he has discovered the same Process inside as an expression of his own conscious progress.
Page 285 Ibid
- Each bank was permitted to issue 3 times its capital, but they issued limitlessly.
- My belief is this three times which Bernard raised to 9 and others to 15 has now become 100 or even 1000. Moneyrealistically multiplies with the growing organisations with which it integrates. This is true of education, health, strength, ease of communication and every other thing.
Page 300 Ibid
- Americanshave the profound conviction that every problem has its solution - Absence of political restraint and the restraint of class and experience based on it has generated this idea. Karmain India, Fatalism in Europe have come out of social stratification. In US, it is absent. (This country has no name, nameless. They call it United States).
Page 307 Ibid
- Cottonis twice more costly in labour than silk, 5 times more than linen, 10 times more than wool. Price of cotton came down in 100 years to 1%, a record in history (Page 308).
- Value is SOCIAL is clearly seen here. We value silk more than cotton now because of its price.
Page 309 Ibid
- America was a place (in 1812?) where an industrial worker could save enough in 3 years to buy a farm.
- Today in India people own a house which in earlier times they could do only after retirement. Another argument that Indiais in the phase USA was in in 1860.
Page 310 Ibid
- By 1850, British experts found the labour saving machines in USA were superior to Britain's.
Page 343 Ibid
- One of the most fascinating aspects of history is the way power shifts from formal to informal institutions. Peggychanged USA - That is how the negative is absorbed into the positive. Power shifts from royalty to palace, Parliament to Secretariat, leaders to the press, production centres to banks, the ruling party to sundry brokers, husband to wife. The book illustrates how a spirited lady Peggy, accused of widespread adultery determined the course of politics in USA in 1800.
Page 353 Ibid
- Jackson declared war on the Central Bank and paralysed the financial system (Page 351).
Page 363 Ibid
- The American prosperityis due mainly to agriculture.
- Man is on his OWN. Naturally his motivation is the greatest.
Page 365 Ibid
- Until the 1850s, the United States was essentially a country of four occupational groups, farmers, planters, fishermen and peddlers.
Page 377 ibid
- Oregon and California, were with Mexico. All were expressions of land hunger, which goes with boom in agriculture - Agriculture generates a passion to possess LAND. Trade generates an urge to possess the power over the market, which is the impulse of Imperialism. Mind wants to conquer ideas, which is still a very feeble vibration in the world. Spirit's desire to possess is to GIVE of itself.
Page 380 Ibid
- Johnson justifies USA'swar with Mexico saying it is the civilised America restoring from the uncivilized Mexico as much territory as possible - The same argument Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, and the Muslims have advocated. Nehru denounced the spread of communism. Can he do so to Asoka's conquest of Asia? Or democracyspreading? What is the rule, is there a rule? Yes, when INVITED any ideal can go anywhere, not thrust itself on others. In such rules, there must be an essential everlasting value. Elizabeth's advice was it is no good having a good memory in affairs like that of Darcy and Wickam. Johnson is as rational as Elizabeth.
Page 389 Ibid
- Alexis de Tocqueville was commissioned to write a report on prisons in USA. He was not paid. It was the American prisons that attracted all nations (Page 389).
Page 391 Ibid
- De Tocquevillesays that the vast majority of US citizens - vaster than any other country in the world - are better informed about freedom, liberty, laws, etc. This he says is due to widespread education.
Page 392 Ibid
- USAhad the highest literacy rate, higher even than Europe.
Page 394 Ibid
- Germany had in 1860 the best of universities.
Page 401 Ibid
- The word ‘Americanism' was coined in 1802 - There was no America for a long time. It was United States. Even USA is weighted on the side of the states uniting, not on the personality of America yet.
- Before 1802, America had not ‘existed' for England. The coinage of this phrase is their first negative recognition of America. Ignoring - negative recognition - positive recognition - repudiation - imitationare successive stages of the recognition of the new.
Page 402 Ibid - American English
- ‘Talented' is an archaic word resurrected by USA.
- ‘Keep a stiff upper lip' is their coinage
There are about 20 examples.
Page 404 Ibid
- Cooper owned in New York State 750,000 acres, perhaps the largest single holding in the world.
- America was NOT a nation for centuries. Life developed locally. Even States were not in the minds of the local population though they rallied around the State. There was NO Centre in any sense until after the Civil War. It is better to study USAas a population struggling to emerge as a nation. Much of those characteristics are there even now in various sectors.
