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XII
India is now approaching the most momentous epoch in its history. To answer the question Why this is so would lead me into the subject of practical politics which I do not here discuss. The country will also be subject to the play of monster economic forces. Already and for sometime past Indian markets have been in increasing degree linked up with those of the West, with results to Her poor already showing themselves. For the first time in Her history she will be thrown into the World -vortex, political, economic, cultural and social from which her past form of Government has (I believe providentially) preserved Her. Will She have the strength to keep Her feet in it 1 hope she may The next question is, will She keep Her feet and remain Indian ; that is, will She preserve the essentials of her grand civilization. Again that is my hope. But if so, it will be because She has had the will and the strength to guard and uphold Her Indian Self. Our Western civilization is a great Eater. We consume. What is called a " higher standard of life " has hitherto meant with us that we consume more and more. Industrialism instead of satisfying, has increased our Western needs. " We want more wants" and if our own store has not satisfied, then we have gone to that of others. It has been well said by Mr. Lawrence Housman that " in the pursuit of wealth every country had become in more or less degree non-self-supporting, from within, dependent on power to control or to influence favourably to its own interests outside conditions. And the more it was dependent for its prosperity or for its sufficiency or supply from without instead of from within, the more it was involved in the larger international struggle for existence which has ended in the bloodiest and most devasting war known to human history;" the final accounts of which, I may add, have yet to be rendered. India must then be on Her guard to preserve Herself unless She is content to be assimilated to others and to thus lose Her Racial Soul. Where can She gain strength to save Herself as Herself except from Her. own cultural inheritance. The universal assertion and adoption by all peoples of the noble and essential principles of Her spiritual civilization would lead to a World
The East has been the home of all the greatest spiritual teachers. India has taught that the Universe is in its ultimate ground Spirit; that what is material is the expression of the Eternal Spirit in time and space ; that Man is essentially either that self-same Spirit, or a part of, or akin to it; that the Universe is governed by a Just Law which is the very nature of its true expression ; that all Life is sacred; that Morality is the law of humanity, which is the master of its destiny and reaps only what it has sown; that the universe has a moral purpose, and that the Social Structure must be so ordered as to subserve it; and many another sublime truth which is the warrant of Her high civilization, which may yet bear fruit not only in India, but throughout the world, thus justifying her claim to be the Karmabhumi.
Every man and every race can only continue to truly live by being himself, by being itself, otherwise he and they are nothing. But this race will not perish if it continues to worship the Mother-Power greater than the greatest, manifest in the littlest, seen in Shakta worship not as an image of sorrow, but joyous, crowned with ruddy flashing gems, clad in red raiment, (Lauhityam etasya sarvasya vimarsha) more effulgent than millions of rising suns, with one hand granting all blessings and with the other dispelling all fears, Hinduism has deeply perceived that fear is an essential mark of the animal and of the animal (Pashu) in man. The fearless win all worldly enterprises and fearlessness is also the sign of the illuminate knower.
In any case India must in order to live be faithful to Herself as each must be
faithful to himself. As the Indian scripture says, "The greatest religion is Truth," which means all honesties. According to the natural scheme of things each whether "orthodox," or "reformer," must act as he sincerely believes for the benefit of his country. None are doing wrongly who act according to their conscience and judgment, sincerely thought out and held. All honest endeavour works for the world-ends of Ishvan the World-Lord whatever be the difference in aims and means. Sincerity may be a link to bind all. None have the right to forsake their duty as they sincerely conceive it to be, because they may fancy that what they work for will not happen. How can they know this with certainty? And even if they could, it is the design of Ishvara that what He wills to be shall only come about after every obstacle thereto has been surmounted. For these obstacles are part of His wisdom. Never should we think of failure. Those who do have already begun to fail. But if we look at things largely, we shall know that to fail is nothing if we have striven to succeed: that effort and its result, limited though it be, is achievement. We are all (though free) in the service of the World-purpose, the organised expression in time, space and matter of the undying spiritual Self. Reverence, therefore, to the highest Self by whatsoever name men may call It—a Self Which is both immanent in the universe of forms which are Its Power and yet formlessly transcends it.
But there are some in this country who, in this period of transition and scepticism due to foreign influence, believe in none of such things and who are as materialist, though often less usefully so, than any Western. Modern Western civilization great though in several respects it be, is, in so far as it is divorced from religion, poison for Eastern peoples. Such persons in fact think that India has suffered through its religion. She would, they think, have " got on " better without it. Such have learnt nothing from present events which, like a flash of lightning, make clear the dangers amidst which men have walked in darkness. If, notwithstanding warning, those who have hitnerto been the custodians of these great traditions neglect or, reject them, they will themselves perish and will deserve to perish, or they will suffer a worse lot, namely a lasting deprivation of the high place in the world which the greatness of their forbears had sought to make for them. They may just exist, but as what and how ?
The chief religious and philosophic concepts of India are in their essentials imperishable. Whether the Indian people hold to them or not they will be taken up and added to the cultural wealth of the greater amongst the white Aryas (as they are commonly called) of the West from which race in ages past the coloured peoples of ancient India, in part at least, received them. These essential ideas will then in any case remain because, as humanizing man for the spiritual end which they place before him, they are those of a great and true Civilization. WORKS BY ARTHUR AVALIGN ON TANTRA SHASTRA
Studies Mantra Shastra. Part I. (l) Rs.A sh. Causal Shaktls of the Pranava (2) Kaias of the Shaktis, (3) The Tattvas; Part II, (1) Shakti, Nada, Bindu; Part III (1) Maya (2) Kanchuka, (3)Hangsa; Part III, (1) Kamakaia, .(2) Asbuddha Tattva, (3) Varnaroala. Reprinting.
TANTRIK TEXTS
UNDER GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF ARTHUR AVALON
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