Illuminating quotes from Sri Aurobindo on Nationalism and Humanism

 

Nationalism is simply the passionate aspiration for the realisation of that Divine Unity in the nation, a unity in which all the component individuals, however various and apparently unequal their functions as political, social or economic factors, are yet really and fundamentally one and equal.

Sri Aurobindo

CWSA, V0l, 6-7, Pg-679

 

The supreme test of nationalism is a belief in the future of the nation and a love for it—with all its weaknesses.

Sri Aurobindo

CWSA, V0l, 6-7, Pg-252

 

Nationalism is a truth, unity of the human race is also a truth and only the harmony of these two truths can bring the highest good of humanity.

Sri Aurobindo

Bengali writings, Pg-239

 

“….patriotism is good, excellent, divine, only when it furthers the end of universal humanity.  Nationality divorced from humanity is a source of weakness and evil and not of strength and good”. 

 -Bande Mataram

 

Your country is the token of the mission which God has given you to fulfill in humanity. The faculties, the strength of all its sons should be united for the accomplishment of this mission…your country should be your Temple, God at the summit, a People of equals at the base.

 

“Love Humanity.  Ask yourselves whenever you do an action in the sphere of your Country, or your family, If what I am doing were done by all and for all, would it advantage or injure Humanity?  And if your consciousness answers, it would injure Humanity, desist; desist, even if it seems to you that an immediate advantage for your country or your family would ensure from your action.  Be apostles of this faith, apostles of the brotherhood of nations, and of the unity of the human race.”

 

Mazzini, Italian revolutionary

(The last two passages are quoted by Rishabchand in his book

Sri Aurobindo, His Life Unique, Pg-114,215)

 

The last quote by Mazzini gives a clear principle for decision-making for the leaders of Nations.

MSS

 

Mazzini summed up the soul of all humanity, the idea of its past and the inspiration of its future in Italian forms and gave life to the dead. At his breath the dead bones clothed themselves with flesh and the wilderness of poisonous brambles blossomed with the rose. Mazzini found Italy corrupt, demoralised, treacherous, immoral, selfish, wholly divided and incapable of union; he gave her the impulse of a mighty hope, a lofty spirituality, an intellectual impulse which despising sophistry and misleading detail went straight to the core of things and fastened on the one or two necessities, an ideal to live and die for and the strength to live and die for it. This was all he did, but it was enough. Cavour brought the old Italian statesmanship, diplomacy, practicality and placed it at the service of the great ideal of liberty and unity which Mazzini had made the overmastering passion of the millions.

Sri Aurobindo

Karmayogin, Pg-183

 

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on dislike and irritation, the cause of it and how to overcome them.

 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on dislike and irritation, the cause of it and how to overcome them.

 

It is this feeling of dislike that must have been the ground for the attack to come in. All feelings of dislike for other sadhaks should be absolutely rejected. Each has his own nature, his own difficulties and has to struggle out of them with the Divine Help. Defects and limitations in them should not be made a ground for dislike.

*

These things [reasons for disliking someone] are not sufficient to justify dislike. These dislikes come from some vital feeling and these reasons put forward by the mind are excuses, not the real cause. This collaboration between the mind and the vital, the vital throwing up the wrong movement, the mind justifying it, is one of the chief difficulties in the way of getting rid of the vital deviations.

*

Antagonisms, antipathies, dislikes, quarrellings can no more be proclaimed as part of sadhana than sex impulses or acts can be part of sadhana. Harmony, goodwill, forbearance, equanimity are necessary ideals in the relation of sadhak with sadhak. One is not bound to mix, but if one keeps to oneself, it should be for reasons of sadhana, not out of other motives,—moreover it should be without any sense of superiority or contempt for others.

Sri Aurobindo

CWSA, Vol-31, Pg, 346-347

 

Doesn’t irritation come from ego, even when it is justified by the mind.

 

Most certainly. In fact the justification by the mind is very far from being a guarantee of truth.

 

Irritation is always a sign of lack of understanding and narrowness of the spirit, both of which are incompatible with the presence of the supreme consciousness.

The Mother

From the “Bulletin”

 

Obviously there are some natures which are almost fundamentally bad, beings who are born wicked and love to do harm; and logically, if one is quite natural, not perverted, natural as animals are—for from this point of view they are far superior to men; perversion begins with humanity—then one keeps out of the way, as one would stand aside from something fundamentally harmful. But happily these cases are not very frequent; what one meets in life are usually very mixed natures where there is a kind of balance, so to say, between the good and the bad, and one may expect to have both good and bad relations. There is no reason to feel any deep dislike, for, as one is quite mixed oneself (laughing), like meets like!