- Slavery has an economic justification for the slave owners. The slaveshave a stake in being slaves as they are better off as slaves than as free men back in Africa. As untouchability and devadasi children are being released from boycott and odium in India, the salves in the world should be freed. Perhaps Nature has chosen USA for that. It is characteristic that the slaves in the South and in general all over USA did not rise in revolt against slavery. The white North was espousing their cause. The oppressed silently supports oppression.
Page 429 Ibid
Sex played a major part in slavery. - Page 430. Brooks, a young senator attacked Sumner an elderly Southern Senator with a cane. The House censured Brooks who resigned but was triumphantly reelected and was presented with hundreds of canes [This is an important point, if not for social theory, to a deeper understanding; Sex is a bar in the transition.] Sex is the symbol of resistance in progress.
Page 431 Ibid
The price of the slaves steadily increased - This shows that it is a profitable institution well established. Civil War then was fought not against a decadent institution but a flourishing one. So Man is fighting against something part of him. They are (1) an economic benefit and (2) an enjoyment of sex. Those who work on land and produce so very much cannot meet all their physical requirements from sophisticated families. They need something down to earth. The Negroes are known to be capable of this.
Page 434 Ibid
The resentment of the South towards North is exactly the same as the Third World felt towards the First World.
Page 452 Ibid
Johnson peeps into the realms of ideas by the weight of material he handles. He says ‘Davis was self-indoctrinated; he had a passion for certitude' - To see the passion for belief leads to an intensifying the doctrine of his faith, Johnson wrote a dozen books, having read at least 10,000 books. Mental clarity sees it straight away. Concentration gives that clarity.
Page 453 Ibid
Davis believed the South to be moral, the North to be hypocritical. Emotions do not permit the formation of hypocrisy, sophistication does. Emotions can change into hatred, not into insincerity. Mind alone is capable of insincerity, not the vital or the body. The arguments for and against slavery are the same the vital has against its better interest, either the mental or the greater vital. The arguments of DMK against the centre since 1940 are of this nature. The materialists of today - the scientists - have the same problem with consciousness in another fashion, in the same spirit. The North developed the Mind of America whose vital and body were the South.
Page 462 Ibid
- The Northwas overwhelmingly superior. The South wages the war taking initiative - This is characteristic of emotional reasons.
- Coming to the New World, the South tries to revive the old world.
- Most civil wars were lost by one side running out of money. The American Civil War was an outstanding case in point - In World War II Britain and the Allies would have been similarly wiped out for lack of funds had not America supplied arms - Wars consume production. Naturally the resources - money -- will be depleted especially since the agents of production are in the front fighting.
Page 466 Ibid 467
The South is emotional, irrational, materially weak. It goes to war with the strong North. This page explains the comparative strength of the Army, Navy etc.
Page 469 Ibid
Lincoln worked more for the preservation of the Union than for the emancipation of the slaves -Slavery is an emotional cause. Union is a political, (mental) cause.
Page 505 Ibid
The abolition of the organic sin of slavery witnessed the birth of organic corruption in its executive and Congress.
Page 523 Ibid
- Moving physical frontier in USAwas unique and solved all her problems - Such non-physical frontiers in economics, technology, and psychology are civilizing forces.
- The right to bear armshaunts the nation. It is the physicality that clings to it. Give them economic or psychological security, it will relent. Cultural education will achieve it. They will give up arms.
Page 531 Ibid
Six reasons for the industrial boom.
1. Liberal patent laws.
2. High labour cost compelled to design and invent labour saving machines.
3. Standardisation of machine parts.
4. Extraordinary success of American agriculture.
5. Abundance of variety of energy sources.
6. Protection as well as laissez - faire.
Page 492 Ibid
- Railroad workers were paid $ 6 a day, the same paid to a Senator while Indian wagesthen were 6 paisa and English wages were 75 paisa. No wonder USA was rich. Wealth is availing of the latest facilities, as IT employees are paid more. The path to wealth is to pay higher wages.
- America's future is for the Blacks. They have an inner poise, calm, a native cheerfulness and a view broader than the whites. They do have a marked superiority over the white population. A time will surely come for its expression. It is something more than the suppressed inferiority. It is sublimated strength of the physicality.
Page 532 Ibid
The BOOM of USA is because the domestic market consumed 97% of the manufacturers.
Page 536 Ibid
- Farmers felt they were losing ⅓ for transport and another ⅓ for taxes.
- Normally the trader gets as much as the farmer. It is refreshing to know that taxes and transport get equally as much. Production is but a part of economy.
