At
Pondicherry, from this time onwards Sri Aurobindo's practice
of Yoga became more and more absorbing. He dropped all
participation in any public political activity, refused
more than one request to preside at sessions of the restored
Indian National Congress and made a rule of abstention
from any public utterance of any kind not connected with
his spiritual activities or any contribution of writings
or articles except what he wrote afterwards in the Arya.
For some years he kept up some private communication with
the revolutionary forces he had led, through one or two
individuals, but this also he dropped after a time and
his abstention from any kind of participation in politics
became complete. As his vision of the future grew clearer,
he saw that the eventual independence of India was assured
by the march of forces of which he became aware, that
Britain would be compelled by the pressure of Indian resistance
and by the pressure of international events to concede
independence and that she was already moving towards that
eventuality with whatever opposition and reluctance. He
felt that there would be no need of armed insurrection
and that the secret preparation for it could be dropped
without injury to the Nationalist cause, although the
revolutionary spirit had to be maintained and would be
maintained intact. His own personal intervention in politics
would therefore be no longer indispensable. Apart from
all this, the magnitude of the spiritual work set before
him became more and more clear to him, and he saw that
the concentration of all his energies on it was necessary.
Accordingly, when the Ashram came into existence, he kept
it free from all political connections or action; even
when he intervened in politics twice afterwards on special
occasions, this intervention was purely personal and the
Ashram was nor concerned in it. The British Government
and numbers of people besides could not believe that Sri
Aurobindo had ceased from all political action and it
was supposed by them that he was secretly participating
in revolutionary activities and even creating a secret
organization in the security of French India. But all
this was pure imagination and rumour and there was nothing
of the kind. His retirement from political activity was
complete, just as was his personal retirement into solitude
in 1910.
But
this did not mean, as most people supposed, that he had
retired into some height of spiritual experience devoid
of any further interest in the world or in the fate of
India. It could not mean that, for the very principle
of his Yoga was not only to realise the Divine and attain
to complete spiritual consciousness, but also to take
all life and all world activity into the scope of this
spiritual consciousness and action and to base life on
the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement
Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening
in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever
necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent
spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of
those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the ordinary
forces and activities of the mind and life and body in
Matter, there are other forces and powers that can act
and do act from behind and from above; there is also a
spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those
who are advanced in the spiritual consciousness, though
all do not care to possess or possessing, to use it, and
this power is greater than any other and more effective.
It was this force which, as soon as he had attained to
it, he used, at first only in a limited field of personal
work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world
forces. He had no reason to be dissatisfied with the results
or to feel the necessity of any other kind of action.
Twice, however, he found it advisable to take in addition
other action of a public kind. The first was in relation
to the Second World War. At the beginning he did not actively
concern himself with it, but when it appeared as it Hitler
would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate
the world, he began to intervene. He declared himself
publicly on the side of the Allies, made some financial
contributions in answer to the appeal for funds and encouraged
those who sought his advice to enter the army or share
in the war effort. Inwardly, he put his spiritual force
behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody
was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite
triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing
the rush of German victory almost immediately arrested
and the tide of war begin to turn in the opposite direction.
This he did, because he saw that behind Hitler and Nazism
were dark Asuric forces and that their success would mean
the enslavement of mankind to the tyranny of evil, and
a set-back to the course of evolution and especially to
the spiritual evolution of mankind: it would lead also
to the enslavement not only of Europe but of Asia, and
in it of India, an enslavement far more terrible than
any this country had ever endured, and the undoing of
all the work that had been done for her liberation. It
was this reason also that induced him to support publicly
the Cripps' offer and to press the Congress leaders to
accept it. He had not, for various reasons, intervened
with his spiritual force against the Japanese aggression
until it became evident that Japan intended to attack
and even invade and conquer India. He allowed certain
letters he had written in support of the war affirming
his views of the Asuric nature and inevitable outcome
of Hitlerism to become public. He supported the Cripps'
offer because by its acceptance India and Britain could
stand united against the Asuric forces and the solution
of Cripps' could be used as a step towards independence.
When negotiations failed, Sri Aurobindo returned to his
reliance on the use of his spiritual force alone against
the aggressor and had the satisfaction of seeing the tide
of Japanese victory, which had till then swept everything
before it, change immediately into a tide of rapid, crushing
and finally immense and overwhelming defeat. He had also
after a time the satisfaction of seeing his prevision
about the future of India justify themselves so that she
stands independent with whatever internal difficulties.
- Sri
Aurobindo
