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Sri Aurobindo

Karmayogin

Political Writings and Speeches - 1909-1910

Karmayogin: A Weekly Review

Saturday 3rd July 1909 — No.3

Opinion and Comments

Mature Deliberation

That the movement is from God has been apparent in its history. Our contemporary does not believe that God created and leads the movement, he thinks that Srijut1 Surendranath Banerji created it and leads it. Only so can we explain the extraordinary statement, “every step that has been taken in construction has been preceded by mature deliberation”. Is this so? Was the Swadeshi movement preceded by mature deliberation? Everybody knows that it was scouted by our leaders and, if it had been again proposed to them a month before it suddenly seized the country, would still have been scouted. It came as a flood comes and swept away everybody in its mighty current. Was the Boycott preceded by mature deliberation? Everybody knows how it came, advocated by obscure mofussil towns, propagated by a Calcutta vernacular newspaper, forced on leaders who shrank from it with misgivings, accepted it with tremors and even then would only have used it for a short time as a means of pressure to get the Partition reversed. Everybody knows how it spread over Bengal with the impetuosity of a cyclone. Was the National Education movement preceded by mature deliberation? It came suddenly, it came unexpectedly, unwelcome to many and still damned with a halfhearted support by the leaders of the country. This2 is what we mean by saying that God is in the movement and leads it. It is a greater than human force, incalculable, sudden and impetuous, which has swept over the country shattering and recreating, transforming cowards into heroes, lovers of ease into martyrs, self-seekers into self-sacrificers, changing in a few years the whole outlook, temper and character of a nation.

 

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in  30  volumes.- Volume 2.- Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches (1909 — 1910).- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972.- 441 p.

1 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.2: Sj.

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2 1972 ed. SABCL, vol.2: That

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