Page 546 Ibid
Abuse of power was common in expanding America.
Page 557 Ibid
US had no defence, no police, no currency in the post Civil War period - The ocean protected on either side. Therefore, there were no military expenses. People carried guns and there was no expense on law and order. Absence of currency made it impossible for money to tyrannize over the population - Money is spared which made greater self-reliance possible. Absence of tyranny of MONEY kept the economic power free to grow on its own innate strength.
Page 562 Ibid
US devised pools to avoid competition - Appreciation of co-operation that replaces competition is one major reason for the BOOM.
Page 564 Ibid
How Morgan saved most of the business houses - This process needs an explanation and what the 10% has to do with the saving.
Page 570 Ibid
Five-story buildings were jacked up four feet to raise the city by four feet while work was going on in the building - This is given as an example of American determination for anything physical. This shows how DETERMINED the settlers were to create living conditions. (This makes us understand anything the force permits we must attempt and accomplish).
American is a word used in the book in the sense the biggest possible unfailing innovation, be it building, bridge or factory or bank. The Nation endeavoured to qualify for that definition.
Page 574 Ibid
The Crime Syndicates of Chicago of which Al Capone was the crux were born because of ill-housed overcrowded apartments of business nationalities - Study of these gangster lives will complete the knowledge of American Prosperity. Out of these crime dens was born the best of artistic work such as the furniture industry.
Page 595 Ibid
FDR when asked what single book he would put into the hands of a Russian Communist replied, ‘Sears Roebuck Catalog' - He said this as Sears was bringing all luxuries to the masses - What USSR wanted to achieve by a socialist system, the USA achieved under the capitalist system - An illustration of the principle : the opposite is also true.
Page 562 Ibid
Morgan believed Market is the surest regulator of public interest - cf. this idea with ‘Let Thy will be done is the very best'. In education the child learning on his own is the best. Mother wants people to learn by themselves, not imposed on by others.
- Market is the surest regulator in an unorganised society. In an organised society, Market has to be organized as education and communication.
Page 610 Ibid
- In 1870 a preacher said "Poverty in USA is man's fault or even his sin" - This long quotation EXACTLY fits India today.
- This is always true, today it is truer.
Page 610 - 611 Ibid
- In these pages Johnson crafts an excellent RATIONAL argument about the Protestants'vision for the world for all time - Digging deeper into it, one sees the devious ways of MIND as well as the deepest of Truths, i.e. the Process of Creation.
Page 615 Ibid
Theodore Roosevelt, who exuded ENERGY was a sick child, and extraordinary CONTRADICTION worth exploring physiologically.
Page 617 Ibid
Bigness is the stamp of the Americans - Theodore Roosevelt
Page 618 Ibid
Henry James called Theodore Roosevelt ‘a dangerous and ominous Jingo' and privately dismissed him as ‘effete' and a ‘miserable little snob.'
Page 618 Ibid
- Theodore Roosevelt was a believer in executive action - cf. Lincoln's belief in constitutionalism They alternate even as atheism alternates with belief, slavery with freedom.
- ‘Speak softly, but carry a big stick' - Theodore Roosevelt.
- Theodore Roosevelt threatened the coalmine owners with takeover the first time in history - C.Subramaniamtook over Tata Steel Mills - The inherent powers ACTS for good or bad.
Birth of the Modern World Society
Page 475
- In the 1790s, one third of French marriages were divorced.
Page 542
- Davy's safety lamp- He refused to patent it.
Page 544
- Oxford and Cambridge played no role in the Industrial Revolution. A privileged elite might rule in Westminster but advance knowledge was a democracy - Innovations are outside organised knowledge.
Page 551- 552
Space and Time are purely mental intuitions according to Immanual Kant.
Kant dismissed the dualism of Spirit and Matter, replacing them both by forces - A TRUE PERCEPTION.
Page 559
"In the economy of the world I can find no trace of a beginning, no prospect of an end" James Hutton in ‘Theory of the Earth' - Hutton has sensed infinity on earth.
Page 571
The first historian of technology, Smiles writes, "One of the most remarkable things in Engineering in England is that its principal achievements have been accomplished not by natural philosophers nor by mathematicians but by men of humble station, for the most part self-educated". In fact, the pattern continued well into the 19th Century - Any society evaluates its future progress in terms of its past values.
