Published
in January
1931
Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar Chennai India
The Great New Movements of the Oversoul
GREAT waves of thought, of emotion, of action, most notably of thought, have been surging for the last fifty years, in the Oversoul of Humanity. They are of a somewhat new kind, such as are scarcely to be met with in the past, as recorded in what is recognised as "history by the modern mind. In Samskrt they call that Oversoul by the name of Sutr-ãtmã, literally the "Thread-Soul". The Arabic names are Rûh-ul-Âlam,-Rûh-ul-Qaum. Mass-mind, Mahat-Buddhi, Collective-Intelligence, Samashti-Buddhi, or even plain Public-Opinion, Loka-mata, are other recognised aspects and well-known names, Samskrt and English, of that same Thing. It is that Esprit de corps, that "public Spirit", which "threads", individuals together and makes it possible for them to speak in terms of the unitive and inclusive "We" instead of the separatist and exclusive "I". It is the principle of fellow-feeling, of sympathy; the principle which makes fellow-feeling and sympathy possible; for God is Love, in [Page 2] a very practical psychological sense. It has a curious knack of, and a unique faculty for, contracting into the narrowest familism and expanding into the widest humanitarianism, "smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest", as the Upanishats say. It ranges from just above sheer pure egoism (if such a thing is possible, which it is not) to the most extensive altruism, passing through many kinds and degrees of clan, tribe, group, horde, sect, creed, class, caste, profession, sub-race, nation, race, sex, etc.. In current symbols of ideas, Socialism stands for the We-feeling, Individualism for the I-feeling. There is radical and perpetual antagonism between the two. Yet, also, both are necessary, inevitable, always inseparable. Abolish one wholly; the other will also disappear at once, automatically. Sleep, pralaya, will be the result, wherein alone there is absolute equality, homogeneity, indeed identity, absence of all difference. The two are as the connected and continuous halves of a see-saw. Lower one end, the other is raised. Cut away one, the other falls down too. The universe is made up of such "pairs of opposites" in every department, in all aspects.
Synthesis of Inseparable Opposites
The
problem before us is: Shall the individualistic-I-spirit be allowed to
continue to prevail, in and by blind, frantic, wasteful competition, or
shall [Page 3] a fair
preponderance be given to the socialistic-We-spirit and co-operation reign
throughout mankind as in a joint family ? Which side of the ethico-spiritual
human see-saw shall be kept higher and which lower ?
The
newness of the psycho-physical waves, above referred to, consists in this
that they are attacking this problem more and more consciously, purposefully,
deliberately, as perhaps was never before done in history; and that they are
tending to raise the socialistic end of the see-saw higher. As is said in "theosophical" literature, in the
very long evolution of the Human Race, developing faculty after faculty, stage by stage, it is the special
work of the "fifth
Sub-Race", i.e., the European, broadly speaking, of the "fifth Race", i.e.,
the
Âryan, to develop self-conscious Intellect, the egoistic individualistic "fifth
principle". The "modern" mind is therefore putting into terms of wakeful
deliberate intellect, what was formerly experienced by the race with lesser
conscious clearness, in the shape of emotion-instinct-intuition, with the
intelligence half awake and half asleep, so to say, feeling rather than perceiving.
We find the process recapitulated today, more or less definitely, in each
individual life, growing through childhood and adolescence into maturity. Thus
it comes about that the modern [Page
4] mind
is discussing economical, political, social, and even psychological and
religious problems (to say nothing of those of physical science) with a. wealth
of minute detail of facts and figures, statistics and arguments, and almost
overwhelmingly vast collections of information about almost all the countries
of the earth, as was never done, or, at any rate, has not been found yet,
in any previous historical period. And, be it noted, the strengthening
of "individuality", i.e., of the psychical sense of separate personality (as distinguished
from the earlier tribal "group"-feeling), and the intensification of "individualism", i.e.,
of individualistic competition, of ego-istic self-ish struggle, are the natural
consequences and concomitants of this phase of human evolution, viz.,
the development of self-conscious intellect; also that, after sufficient experience
of this phase, the tendency is natural, too, to a reaction, and a reversion to
the "group" feeling, on a higher level, with richer contents of conscious intelligence,
in the shape of Socialism.
