Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 20th November 1909 — No.20
Facts and Opinions
A Hint of Change
The end of our long waiting for the advent of strength into the hearts and minds of the people may yet be distant, but one sign of an approaching change is growing more and more manifest, the intense yearning for a field, an outlet, a path open to the pent-up activities of an awakened nation.
Arising from long sleep and torpor, the nation threw itself with energy into a field of activity which seemed immeasurably vast and full of a glorious promise.
One would have said that no one could stop that mighty outpouring of enthusiasm, unselfishness and heaven-aspiring force.
But there was a flaw, a source of weakness.
Our past defects, hesitations, timidities, weaknesses, vices, arrogance, light-headedness, selfishness, scepticism, inconsistency, our readiness to succumb to difficulties, to despair at the first check,— all these things were in us, trampled down by the inrush of higher feelings and a greater and nobler energy, but not thrown out, not utterly replaced.
The nation had entered headlong into a wonderful Sadhana, but without knowledge, without the deliberate saṃkalpa, the requisite dīkṣā.
It was the only way it could be begun.
But the Sadhak has to have cittaśuddhi before he can attain realisation; he must cleanse his bosom of much perilous stuff.
That cleansing is done partly by replacing the lower feelings by the higher, cowardice by courage, hatred by love, weakness by strength, partly by working out the evil in imagination or action and rejecting it as it comes up into the mind or the life.
It was the first process that took place in the beginning of the movement, it is the second that is now in progress.
In the first years of the movement a nation of cowards became heroes, sceptics became blind believers, the light-minded full of serious purpose, men eaten up by selfishness martyrs and ascetics, waverers full of tenacity, the low, loose and immoral inspired by a high and generous idealism and purity.
But the work was not complete.
In the groundwork of the new nation the old evil stuff lingered, and therefore God trampled our work to pieces in order to have it out, so that it might be seen, recognised and rejected.
It was that work the repressions and reforms have come to do, and it is almost done.
Had we gone on in our first victorious rush, unhampered and undefeated, we would have entered the kingdom of Swaraj with an imperfect national character, full of temporarily repressed vices which would have come to the surface as soon as the great stimulus of a successful struggle had been removed, and the last state of the nation might have been worse than its first; at any rate there would have been infinite troubles, reverses and disasters for the liberated nation, such as are in store for a nation like Persia where the struggle for freedom has not been sufficiently intense, arduous and complicated in its features to purify the people and build its character.
It is well to have done with our troubles, reverses and defeats before the end is gained, so that we may enter our kingdom pure and strong.
We ought now to be able to recognise what it was that has made us fail in the hour of trial; for there can be no doubt that we have partially failed.
To recognise the defects is to reject them, and with the will to rise, will come the means which will help to raise us.
The spirit of the nation is rising again.
Only it must be clearly recognised that old1 outlets are not the right ones.
Solid and thorough work, self-discipline by means of noble and orderly action, this is the path by which we shall arrive at a higher national character and evolution.