Page 584
Leonardo da Vinci based his engines/machines on nature, especially on the movement of fishes... - Here is a truth of life science can well use. All medicines come from herbs and minerals. It is wisdom to see health of mechanical innovations in terms of nature. The scientist who discovered circulation - Harvey - based on the circular motion of planets had that insight.
Page 585
- Art and invention went hand in hand, often in the same families.
- Artis the invention in the vital; Invention is the art of the mind in the physical.
- Poets and philosophers can think better than others.
Page 586
- Poets and Philosophers have an intuitive grasp of physics and chemistry.
- Arts, Science, Technology constantly overlapped.
Page 594
Fee for boxing coach was a guinea an hour in England.
Page 597
- As with music, princely patronage was yielding to the market - Art and music come of age in the sense it no longer depends on the privileged individual, but on the public, the market.
- In England, despite the vast increase in national wealth, there was scarcely half a dozen old style patrons in 1820.
Page 628
- Bonapartedissolved the Spanish empire (his action led to that) and it had vast consequences in Latin America.
Page 643
- Bolivar, the Latin American leader, prepared a spate of forgeries to discredit Spain.
Page 644
- Bonaparte was to set the pattern of dictatorship in Latin American countries.
Page 645
- Commerce was one consequence of the Spanish empire breaking - Both are expansive movements.
Page 657
- As the speed of travel doubled and trebled, in a decade (because of railways) ideas and people moved faster too.
Page 659
- Living standards were rising rapidly in Britain, France, Holland, Scandinavia, parts of Germany and even in Lombardy - As the railways speeded up life, living standards rose.
Page 660
- Bonaparte's troops had always lived off the land they occupied - Let us know how moving armies lived in those days.
Page 662
- The French Revolutionhad opened intense politicalisation of the Latin American nations.
Page 663
- Bandits ruled Italy. Popewas their chief. At one time 30,000 murders were committed. Bandits were the heroes - Rome was the land of laws. It is the Roman law that spread everywhere. This is the anti-climax of the Roman Empire, as every such development was a partial one.
Page 668
- Byrongot a box for the season (in a theatre) for a mere £ 14 which beats the English theatre hollow in beauty and scenery, as against the £ 400 at Covent Garden or Drury Lane.
- Byron wrote home from Italy for toothbrushes and tooth powder unavailable in Italy.
Page 680
- The Greek government's entire income in 1820 was £ 80,000 a year.
Page 703
- Wordsworthand his sister went on a tour on foot for 300 miles. Coleridge branched off and did 300 miles.
- A walk of 20 miles is nothing.
- Captain Berkeleydid 87 miles - in 1807 - in 14 hours on hilly roads. Next year he started at 5 a.m, walked 30 miles to grouse shooting, dined at 5 P.M. and walked 60 miles to his home in 11 hours. He attended to business, danced at a ball and returned home by 7 P.M.
- Next year he walked a thousand miles in a specified time for a 2000 guinea bet.
Page 734 - Girls' schools are lucrative
- Girls were taken at 13, charged £ 100.
- Baltersbee had to pay £ 400 to get his girl finished in London.
- Each girl in another school paid £ 140 a year.
- Mrs. Stephens was said to have saved £ 60,000 during the years she kept a school. At the end the good will alone was £ 5000.
Page 735
- During 1815-30, thousands of new schools were opened.
- In London 120,000 were without means of education. 4000 of them were rented out by parents to professional beggars.
- Dr. Andrew Bell worked out a system (similar to Lancaster who was famous) in Madras.
Page 744
- There was no effective form of anesthesiauntil 1842 when Nitrous Oxide was discovered.
Page 745
- Britain was the only country in Europe where already doctors were treated as gentleman - we know that doctors lined up in UK with the servants.
Page 751
- Industrialisation forced the pace of life and caused insanityin early 19th Century.
Page 759
- Trollopewas traditionalist, attacked the Russian method of serving dinners in his novels. He was fighting a lost cause.
- Talleyrandas Foreign Minister spent an hour a day with his cook. Duke of Wellington's French cook left him as he would not appreciate his excellent dinners, nor would he notice bad ones made by the maid.
Page 772, 776, 777
- The international circulation of opiumwas at the root cause of the troubles between the West and Far East.
- Why Indians who grew opium did not get addicted to it.
- The Spirit of the country would not permit it.
- England and China were addicted to opium.
- 1% of Chinese were addicted. Addiction was total in China.
- Britain too was so. Coleridgedied of that addiction.
- That being so, Paul Johnson raises the question why India which bore so many miseries was not addicted to opium in spite of producing it. In China, opium was a better currency than her paper currency. (Johnson's descriptions are graphic and comprehensive in several pages).