Now,
whatever may have happened in prehistoric, legendary, "ancient" purãnic times, such history
as the modern mind believes in, seems — but the present
writer's reading therein is very limited, it must be confessed — to present
continuously the picture of the thought, feeling, and activity of the Individualistic
spirit predominant. [Page
5]
In
Religion, human beings have, so long, mostly preferred to believe in an
extra-cosmical, personal, individual, almighty Creator, sitting in heaven
and doing with his creatures what he wills; and in his vicegerent, sitting
on the earth, the chief 'priest’, 'wizard', 'magician', 'medicine-man',
'wise man' of the tribe or nation or race, as the case may be, the super-Brãhmana,
Jagad-Guru, Lama, Pope, Khalîfa, etc., the theocrat, in brief. In
Politics, the great conqueror and wholesale butcher, the emperor, the shãhan-shãh,
the sãmrãt, chakravartî, sãrvabhauma,
the super-Kshattriya, the autocrat (of whom the aristocrat and bureaucrat may
be regarded as sub-varieties), has been given praise and glory and homage
by mankind generally and historians specially. In Economics, the billionaire,
the railway-king, the cotton-king, the wheat-king, the oil-king, and now
the automobile-emperor, the super-Vaishya, the plutocrat, has been the
subject of well-nigh universal admiration and envy. Mention must not be
omitted here, of the "party-boss", master of "tammany" and "graft" and "boodle". who
is reported to create and demolish presidents of republics and prime ministers
of constitutional monarchies, by strokes of his pen on the leaves of his
cheque-book; who can bring about wars between nations or stop them, at
will, by giving or withdrawing financial help, just as may suit the business
interests of Capital; who can reduce military valour and scientific knowledge
(Kshattriya [Page
6] and Brãhmana),
both, to the condition of purchased slaves, to further the purposes of
that Capital, and prostitute what should be the holy defenders and promoters
of human happiness, for the ruin of millions of homes in all countries,
and who thereby firmly binds together "politics" and "economics", and newly
justifies the earlier appellation of the "new" science, viz., "political
economy". In
War, until very recently, in East and West alike, the personal prowess of the
commander of the army has been the main deciding factor, and a stray shaft or
shot striking him down, has often sufficed to convert a victory into defeat;
If an arrow had not found the eye of Harold at Senlac, the Norman would not have
trampled down the Saxon in England. Eastern and western history is full of such
great if’s.
The side of the
Good also, in human affairs, is similarly represented by great individual reformers of religion, like Vyãsa
and Buddha, Zoroaster and Moses, Christ and Muhammad, or beneficent monarchs like Ashoka the Priya-darshî (the
"loving-eyed"), Marcus Aurelius the Stoic-Saint, and Nausherwãn the Just, or
great merchant-benefactors of their peoples, the builders of great temples and
"pious works" and endowers of long-lasting charities, Tirumala Rãya and
Trilochana, Bimal Sãh and Bhãmã Sãh, Johns Hopkins and Leland Stanford,
Carnegie and Rockefeller, etc..
In
short, the individual "I" has been predominant. But only predominant;
not all, not everything. [Page 7]
The " We," the col-lec-tion,
the "together-binding", of individuals,
has obviously never been altogether absent; otherwise the "I" would have disappeared too;
but it has been greatly sub-dominant, sub-ordinate.
The Thread-Soul, the Over-soul, seems latterly to have
become somewhat surfeited with this experience. It seem to want a change, it has perhaps had enough taste
of the pungent sweets and corrosive acids of excessive individualism, in the persons of the individuals who
constitute the cells and tissues of its vast earth-wide and aeonian body. It perhaps now wishes to taste
the milder sweets and salts, the more moderate and wholesome astringents and appetising bitters, of Socialism,
in and through the masses of its constituent members.
