Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
APPENDIX — II
The New Mantra1
We have worshipped the country, the National Mother, as God.
That was well, that carried us far.
But it was only a stage, a means to bring the Europeanised mind back to spirituality.
It was the worship of a rūpa, an iṣṭa by which to rise to the worship of God in His fullness.
We used the Mantra Bande Mataram with all our heart and soul, and so long as we used and lived it, relied upon its strength to overbear all difficulties, we prospered.
But suddenly the faith and the courage failed us, the cry of the Mantra began to sink and as it rang feebly, the strength began to fade out of the country.
It was God, who made it fade out and falter, for it had done its work.
A greater Mantra than Bande Mataram has to come.
Bankim was not the ultimate seer of Indian awakening.
He gave only the term of the initial and public worship, not the formula and the ritual of the inner secret upāsanā.
For the greatest Mantras are those which are uttered within, and which the seer whispers or gives in dream or vision to his disciples.
When the ultimate Mantra is practised even by two or three, then the closed Hand of God will begin to open; when the upāsanā is numerously followed the closed Hand will open absolutely.
There are some who sit watching for an ādeś and, until the ādeś comes, are resolved not to act.
But to such the command will always be denied.
It is those who act, who are sure to find a solitude created within them in which they are alone with God and come face to face with Reality.
Moments of physical loneliness, periods of meditative retirements are needed, but they are subordinate and auxiliary.
Action done as a Sadhana, as a sacrifice to God, done first without attachment to the results and then without attachment to the action itself, is the indispensable condition.
And it must be action done with Shraddha, with faith, whatever action it may be; it is not only for God but from God.
There will be errors, there will be stumblings, but this is the 
vīramārga, the way of the heroes, and in it one must be afraid of nothing, still less afraid of errors and stumblings.
Only if we rely upon our own strength in the action, we shall go on stumbling to the end of the chapter.
There must be the Shraddha that God leads, that He has taken the burden of our Sadhana upon Himself, and that every error and stumbling is from Him and intended to prepare an unfaltering and instructed strength.
This is the Vakalam, of which Ramakrishna always spoke.
The nation, too, has gone on stumbling, but progressing, exhausting its errors, its sins, and the possibility of calamity and defeat, taking swiftly and intensely the remnants of its evil Karma, ever since it began its Sadhana of action.
And because it took the Name on its lips when it started, the Eternal Mother will not abandon it.
For the name, even when taken in vain, inadvertently, or by accident, saves alive.
Much more when it is taken with heart and soul and made the foundation of the Sadhana.
It is a national ātmasamarpaṇa, self-surrender that God demands of us and it must be complete: सर्वधर्मान् परित्यग्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज [sarvadharmān parityagya māmekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja (Gita 16.88.1)].
Then the promise will come true: अहं त्वां सर्वपापेभयो मोक्ष्ययिष्यामि मा शुचः [ahaṃ tvāṃ sarvapāpebhyo mokṣyayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ (Gita 16.88.2)].
I will deliver thee from all evils, do not grieve.