Page 778
The Chinese government is itself built on PRIDE made more dangerous, as it was fortified by ignorance. At every crucial step of history, as in the US Civil War, Indian Independence, Second World War in Britain, this was the guiding principle. As a project, we can exhaustively collect all such historical events as they are the points of transition and this is the method Nature uses to resist change. E.g. Napoleon's fall when he left Josephine and was crushed by Russia, Britain and Germany.
Page 793
"I have never met a Burman who could not read or write ...The most even-tempered race I ever met with, always gay, always content under any privation. ... the English seamen declared them to be the best sort of chaps they had ever fallen in with" said Maryat, who published his war account - He also found them courageous, inventive and skillful - We must be able to trace these qualities to their geography, history, religion etc.
Page 801
The Japanese were forbidden to travel outside of Japan on pain of death - Their insularity was enforced and later it became a matter of pride. Pride never forms without a good admixture of ignorance.
Page 802
Japanese with foreign contracts were persecuted - They were unable to understand the foreigner in war or trade as long as this insularity was there. Their capacity to be an Axis power came from this ferocity to preserve what was useless to preserve.
How Japan was able to dominate the world market is seen here, as it was the power of inversion.
Page 803
- Tokyo was originally called Edo.
- To give a map of Japan to a foreigner was a capital offence.
Page 804
- Transgressing dress regulations was punished with stripping naked and being paraded.
- Dress is an external FORM. This punishment shows the Japanese government and society were on the merest surface. It is an unformed society of unregenerate vital. It is only in such a society codeslike honourwill evolve to perfection.
Page 810
- A German professor was asked why there was no specific word for ‘character' in German. He said a German would be automatically endowed with character - Andre Siegfried says that the Germans are unformed. It is natural that there is no word for character in German. In this sense, languageis a great tool to know of a people.
Page 811
- The above German philosopher Fichtesays there is neither law nor justice but only the law of strength.
- Hegelwas an example how, in the dawning modern world, the penmen were forming a devastating alliance with the swordsmen - This alliance was taking place in a primitive version in Japan.
- It is noteworthy that Paul Johnson mentions this trait about Germany and Japan, two unformed people.
Page 813
- Hegel adored Bonaparte, was exulting at his sight, and called him the greatest professor of constitutional law. He was grief-stricken at his fall.
Page 818
- One German of importance told another of equal importance that Hegel was a stupid fellow.
- Everyone recognized that 1789 was momentous. It was Saint Simonwho linked the Revolution to capitalist industrialisation.
- Saint Simon disagreed with Malthusthat population was a problem. He felt the world could accommodate the rising population.
Page 819
- To Saint Simon, the golden age lay ahead of him, not behind him. It lay, he said, in the perfection of the social order.
- It was he who invented the terms industrialist, industrialisation.
- Marx was seven years old at Simon's death.
- Proletariat was the ancient Roman term
- The theories of Marxand Saint Simon were exactly the same.
Page 821
- Auguste Comte, one of Simon's disciples had the sense to spot a fallacy in Simon's approach that the aggressive pursuit of power will continue whatever the change in the system.
- Simon predicted that religion would disappear (Page 820)
- Simon is Mental. He is able to see the transitory vital religious worship.
Page 822
- Saint Simon's younger contemporary Charles Fourier(1772-1837) predicted a World of Harmony when North Pole would be milder than the Mediterranean, the sea would be lemonade, there would be 37 million Homers, 37 million Newtons, 37 million Molieres.
Page 825
- The British preferred "the most inveterate mischiefto the most simple, efficient, if unaccustomed remedies." This was a slander. The British have a long tradition of respect for personal liberty - Mischief is the faculty of a practical mind of intelligence. Pure intelligence does not turn to mischief. A practical mind is incapable of pure intelligence. When the mind is practical and its intelligence does not sour, the practicality resorts to mischief.
Page 826
- Coleridgealways considered society as an organism. On this point, he differed from the economists who took the society as an aggregate of Individuals.
- For him (Coleridge) the society is always more than the sum of its parts and he used it as an arresting image - The poet is able to see the whole which the economist misses. Practicality degenerates into practical folly.
Page 828
- Teachings of Coleridge based on Burke is one reason why Britain did not take to the path of the totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is the energy of the practical man divorced from the rich wholesomeness of the whole, making his urge into a passion. Without a great dose of Falsehood, totalitarian regimes cannot exist.