On the wide expanse of the plains of Thought, the plains of Philosophy, Science, Art, Religion, the idea of
an Anima Mundi, a Vishv-ãtma, a Rûh-î-kul, a principle of Universal Consciousness, of a
Common All-pervading life, of Unconscious Infinite and Eternal Ideation or Supra-conscious Will-and-Imagination,
of an Oversoul of which all individual souls and bodies whatsoever are as the cells of a single organism, and
which Oversoul, is, in its highest form, ultimately, none else than the eternally self-evident Self, Âtmã,
in and of all living [Page 8] beings, the Self-proven
proof of all proofs; the idea of the Organic Unity and Continuity of Nature as the raiment of the one Supreme
Spirit or Self; the idea of the consequent Brotherhood of Man; the idea of Physical Science and Art extending
on all sides of their present limits into super-physical regions, explorable by means of subtler senses latent
and evolvable in the human being — these ideas are dawning more and more brightly on the horizon of those
plains ( — though the advertisements, in the Western papers, especially those of the land of the Almighty
Dollar, show that this growing harvest of "spirituality" is also being turned into cash diligently !). And
the fresh Revelation, of consciously Scientific Religion, this time, seems likely to be made, not suddenly
all at once and by a single individual as hitherto, but slowly and gradually by the large body of religious,
scientific, and philosophical thinkers of the world working more or less deliberately in co-operation for the
purpose.
In Politics, monarchism is being replaced by republicanism, autocracy by democracy (—though democracy,
in the far as well as the middle West, continues to be hood-winked and wire-pulled almost worse than ever before
by the vested, interests of plutocracy cum aristocracy cum theocracy, and, if released from
this control, threatens to become "mobocracy"). National clawings and fangings are being attempted to be abated
by an International League of Nations ( — though that League does not include, [Page
9] does indeed deliberately exclude, in the spirit of the hypocrite and the bully combined,
representatives of the bulk of mankind composed of the weaker exploitable and "mandate-"able peoples, so that
even European observers have written of “the rapacious spirit ... of the mandatories"). It is much that
the last vast surge of action, the Great War, has been interpreted as "a War to end War''(even though the snarlings
and spittings continue as bad as ever almost). Thanks to the loss of flesh and blood, literal and metaphorical,
there is at least wide-spread talk of a general disarmament, of shedding the fangs and claws ( — even
though,instead of the remnants of these being shed, the broken ones are being, or, rather, have already been,
repaired and renewed, and the lost ones replaced, and, moreover, are being supplemented with stronger and fiercer
beak and talon of aeroplane and shark's teeth of submarine). Even generals who took
"distinguished" part in the Great Butchery are lecturing to the public on the futility of tooth-and-nail
methods. And peace-movements and youth-movements are growing in many countries.
Russia has initiated, though in a setting of much violence, a tremendous experiment in a new form of political
government expressly subservient to Economic Socialism, Karl Marx's Das Capital being reported to be
the Soviet's Bible. But it seems to be already modifying the governing ideas thereof, as regards abolition
of private property, [Page 10] considerably, so far
as even Russians themselves are concerned, besides granting very long leases to foreign concessionaires and
capitalist-profiteers, for developing the natural resources of the country, with entire exemption from the
laws, as to limitation of property, which govern the Russians. And it is not at all possible yet to say how
far the experiment will succeed. China is also engaged in a vast struggle with another experiment. Other countries,
in the near West, Turkey, Afghanistan, Arabia, Egypt, are all heaving with new ideas of Government.
More important to Indians than all these, and of greater promise for the well-being of humanity, is the bringing
into the field of politics, by Mahãtmã Gãndhî, for the helping of the exploited
weaker peoples, and amongst them too of the vast poorer masses especially, as their best weapon, of the method
of passive resistance to, civil disobedience of, "non-violent non-co-operation" with, evil generally and all
evil Government specially. This new application of the principle and policy of the ancient hartãl and tyãga of
India (expressive of public disapproval and dissent generally, on all sorts of occasions, but mostly with reference
to unpopular administrative measures of the ruler of the day), and of the modern Western economic "general
strike", to the sphere of politics, is a true inspiration given to Mahãtmã Gandhî by the
Oversoul of Humanity for reducing the horrors of [Page 11] war,
and will, bye and bye, let us fervently hope, justify the anciently recognised fact, Ex Oriente Lux,
in Politics as in Religion and Philosophy. It is a noble endeavour to demonstrate practically and on
an immense scale in politics, the philosophical and ethical truth that hatred can be conquered more successfully
by (intelligently and passively resistant, and not merely submissive and acquiescent) love than by hatred.
