A Karmayogin, ideally his task and the mission

Sri Aurobindo’s vision of Karmayoga : for materializing the darshana In the words of Sri Aurobindo, `The task we set before ourselves is not mechanical but moral and spiritual. We aim not at the alteration of a form of government but at the building of a nation. Of that task, politics is a part but only a part. We aim not at the alteration of a form of a government but at the building of a nation. Of this task, politics is a part but only a part.’ ‘Either India will be rationalized and industrialized and she will be no longer India or else she will be leader in a new world phase aid by her example and cultural infiltration the new tendencies of the west and spiritualize the human race.’ ‘First therefore become Indians, recover the patrimony of your forefathers, recover the Aryan thought, Aryan discipline, Aryan character and Aryan life. Recover Vedanta, the Gita, the Yoga. Recover them not only in intellect and sentiments but also in your lives. Live them and then you will be great and strong, mighty, invincible and fearless. Neither death nor life will have any terrors for you. Difficulty and impossibility will vanish from your vocabulary. For it is in the spirit that the strength is eternal. You must win back your inner Swaraj before you can win back your outer kingdom. There the Mother dwells and waits for worship that she may give strength…Believe in Her, lose your wills in Hers, egoism in Hers, selfishness in Hers.. recover the source of strength in yourself and all else will be added to you.’ ‘India must stand in the forefront of the world and solve the political, social, economical, moral problems which Europe has failed to solve, yet the pursuit of which and feverish passage from experiment to experiment it calls her progress.’ ‘For us Sanatana Dharma is Nationalism: Rise of India means rise of Sanatana Dharma. There is a mighty law of life, great principle of human evolution, a body of spiritual knowledge and experience of which India is always destined to be guardian, exemplar and missionary. To understand the heart of this dharma, to experience it as a truth, to express and execute it in life, to feel the high emotions to which it raises your mind, to express and execute it in your life, is what we understand by Karmayoga.’ ‘India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word. She lives and still has something to do for herself and for the human people. And that something which now must seek to awaken is not the docile pupil of this west, doomed to repeat the occident’s cycle of success and failure but still the ancient immemorable Shakti lifting Her head high towards the supreme source of Light and Strength and turning aside to discover new meaning and vaster form of our own dharma.’ Value of Indian conception of life depends upon relations and gradations with which it connects this difficult and distant perfection of each human being with our normal living and present everyday nature. For high unattainable ideal or detached remote passion of few exceptional spirits, it never discouraged springs of natural life, by too great a contrast between spiritual being and our own imperfect nature. We should not be misled by the extreme tendencies or the overemphasis put upon them in the period of decline. Indian culture did not deface or impoverish the richness of the grand game of life, it never depressed or mutilated the activities of our nature. On the contrary, subject to a certain principle of harmony and government, it allowed them their full and often their extreme value. Indian mind whether in government of mind or discipline of spirituality kept always in sight two main truths of our existence: 1.Our being in its growth has stages through which it must pass. 2. Life is complex and nature of man is complex. In each life man has to figure certain sum of his complexity and put that into some kind of order. For us Sanatana Dharma is Nationalism: Rise of India means rise of Sanatana Dharma. There is a mighty law of life, great principle of human evolution, a body of spiritual knowledge and experience of which India is always destined to be guardian, exemplar and missionary. To understand the heart of this dharma, to experience it as a truth, to express and execute it in life, to feel the high emotions to which it raises your mind, to experience it as a truth, to express and execute it in life is what we understand by Karmayoga.