Page 830
- Russiansare literary. They are so superbly.
- Russians are in No.8, the emotion of the physical, hence literary. Moving to No.7 it will be best. Whether they are in No.5 or No.8 can be seen in their tenacity of the physical necessitated by their Siberian winter. They are in No.8
Page 831
- Russiawith its backwardness, brutality, and obscurantism was an insoluble problem. (in 1830)
- The army was not an instrument of Russia. It was Russia.
- In 1705, military expenditures were 80-85% of the state revenues.
Page 832
- Russian army officers arriving in Germany and France were struck by the wealth and splendour and more so by the sense of their freedom, as opposed to the sullen, frightened, suspicious demeanor of the Russians, terrified of authority in countless forms. - This was their status in 1825 and it continued till 1990.
Page 833
- Russian officials were paid NO salaries. Later they were paid a meager salary of 10 pence to 2 shillings a month of English money. As in China and Japan, briberywas ubiquitous, inevitable and incorrigible - Bribery goes with backwardness, tyranny, illiteracy in all nations.
Page 835
- The police state of USSR was in its origin that of the Tsar. In Russia most trials were secret - There was no press report. There was the police secret system of private denunciations that were rewarded in cash. None of this was ever known outside government. Men died in prison by torture or starvation - Catherineabolished them - Substitutes were at once discovered - No justice can ever be installed unless the SOCIETY at large is cultured, civilized, compassionate, educated and prosperous. First prosperity arises followed by education, that matures into civilization, culture and compassion.
- Alexanderwhile professing liberalism was constantly tinkering with the network, adding to it and changing its name (rather as in Soviet Russia, the Cheka became GBU, then OGPU, then NKVD, finally the KGB).
Page 847
- Nothing appeals to the intellectualsmore than the feeling they represent ‘the people'.
- The governmental historian in 1826 wrote, "The Russian people are marvelous, but only in potential. In actuality they are low, horrid and beastly". "They will not become human beings until they are forced into it". A journalist wrote, "There are many devils among them. Therefore, the police and a severe police is a necessity both for the state and the individuals. Alexanderis meek, full of kindness and compassion. This is too good to a vile human species. Now, there I love Nicholas. When he hits, whether they like it or not, they sing God Save the Tsar".
Page 848
- The financial crisis of 1825 was the first modern financial crisis - It means MONEY has organized itself as an independent power and therefore from then onwards, it can exert itself on its own.
Page 851
- Each state bank is empowered to issue bills up to three times its capital. The state legislature gave this power - Bernard says it is 9 times. Now others feel it is 15 times. Money increases in QUANTITY and quality each time it integrates itself with another organization. Now I feel it must be not 9 times or 90 times but 900 times. It is received by the society as social power but moneyis money. It is worth considering the POWER of money a few centuries ago as then it was all powerful by its scarcity. Now it is all the more powerful by its ubiquity.
Page 852
- John Taylor, a Virginia farmer and a Senator says, paper moneycreated a financial aristocracy at the expense of the hard working farmer. It impoverishes the labouring as well as the producing classes - First opposition to banking in the US. Money outgrows its role of medium of exchange.
Page 853
- America developed the West by borrowing against its future - Wealth is created or expanded by faith in time. This is the birth of Hire purchase. After conquering space, America turned to Time.
- America's central financial institution dealt in bits of paper known as racers, short for race horse bills - How banksruined the economy.
- Banks ruin the economy. Army destroys the population, government plunders the treasury are phenomena of the principle the instrument destroys the creator when he becomes its slave.
Page 854
- These men financed their vast speculations by taking out unsecured loans from their own branch - Unsecured loans undermined the banks.
Page 856
- Like Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Eldon believed with measured passion that capitalism is the means by which the West can be possessed.
Page 858
- Banks survived, clients ruined - An inevitable rule.
- The negative side of the process of progress. Now the banks try to revive the ruined clients.
Page 859
- It had been exceptionally foolish of banks to have ruined her own clients. But because of her exceptional position, her folly was rewarded with success - What is rewarded is not folly but its strength.
- The courts ruled that the states might not tax the Monster - banks - to get some of their money back. It was a constitutional scandal - Bribery is institutionalized.
Page 860
- After the war, gold was not there to redeem currency for the Bank of England.
Page 861
- Birth of gold standard: Ricardo was an M.P. He took the lead to create the gold standard.
Page 864
- Huskisson was the nearest to an intellectual who held high government office in Britain.