Such are the signs of the new activity of the Oversoul, in Politics.
In the domain of Economics also, the idea of co-operation is growing into greater and greater prominence and
importance, co-operation between producers, between them and capitalists, between both and consumers; the idea
that co-operation, "mutual alliance". is more necessary for the progress, the life, the very existence of the
race than competition and struggle (as excellently expounded in Prince Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, almost
the first scientific counter-blast to and corrective of the extreme elements in the Darwinian "mutual struggle" ).
That Socialism can run into as great extremes (wherein lies error, invariably) as Individualism, is indicated,
in the department of War, by the completeness with which so many nations were organised (in the way of compulsive
autocratic despotic state-socialism) for the Great War, as they have never yet been organised for peace; and,
in the department [Page 12] of Domesticity, by the
practical promiscuity which is reported to be under experiment in Russia, on the avowed ground (as explained, e.g., by
Mme. Kollontoi, a Russian official) that “the communist society has no use for the old form of the family" .
. . the bourgeois monogamy" . . . which is “destructively individualistic in its influence”, and
clashes with "socialist ideals"; that, "in short, the narrowing, selfish, clannish emotions of the family-life" should
be expanded to communal dimensions. The great danger of state-socialism is that, with the very best of intentions,
it may become the very acme, the reductio ad absurdum et horrendum, of individualism, of Bureaucracy,
of the enslavement and mechanisation of the vast majority by a handful of individuals.
We thus see that in all departments of human life, new ideas, new feelings, new enterprises,
which are the reverse of those that have so far held sway, are slowly, with many backslidings, many a slip
'twixt the cup and the lip’, slowly forcing themselves into prominence in human affairs.
In terms of Psychology, the mass-mind rather than the single particular mind; of History, the people rather
than the king and the hero; of Ethics, altruism rather than egoism; of Science, [Page
13] Unconscious or Supra-conscious Spiritualism rather than materialism; of Religion, Spiritual
Rationalism and Universal Brotherhood rather than unquestioning faith, blind credo, sectarianism and
shibboleths; in Politics, internationalism or humanism rather than nationalism, and democracy rather than autocracy;
in Economics, regulated co-operation rather than free competition, society rather than the individual. All
these pairs of opposites are inseparably allied aspects of the same ultimate, or rather, penultimate metaphysical
pair, the One Spirit and the Many Matter; and, therefore the sufficient prevailing of any member of any pair
over its opposite will be sooner or later followed by the prevailing of all its corresponding members in all
the pairs over their respective opposites.
For our present purposes, the pair of Socialism and Individualism is the most important. The
Dawn of "Another Renaissance", hoped for by large numbers of human beings in all countries today, depends upon
the achievement of successful domination, by a just and rational (and not extremist) Socialism
(we will not say "spiritual" socialism lest some worthy readers be repelled), over the now unrestrained Individualism.
That all fundamental human problems have to be threshed out today primarily in the economic [Page
14] terms of Individualism and Socialism, is evidenced by the fact of the ever-growing literature
upon the subject of the antagonism between these two; by the many varieties into which Socialism has become
sub-divided, each advocated by an important and influential school of thinkers; by the frequency with which
the terms meet the eye in ephemeral but influential journalism as well as in somewhat more lasting but less
wide-reaching books, even when other subjects are being directly dealt with; by the fact that all the newer
textbooks, professedly and expressly, of "political science", make sure to give large and prominent place
to a discussion of this pair; by such a violently striking fact as that above referred to, of the political revolution
of Russia being based on the economic ideas of Socialism; and, more than all else, by the simple, unmistakable,
unquestionable fact that political institutions have no other just and rational aim than to subserve the economic needs
of the people, in the larger sense of the word, from the Greek oikos, and the Samskrt okas, meaning
the house, the home. States originate, and are developed, governments exist, and are maintained by the people,
in order that "homes" may be happy, through the securing and the assuring (yoga and kshema) to
the people, by the State and the Government, of all the requirements of the happy home; they have no other raison
d’être. [Page 15]
Now "homes" cannot be happy without an "equitable distribution", to all families, of the physical,
as well as the psychical means of happiness, artha in Samskrt (i.e., in the broader view,
the four purush-ãrthas, aims or ends of human life); for
"men do not live by bread alone"; they want panem et circenses; and the circenses take different
forms for different temperaments.