The Mother

CWM, Vol-9, Pg, 181-182

 

X is quite justified in thinking and feeling as he does, but he must understand that the others also are justified in their thinking and feeling although it differs from his and he ought not to despise them and call them bad names.

 

Among human beings, the most widely spread disease is mental narrowness. They understand only what is in their own consciousness and cannot tolerate anything else.

The Mother

CWM, Vol-14, Pg-267

 

Each one should have his own way of thinking, feeling and reaction; why do you want others to do as you do and be like you? And even granting that your truth is greater than theirs— though this word means nothing at all, for, from a certain point of view all truths are true; they are all partial, but they are true because they are truths but the minute you want your truth to be greater than your neighbour’s, you begin to wander away from the truth.

 

This habit of wanting to compel others to think as you do, has always seemed very strange to me; this is what I call “the propagandist spirit”, and it goes very far. You can go one step further and want people to do what you do, feel as you feel, and then it becomes a frightful uniformity.

The Mother

CWM, Vol-8, Pg-105

 

Discover in your nature the opposite way of being (benevolence, humility, goodwill) and insist that it develop to the detriment of the contrary element.

The Mother

CWM, Vol-14, Pg-206

 

One can live without quarrelling. It seems strange to say this because as things are, it would seem, on the contrary, that life is made for quarrelling in the sense that the main occupation of people who are together is to quarrel, overtly or covertly. You do not always come to words, you do not always come to blows —fortunately—but you are in a state of perpetual irritation within because you do not find around you the perfection that you would yourself wish to realise, and which you find rather difficult to realise—but you find it entirely natural that others should realise it.

 

“How can they be like that?...” You forget how difficult you find it in yourself not to be “like that”!

 

Try, you will see.

 

Look upon everything with a benevolent smile. Take all the things which irritate you as a lesson for yourself and your life will be more peaceful and more effective as well, for a great percentage of your energy certainly goes to waste in the irritation you feel when you do not find in others the perfection that you would like to realise in yourself.

 

You stop short at the perfection that others should realise and you are seldom conscious of the goal you should be pursuing yourself. If you are conscious of it, well then, begin with the work which is given to you, that is to say, realise what you have to do and do not concern yourself with what others do, because, after all, it is not your business. And the best way to the true attitude is simply to say, “All those around me, all the circumstances of my life, all the people near me, are a mirror held up to me by the Divine Consciousness to show me the progress I must make. Everything that shocks me in others

means a work I have to do in myself.”

 

And perhaps if one carried true perfection in oneself, one would discover it more often in others.

 

The Mother

CWM, Vol-10, Pg, 22-23

      

 

M.S. SRINIVASAN

Sri Aurobindo Society

 

The Blinding Habit and the Changed Situation

 This is a slightly modified version of the story told by Mata Amrithanandamayi. It is a good story to illustrate a lesson in change management – how our preconceived notions and habitual ways of looking at things can blind us to the new and changed situation).

 

The Officer in-charge of a police station received an info from the Intelligence wing that a well-known drug smuggler is likely to cross the nearby check-post with narcotic stuff. The officer rushed to the check-post with his constables and waited. The smuggler came in a brand new foreign motorbike. The policemen searched furiously his bike, his clothes and his body. But nothing was found. He was allowed to go. When the officer reported the matter to his boss, he was told to keep a round-the -clock vigil for a week.

 

The smuggler came again next day in another new bike. The policemen searched but again nothing could be found. This comedy went on for a few more days and everyday smuggler came in a flashy new bike. The next day, when the smuggler came again, the frustrated police officer told him:

 

“Look here, we know you are smuggling drugs and hiding it somewhere. Today you must tell me where you are hiding”. The smuggler said:

 

“Officer. I am no longer smuggling drugs. I left that business long back”.

“What are you smuggling now?” asked the officer irritably. The smuggler said with a wink in his eyes, “foreign motorbikes”, and before the significance of the message can sink into the officer’s mind, the smuggler raced off in his bike.

 

The message of the story is that when we cling to past habits it prevents us from seeing or understanding the present situation.

MSS

      

 

M.S. SRINIVASAN

Sri Aurobindo Society