- British Cabinet was till then filled with non-intellectuals- Intellectuals are no leaders.
- This was the first instance in history where a ‘natural' economic upswing was turned into a raging boom by the deliberate use of the levers of policy - A clear example of how power is generated in society and is organized at a higher level.
Page 867
- Miltonwas Cromwell's Latin Secretary
- Petty treason (murder of husbands by wives, masters by servants, and bishops by inferior classes).
- Napoleonic Codein France was a comprehensive reform of law - For Paul Johnson, who considers Napoleon a monster, to say this is high tribute.
- Trade Unionshave existed de facto if not de jure since 1660, the time of Charles II.
Page 868
- Government does not interfere with trade disputes.
- This Act, the foundation of all subsequent trade union permissive legislation awarded the unions a privilege - the right to break contracts - denied to anyone else whether individuals or institutions - to break an existing contract and the right to accept a new one is awarded to the trade unions.
- As the UN is furthering democracy itself being an undemocratic organization, trade unions are fundamentally undemocratic. Since then the world has not met the need for democracy by an Act of Law as faced with power, the government and society look the other way. Here lies the solution to the theme of democracy. USA has given that power to the Management. Reagancould impose a fine of $ 1 million on the airport pilots' union when the courts declared the strike illegal.
Page 869
- London port existed from the Roman's time.
- Strikers will demand the unpopular (efficient) foreman to be dismissed - Logic of subconscious.
- ‘Picketing', the so-called English disease of 1945-79 went back to the 1820s.
Page 872
- A rise in living standards is a force of depoliticalising - Politics needs a mature mind. Ordinary people take to politics because of poverty.
Page 873
- Prosperity levels began to rise. Policies of desperation began to be succeeded by politics of aspiration. Hunger passed out of the equation - Society prospers itself, unless politics strangle it. 1820, the post Napoleon period gave the upper hand to trade, a social institution of progress.
- American manufacturers turned out 15 million pairs of shoes a year. During the 1820s, most children and adults acquired shoes - Birth of shoes for all.
- For more than one to sleep in a bed, even up to five was a practice in 19th Century.
Page 876
- Bathroomsand water closets became more common.
Page 879
- The birth of prosperity- the role of service sector in 1820
- This is the PROSPERITY given to Europe and the world by Napoleon.
- The new Chancellor of Exchequer Robinson
- - Cut taxes for dozens of items.
He said man opening to other men creates new wants.
It is always alive, always in motion, has a perpetual tendency to go forward.
- - Robinson stumbled upon the truth; Modern science and industry can change luxuries into necessities in one generation.
France, an industrially backward country too enjoyed prosperity.
Page 880
- Many inventions were conceived in the Napoleonic period but only commercialized after the war was over - It is HIS birth that initiates PROGRESS. Study the period of Leonardo da Vinci, Augustus Caesar, Catherinethe Great for similar phenomena.
- Books cost 7.5 francs which was expensive. Later they came down to 3 francs.
Page 881
- The fastest hand press could not produce more than 250 sheets an hour. The slowest machine did 1000 sheets. - The efficiency of one level can never be compared to that of another level.
- In 1824, in Paris, there were 2653 registered and 15,000 unregistered prostitutes. Books and prostitutes proliferate simultaneously. Good and evil grow together.
Page 882
- "There is scarcely a porter, a water carrier or a commissionaire running the streets of Paris who is not more learned and enlightened than this royal patron of letters of the Augustan age - India has not yet attained this stage of education in Paris of 1815. Educationis the basis of Parisian intellectuality.
Page 883
- Charles Lambretiring from East India Companygot a generous pension of two thirds of his final salary just before the crash and luckily escaped - knowledge when it is pure has power to ward off a natural calamity.
Page 895
- Sir Walter Scott
- He was the world's richest author, had a house of £76,000.
- He earned £10,000 a year.
- Constable, the new publisher, quadrupled Scott's sales.
- Scott took upon the debts of £46,000 of Ballantyne who was literary manager.
- Scott took a noble attitude of not going bankrupt and paying in full, which at least he could do with the help of his publisher.
- The energies, entanglements, extrication, noble resolution, help offered to others and help received by Scott is a study of the power of Mind over life and Matter.
Page 899
- "Disraelihad all the wiles of a born con man".
Page 909
- Jackson's slogan, "clean the RASCALS out". This slogan had later become the most popular theme in American campaigning history. A massive wave of corruption arose and was abetted by the party and the government.