Such equitable distribution is not possible without a fairly complete, comprehensively thought out, balanced "social
organisation", in Samskrt, samãjavyasthã. Opportunist, haphazard, temporising patch-work
might possibly palliate for a while, but will, like most quack remedies, ultimately aggravate the disease.
When it is so serious as to have affected all the organs, nothing less than a complete overhauling, and constitutional
treatment by alternatives, will do.
Social organisation means "division of labour", karma-vibhãga.
Successful and efficient division of labour is possible only when there is a scientifically correct "classification
of psycho-physical temperaments"
(idiosyncrasies, inclinations, dispositions, special abilities, vocational aptitudes, etc.), and all individuals
are grouped into a few main "classes" corresponding with the main temperaments (the man of knowledge, the man
of action, the man of [Page 16] acquisitive desire,
all differentiating and specialising, by "spontaneous variation", out of the unskilled or little-skilled workman
as the general plasm); i.e., when there is varna-vyavasthã or chãtur-varnya,
not hereditary but temperamental.
Such classification is possible only when the "educational system" is properly organised, and the aptitude
ascertained, by appropriate methods, during the
"school-and-college" days, of each individual pupil; the guru-kula system.
The grouping of the people into vocational classes, and the division of the social labour between these classes,
fulfil their purpose only when appropriate functions or vocations with appurtenant appropriate rights and duties,
are assigned to persons of corresponding psycho-physical temperaments; dharma-karma-vibhãga.
In order that the persons to whom the functions are assigned may discharge them adequately, means of subsistence
must be assured to them. For this there must be a corresponding division of "means of livelihood", leading,
as a consequence, to an equitable division of "the necessaries of life", and the securing of a minimum-comfort
living to all; vrtti-vibhãga or jivikã-vibhãga. Such division of the means
of livelihood between the several classes, the insistence that each order or class shall gain its living by
pursuit of only such bread-winning or money, making avocations as are fixed for it, will regulate [Page
17] and restrain the play of the individualistic instinct, and will prevent the blind and
frantic competition wherein each and every individual is permitted by the laissez faire policy, to grab
at all kinds of "livelihood", i.e., money-making methods, at one and the same time. "Necessaries of
life", it may be noted here, ordinarily mean the objects of the "physical" appetites, food .and clothing, spouse,
dwelling-place, and subsidiaries.
“Efficient and whole-hearted performance of appropriate function" by each individual is possible, further,
only when a corresponding division is made of the "luxuries of life", the rewards and prizes of life. For,
as said before, men do not live by bread alone, and they need other things for their psychical satisfaction,
which things, incidentally, act as "individualistic" incentives to them to put forth the best that is
in them, in their respective vocations. The "luxuries of life" toshanã-s rãdhasa-s, ãrãdhana-s are
the objects of the "psychical"
appetites or ambitions, eshanã’s. These are, mainly, honor, power, wealth,
and amusement, corresponding to the four main temperament's. This partition of the main ambitions and
satisfactions would, in Samskrt, be called, éshanã-toshanã-vibhãga.
In order that all this may be done, all these divisions and partitions made and worked, it is necessary that
there should be, firstly, [Page 18] wise "legislation",
providing for them, and, secondly, firm "execution", giving actual effect to the provisions of the law. Finally,
in order that there may be such legislation and execution, the people, whose "homes" are to be made happy,
must "select and elect" from among themselves, their best and wisest, their most philanthropic and most
capable, in short, the higher self of the community, to be the legislators and directors of the
executive.
