Culture is mind duplicating itself..evolving ceaselessly, erasing divisions

It is said that civilisation is matter duplicating itself but culture is mindduplicating itself. Preservation of culture means preservation of this mind and preservationof those ideas which mould that particular mind. lt is not preser--vation of the grandfathers stick and coat. Whatever is outdated, harmful, perverted, or not suitable in today's world has to be replaced by a better one: this process is not against but in the direction of preservation of Culture. '

’There is no institution which cannot be scrapped when it is not needed. There is no institutionwhich can not be adopted when it is inevitable.' We will sacrifice no ancient form to an unreasoning love of change, we will keep none which the national spirit desires to replace by one that is still better and truer expression of the undying soul of the nation.' Who can decide the boundaries between religious and secular life, social and individual life, economic and political life, history and mytholory, love and lust, courage and arrogance, self expression and dominance, cohesion aroundanewnucleus and separarion from the larger group, -- these diferences, divisions and antagonisms and even the most diverse theories of life are sucked in, absorbed and assimilated in the immense body of Indian Culture, And giving the center and the periphery of Indian wisdom, they are put at the proper radius, proper height and proper angle away from the center, they all are right at their own place, and they can become 'more right' by the repetitive attempts of coming close to the center. That is why throughout this writings we have always tried to show that the wisdom of the Upanishads was the luminous seed out of which the whole mighty banyan tree of later developments (social, economic, political, etc.) took place. The division between mundane and spiritual, religious and secular, is notthere in Indian Culture. There is perfect interaction and interrelation at all the layers. Theemphasis on the interrelatedness and interconnectedness is unique.Thedevelopment of integrating streams like Tantra, tendency to form as small and independent unit; to ensure the overall growth of the individuals, to ensure delicacy in operation, to encourage creative and vital tendencies, and to avoid Industrialisation, mechanisation, long chains of operations, to discourage mass production or mass education, to understand inadequacy of state as an idea and to minimise its interference in the lives of the small groups ofthe self-reliant people - therebythe rise of caste system, guilds, visha,janapada. That which led to the concepts of Swaraj and Swadeshi :The spirit of regional autonomy which reasserted itself whenever the central rule was weak. The spirit which responded to the movement of Satyagraha--- all these later developments over the period of centuries were right when they traced back their roots to ‘Ekam Sat’,‘Tatwamasi and Ishavasvamidamsarvam.' In the opinion of Gandhiji, the vast organisation of caste answered not only the religious wants of the community but it also answered to its political needs. The Villagers managed their internal affairs through the caste system and through it they dealt with even with the political and economical problems as well as external attacks. East as a whole and India in particular has always been more subjective. And to be subjective does not mean that we are unscientific. Because that way the modern Nobel prize winner scientists,Quantum Physicists, and Futurists will not be scientific.' Modern science is so obesessd with its greatness of physical discoveries that it has attempted to base on the physical data even the study of mind, body andSoul and working of it. ..even psychology is based upon the physiology, on nervous system and human anatomy and brain centers, So much of so that even in History there is no place for the Thinker.-- it is just collection of chronology of events but has no understanding of the undercurrents. According to many thinkers and as it is well articulated by Toyenbee, Lampchert and then by Sri Aurobindo, there is a theory of Human Cycle. Society has a cycle through which it passes. Symbolic, Typal, Conventional, Individualistic and Subjective. Psychology of man and societies is too complex, too many sided,toosynthetical and such classification errs by rigidity and substitution of mental straight lines for the coils and zigzags of the Nature. Yet they are useful to understand the general pattern. 1) Symbolic age is predominently religious, actively imaginative. In India the religious institution of Sacrifice had pervaded the whole life. That is why all the images used throughout the Ashwattha series are nothing but different types of 'Altars raised to the Divine Self '--that is what is the common solid link between the different structures raised by the so called primitives for the animal sacrifices and poojas and the later more Sanskitised versions of the same throughout India. India understood that Man and cosmos are symbols and expressions of the same hidden reality. Everything in society is a sacrament, religious and sacrosanct. Spiritual idea governs all, symbolic religious forms which support it are fixed in principle. Social forms are large, free, and capable of infinite development. The second stage, Typal, is predominantly psychological and Ethical elements are subordinated to it. In the third stage. Conventional, clothes become more important than a man. To fix, formalise, erect system of rigid grades and hierarchies are the main things in this stage. The second and the third is in fact the age of Dharma and Shastra. It is the period of rise and also beginning of decline at its end. For then the religion becomes stereotype, education is bound in chains, traditions become unchangeable, thought is in the fossilized state, monopolized by few in power, while majority are doomed to remain in ignorance. Oppression, suffering, and revolts are gathering below the fine surfaces. Misery and squalor run behind the splendid facade. (For always) the form prevails and the Spirit recedes, and slowly diminishes. The efforts of saints and religious reformers become progressively more scattered, brief and superficial in their actual effects, however strong and vital may be their impulse. The gulf between the conventions and the truth becomes intolerable and the men of intellectual power arise. In the next stage, Individuals rise on the horizon. They are the pioneers, discoverers, they follow whatever light they catch a glimpse of. They are the few who differ from the inert masses of men who have forgotten how to deal freely with the facts and forces because they had learned only living in a world of stereotyped thought and customary action. There is artificial unity in the form of uniformity. Individual is apparently free but in reality is overpowered and overshadowed-- and,eventually by the smallness and feebleness of individual, organization loses its conservative vitality. With political and administrative unification this is the danger.Such a tremendous organization is required that individual and regional life will be crushed, dwarfed, deprived of, necessary freedom like plant without rain, sunlight and wind. Unity is part of the Nature’s eventual scheme but it should be keeping the roots of vitality of the race intact--it should be richly diverse in its oneness. Whole process of Nature depends on balancing and a constant tendency to create harmony between the two poles: Individual who is nourished by Aggregate and Whole or Aggregate which the Individual helps to constitute. Harmony min these two is yet unaccomplished. Past Aggregates are imperfect as an individual is incomplete without that of State or Collectivity and vice versa. However, the gradual process of Nature introduces complications, it is partially an aid, partially an obstacle. There are lesser aggregates between the Individual and the Whole. Because of the limitations of human brain and heart, limitation of Nature seldom destroys completely the types that are created once, a lavish waste of material is Her privilege and only that which is absolutely unnecessary are destroyed. Others serve Her need for passion for variety, richness, and multiplicity -- she only effaces the dividing lines.