Page 910
- Big governmentis instinctively immoral - Organisation outgrows MAN on both sides.
- Jacksonthought people are instinctively moral and governments are instinctively immoral - Government is an organization. It is a new power. It corrupts a nascent people and that corruption is naturally comprehensive.
Examples of Anachronisms
- Hunger strike and satyagraha resorted to by anti-social people.
- Caste system is in its structure an anachronism in the sense that it implies that endowment is inherited.
- In most of the democratic nations, the head of the nation is treated like a king.
- The boss who checked the calculations of the clerk, continues to do so when he calculates on the calculator.
- One who eats with a spoon washes his hand sometimes.
- Egoism of the members of an organisation founded to abolish ego.
- Spiritual organisations collecting funds while the spiritual principle is spirit should move money.
- Royalty as the head of an elected government.
- Second World War, which was fought to save democracy, has given birth to UNO whose structure is undemocratic.
- Anniversary of the French Revolution celebrated in Pondicherry as Raja Pandikai.
- Napoleon who won his way to the throne tried to create a hereditary line.
- Proletarian dictatorship oppressing the proletariats.
- Mountbatten as the Governor-General of free India.
- Thirty year of non-violence ending in the biggest bloodshed ever witnessed in the country.
- Sabbath as well as Sunday in India and raagukalam are anachronisms.
- The Tamil calendar is one.
- Exams.
- Email has made telegrams so.
- Cinema theatre. தெருக்கூத்து.
- Ritualistic religious marriage.
- Imitation enables anachronisms to emerge.
- Classical languages have become so.
- பஞ்சாங்கம்
- All pains, diseases are unnatural, anachronisms of mind ruling matter of the body.
- All forms of red tape in India - translation of the Higher Court into English
- Anachronism of philosophical thought p. 1036 Life Divine. ‘The cause of our frustration' comes from our old view.
- Amish culture in USA.
- Anachronisms acquire added vigour when moved from the native soil - US Indians celebrate the festivals and conduct rituals more seriously than we, Indians.
- Kulaswami ‘told' Sri Aurobindo to keep his cup empty.
- ‘Chocolate' - An American film on France of 1960.
- Nostalgia is psychological anachronism.
- Public Sector units that were relevant around 1950 are no longer relevant.
- Speaking is irrelevant to one who has taken to yoga.
- Printed books are well on the way to becoming anachronisms.
- All classical languages have attained that status long ago.
- National armies are good candidates for that.
- ஆடிப்பட்டம் தேடி விதை. அம்மாவாசைக்கு மழை பெய்யும்are no longer true.
- ஆடிப் பெருக்கு has been done in by the Mettur Dam all along the Cauvery bed.
- When you live in a community that takes full care of yourself, insurance is not valid.
- Too great a success in partnership concerns renders friendship and loyalty a "real obstacle" to individual ambition.
- Organisations founded to uphold an ideal are clearly obstacles as they become anachronistic after the Founder.
- Coffee Board and Tea Boards are fine examples.
- Different departments digging the road alternately keep the road always unusable. Public opinion of all shades has protested against it. The anachronism has become an immovable obstacle.
- The House of Commons could not accommodate half its members. In 1941 it was destroyed during the war and was rebuilt in 1950. It was rebuilt as of old and not expanded to accommodate all its members.
- (p. 90, TCB) Two hundred years after the industrial revolution, the British were strangely reluctant to modernise and promote their scientific genius.
- American Civil War - the Southerners were cocksure that being gentlemen, they could not be defeated by the Yankees. They were wiped off the ground.
- (Gone with the Wind) Tara, Scarlett's farm - Yankees who burnt the cotton worth $150,000 and destroyed the plantation of Tara came to collected taxes of $300.
- In the First World War, British soldiers fought with swords riding on horseback when the enemy was firing guns.
- p. 62, Winston Churchill IV: Generals believed in sending large numbers of men to the front as they were used to it, instead of employing tanks.
- The Greeks, who had to use three beams tied together made the protruding parts ornate. When they moved to marble and then to steel, the FORM was still maintained.
- Sankarachariars do not sign their names. They give the thumb impression by tradition.
- p. 853, The Outline of History, HG Wells: There are always at any date undeveloped inventions, capable of disturbing current tactical and strategic practices which the military intelligence has declined.
- p. 855 Ibid. Neither the German nor the Allied headquarters were disposed to regard with toleration an invention that would destroy their traditional methods. It was Churchill at the Admiralty who insisted on the introduction of tanks. (p. 859)
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