So is the "virtuous circle" completed. So are all departments of human life, educational, political, economic,
domestic, all "organs" of the social organism, closely and inseparably connected together, educative-legislative
head, executive-regulative arm, sustentative - distributive trunk, all-supporting - industrial legs — all
vitalised by the heart, viz., the "home". [ For fuller exposition of these and the
following ideas, see the author’s The Science of Social Organization, or The Laws of Manu in
the Light of Theosophy]
The genuinely "communistic" organisations of the communities of early Christian monks, dwelling
in very large numbers in the monasteries of the Egyptian Thebaid, with every circumstance favourable for success,
yet split on this rock, viz., the lack of the impetus to work, the incentives, [Page
19] the spurs to activity, of the toshanã-s, the objects of the various ambitions,
above mentioned. As Gibbon says, in describing their attempts and their failure (in ch. xxvii of his great
work on The Roman Empire): "The industry must be faint and languid which is not excited by the sense
of personal interest." The practical experiments of Robert Owen and of other communists of the U.S.A. [Vide Leacock, Elements
of Political Science, chapter
“Socialism”] who have tried, in America, to establish socialist colonies, have
split on the same rock. Many plans, regarding the abolition of all private property, of the Russian Bolshevik
Soviet Government, are reported to have been upset by the same difficulty. Example of another kind of trouble,
also psychical, is the case of experiments also tried in the West, especially the U.S.A., on the lines of a
suggestion of J. S. Mill's, viz., workmen's unions buying up and managing factories. The managing officers,
who have had to be appointed unavoidably, have, before long, developed the bureaucratic and autocratic spirit.
But why need we go to these distant examples ? Why not go to the very familiar and close at hand archetype
itself of all socialism and communism, the joint family of India? There, if anywhere, should the socialist
maxim work, and does work to whatever extent it does so at all, the maxim, viz., "From each according
to his capacity and to each according to his needs". The maxim governs the [Page
20] joint family only so long as a common ancestor remains alive. He or she is the human
embodiment of the maxim, and also of a benevolent and righteous "state-force" which un-selfishly, lovingly, impartially, and
therefore unresistedly, compels all the members of the family to observe it in their conduct. As soon as
that strong thread breaks, the beads scatter apart. For selfishness, laziness, jealousies, in short, evil motives,
gain the upper hand, which formerly had been kept under by the good motives felt and spread and imposed by
the common ancestor. The socialist maxim suffers, in the hands of most workers, whether with brain or with
muscle, "a great change, into something very strange" and very familiar, viz., "The least that I must
do and the most that I can take". In the hands of the "mighty", it undergoes the Roman variation: " From all
the provinces according to their utmost capacity, and to Rome according to the needs of its wildest and most
luxurious caprice and avarice". This is the guiding maxim of the governments seated in the huge capital-towns
of the advanced nations of the West, today, especially those "owning" "dependencies" (whose inhabitants cannot
become emperors, as Roman provincials could) — the capital towns "which waste in each night's bout the
wealth of kings". The new somewhat conventional "central authority". the "managing director" as distinguished
from the deceased natural head, of the family, not [Page 21] inspired
by the same love of all the youngers, and not inspiring the same confidence and respect, consciously or unconsciously
begins to absorb the bulk of the property, the earnings, the advantages. Or the junior members shirk work but
want to share profits and share alike. Or each mother tries to secure extra comforts for her children. Bickerings
begin. The joint family breaks up into a number of separate families. The process is repeated generation after
generation.
Socialist-politicians have this patent psychological fact before their eyes, obtrusively. Yet the many schemes
and books put forth by the various schools of socialism do not touch it, much less grapple with it, in its psychical
aspect. There is perhaps a rare exception here and there. Thus the "conscientious objector"
of the war-days, mathematician, sociologist, and philosopher, Mr. Bertrand Russell recognises (in his book, Roads
to Freedom) that the causes of human troubles are psychological. He seems also to have caught the
old Indian idea of duly utilising, and regulating, honor, power, and wealth as incentives, but has touched
the subject very cursorily. Some writers of systematic text-books on Political Science also recognise that "Socialists
are inclined to be too optimistic in underrating the psychological obstacles to their plan". The brilliant
Mr. G. B. Shaw, in his Guide to Socialism (pub. 1928), while exceedingly lucid in most of his chapters,
is equally [Page 22] unsatisfactory and completely
unconvincing in his treatment of the " Incentive" to work and of "the will to equality" which he recognises
to be the main desideratum, but for the creation of which, in any given nation or society, not to speak of
mankind at large, he can. suggest no means.
