Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 26th February 1910 — No.34
Passing Thoughts
Revelation is a thing Religion powerfully asserts, Science as powerfully denies. According to our ideas in this country, man has a faculty, latent in him but easily developed through the various means grouped under the expression Sadhana, by which he is able to see spiritually and get the revelation of things not discernible by the reason. Srijut Krishna Kumar Mitra in relating his spiritual experiences in Agra jail dwelt on the revelation of the omnipresent and merciful God which was continually with him in his imprisonment. He had what we call the pratyaksa darśan. This is a thing the possibility of which our wise men trained in European enlightenment think it a very intellectual thing to deny. On a similar occasion the Indian Social Reformer sneered at the experience, declared that God reveals Himself only in His laws and, if we remember right, scoffed at the idea of such a revelation being given in such an inappropriate, disreputable and uncomfortable place as a jail. It is curious at least that not one but many should have had this experience recently in precisely similar circumstances and that the various experiences should have been expressed in almost exactly the same terms. After all, an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory. Our own belief is that the motions of the world are travelling towards a signal refutation of the atheistic and agnostic attitudes and that India is the place selected for the revelation. It is for this reason that these experiences are becoming so frequent in men who are rather men of action than what is generally known as purely religious men, that is to say, who seek God in life and the service of men and not merely in the closet and the Ashram. A new religion summing up and correcting the old, a religion based not on dogma but on direct knowledge and experience, is the need of the age, and it is only India that can give it to the world.
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