Karmayogi

Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 53

The
-KARMAYOGI
of them excellent aerial for the work He is abent, which always tends to the good of humanity. The persecution of Christianity by the powers of the ancient world was utterly evil, but it was for the best; without it there could not have been that noble reaction of sublime an exalted suffering which finally pornoatl the human mind with the impale of sacrifics for high ials, and by introducing a mental soil fit for the growth of altruism sow
the seeds of love sweetness and humanity in that hard selfish lustridden European world. The Bengale no doubt would have counselled the Christian martyrs not to be so rash and unreasoning but to domand from God a balance of profit and loss for each individual sacrifice and only after mature deliberation decide whether to obey the voice of God in their conscience or offer flowers to Venus and divine homage to Nero. Loss of courage.
pea is for the best. Here our contem porary finds an inconsistency, for did we hot say that just now everything works for the upraising of India because there is an upward trend which ail forces assist. "Curiously enough," he says, "the writer thinks the two propositions identical." Curiously enough, we do. We say that just now India is being raisel up and everything tends to God's purpose in raising her up; even calamity, even ovil, even error. Ho uses them for His purpse and out of evil bringeth good.ed We said "just now," because it is not true that God has always raised up India and always there has been an upward trend; sometimes He has cast her down, sometimes there has been a downward trend. Even that was for the good of In la and the world as we shall take occasion to show. Where then is the Emitition or the inconsistency? The Jinittio in the phira "jast now" applies to the upward trend, to the particular instance and not to the principle that out of evil cometh
, which is universal and absolute. Good out of evil.
It is strange to find a philosopher like, our contemporary parading in this twentieth century the ancient and hollow platitule that such a doctrine, however true, ought not to be applied to individual conduct because it will abrogate morality and personal responsibility. This is a strange auswer, too, to an argument which simply sought to confirm the faith and endurance of our people in calamity by the belief that our confi lease in our future was mistat al that these calamities. were necessary for God's high purpose. The evil we spoke of was not
not
oral evil, but misfortune and calamity. But we do not shrink from the doctrine that sin also is turned to His purposes and, so far as that goes, we do not see how such a doctrine abrogates morality. The wisdom and love of God in turming our evil into His good does not absolve us of our moral responsibility. Our contemporary shows this want of connection between the two positions himself when he asks whether one should not in that case play the traitor in order to assist the progress of the tendency. The gibe shows up the absurdity not of our faith but of his argument. Our selfish or sinful acts, our persistence in ignorance or perversity are for the best in this. obvious sense that God makes out
But the question of self-sacrifice needs separate handling and we have not the space to deal with it in this is me as its importance deserves. The Bengalee counters our suggestion about the superfluity of prudence and the instinct of self-preservation at the present moment by the usertin that there is an excess of unronsoning rashness. That is a question of standpoint and vocabulary. But when the Bengalee goes on to say that when evil results ensue from their imprudence the rash and unreasoning lose heart and become unbelievers, we have a right to ask to. whom the allusion is directed. In the young, the forward, the men stigmatised by the Bengalee as rash and unreasoning we find no loss of courage or faith but only a hesitation on what lines to proceed now that the old means have been broken by repressive laws. Among the older men we do indeed find a spirit of depression for which we blame those who in the thee of the repressions drew in their horns out of mature deliberation and allowed silence and inactivity to fall on the country. But these were never men of faith. We who believe in God's dispensations have not lost heart, we have not become unbelievers. Our cry is as loud as before for Swaraj and Swadeshi; our hearts beat as high. Intuitive Reason.
.
However there is hope for our contemporary. He has admitted in his idea of rationality the place of
the intuitive reason, and it is precisely the intuitive reason, speaking of tenest in the present stage of humpin development through the inspiration that wells up from the heart, which is the basis of faith and exceeds the limits of the logical intellect. For this is the highest form of faith when the intuitive reason speaks to the heart, captures the emotions and is support ted by reflection, This is the faith that moves mountains and there is nothing higher and more powerful except the yet deeper inner knowledge. YOGA AND HYPNOTISM.
When the mind is entirely passive, then the force of Nature which works in the whole of animate and inaniminte creation, has free play; for it is in reality this force which works in man as well as in the sun and star. There is no doubt of this truth whether in Hinduism or in Science. This is the thing called Nature, the sum of cosmic force and energy, which alono Science recognises as the source of all work and activity. This also is the Prakriti of the Hindus to which under different names Sankhya and Vedanta agree in assigning a sim ilar position and function in the Universe. But the immediate question is whether this force can act in man independently of man's individual will and initiative. Must it always act through his volition or has it a power of independent operation? The first real proof which Science has had of the power of action independent of volition is in the phenomena of hypnotism. Unfortunately the nature of hypnotism has not been properly understood. It is supposed that by putting the subject to sleep the hypnotist is able in some mysterious and unexplained way to substitute his will for the subject's. In a certain sense all the subject's activities in the hypnotic state are the results of his own volition, but that volition is not spontaneous, it is used as a slave by the operator working through the medium of suggestion. Whatever the hypnotist suggests that subject shall think, act or feel, he thinks, acts or feels, and whatver the hypnotist suggests that the subject, shall become, he becomes. What is it that gives the operator this. stupendous power? Why should the mere fact of a man passing into this sleep-condition suspend the ordinary reactions of mind and borly and substitute others at the mere
the