The difficulty is indeed a psychical one. Therefore psychical remedies, working by internal stimulation, automatically
and perpetually from within each individual concerned — and all individuals are concerned — are
needed. Devices, more or less mechanical, operating from outside, by external compulsion alone, are bound to
fail. Compulsion from outside must be helped, if it cannot be wholly supplanted, by impulsion from within.
If reports be true, in Bolshevik Russia peasants began to avoid producing more than was "necessary of life" for
themselves more than they were allowed by the Soviet State to keep. Why should they produce more, for the State
to take away, for alleged purposes which did not come home to them at all, in their daily life ? They saw no
fun in doing so. They had not the necessary ''patriotism". Even "patriotism" requires aliment. That
nourishment is psychical — honor, power, wealth, amusement. Let it be noted here that, while the joys
of honor and power are obviously psychical, wealth too does not mean mere collections of securities, notes,
coins or other [Page
23] physical objects as such, but the joy of artistic possessions and of helping (or
in the case of the evil-minded, hindering) others. Manu, the oldest law-giver cf the oldest living civilisation
of the earth (except perhaps the Chinese) and his compatriot philosophers, have left behind the needed guidance
on this point, as to how the natural psychical appetites, the eshanã-s, the ambitions, of the
different types of temperament, and their respective objects, toshanã-s, honor, etc., should
be utilised as incentives to effort, as competitive, individualistic, motives to excel in socialistic
public spirit and public service, for the organisation of the Society of the Human Race,
and the due performance of the social labour. It is only when the sovereign-body, the central authority, the
selected and elected (honorary, un-salaried) Legislature (and Director and Supervisor of the Executive) in
a State, approximates, ethically as well as intellectually, in largeness of heart as well as ripeness
of experienced wisdom, to the living patriarch of the joint family, that the longed-for reconciliation between
Individualism and Socialism will be approximated to in that state. And this is not impossible if high ethical
and intellectual qualifications are prescribed for "electees", and if electors are systematically educated
to wisely choose persons possessing those qualifications and so approximating to the Higher Self of the "nation",
or better, the "people", of the State. As a recent American [Page 24] writer
says: [ Ford, Representative Government, pub. 1925] "How to reconcile
representative institutions", i.e., self-government, "with good government has become the great problem
of the day". This problem will be solved only when it is widely recognised that self-government means government
by the higher, and not the lower, Self of the people, legislation by representatives who are ethically as well
as intellectually worthy, who are disinterested and philanthropic as well as possessed of mature experience,
special knowledge, sound judgment. This recognition of the Higher Self is the very quintessential secret
of the solution of all the problems of Padagogics, Domestics, Economics, Civics, Politics, Ethics, Philosophy,
Religion, Spirituality, all at once. In every department of human life in which human embodiments and exponents
of this higher Self are allowed to guide the conduct of affairs — in every such department success
and happiness will result. And such wide recognition is not impossible to achieve, if systematic teaching and
preaching is carried on through press and platform, by even a few convinced and resolute persons to begin with,
to expound the fairly obvious fact that legislators must be good and wise if laws are to be good and wise,
and to explain what are "the outward symbols of the inward grace", the marks whereby the worthiness of the
persons to be elected may be recognised, and the means by which they [Page
25] may be persuaded to shoulder the burden of the legislator's duty (instead of hustling
and struggling, bribing and flattering and begging shamelessly, and intimidating and bullying, to secure votes).
Then (as Mr. G. B. Shaw also recognises, at last, near the end of his large book) will self-government be justified
of its name, and Individualism and Socialism be reconciled, and the Renaissance come.
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