A NATION is a living
personality; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation
is also a psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation
out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and
aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals
that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as
it were cells, like the cells of a living and conscious organism. The psychic
being or soul of a nation is indeed conscious; it knows its raison d'être, its
life purpose, its destiny, the role it has to play in the divine scheme as the
divine instrument. And its will – for it has a will, the expression of its
consciousness, the Divine's impulse in and through it – is inevitable, sooner
or later it will fulfil itself. Even like the soul of a man, the nation's soul
is behind all the movements that form its external life, supporting, building,
guiding its political, economic, social or cultural make-up. The individual can
know of and come in contact with the nation's soul in and through his own soul.
When one becomes conscious of his psychic being then only one is in a condition
to be conscious of the psychic being of the collective person of his nation or
the nation with which he has inner affinity.
There are periods in the life cycle of a
nation, critical moments, when it is in deadly peril, when its very existence
is threatened, attacked by enemy forces either from within or from without.
Such was the case when, for example, Britain was invaded by the Spanish Armada or when France was being subjugated by England. Those were very anxious times, but in each
instance the soul of the nation came forward and inspired the nation to react
and go through the ordeal and survive. Jeanne d'Arc may be considered as the
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embodiment of France's national soul, as on a still earlier
occasion that same soul embodied itself in St. Genevieve. But a nation may fall
on much more evil days, namely, when it loses contact with its very soul, goes
astray, its life movement taking a wrong curve. A
nation can deny its soul, even as an individual may and the result is disaster.
Germany is a terrible example of such a tragedy in
our own day.
India is offering a spectacle, of another tragedy. What is happening here is
the attack of a disease that is convulsing the body politic: it seems to be a
cancerous disease, the limbs seeking to grow independently at the expense of
each other. The patient is passing through a very critical period and it is
indeed a question of life and death. But we hope – we are : sure – that the soul of
this ancient nation will assert itself and I through whatever
vicissitudes re-establish health and harmony: for that soul's mission is yet to be done.
Like the individual a nation too dies.
Ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt and Babylon and Chaldea are no more. What I has happened to their souls, it may be asked. Well, what happens to the soul of the individual when
the body falls away? The soul
returns to the soul-world. Like the individual Psyche the collective Psyche too goes and retires
into the womb of peace and light
with all its treasures, its beauty and glory gathered in, like a bird that goes to sleep within its folded : wings.
What the Greek culture and civilisation was still continues to exist in its
quintessential reality in a world to which one has access if one has the
requisite kinship of consciousness and psychic opening. That soul lives in its
own domain, with all the glory of its achievement and realisation at their
purest; and from there it sheds its lustre, exerts
its influence, acts as living leaven in the world's cultural heritage and spiritual growth.
When however the soul withdraws, when a
nation in a particular cycle of its soul manifestation has fulfilled its role
and mission, the body of the nation falls gradually into decadence. The
elements that composed the organic reality, the living consistency of national
life disintegrate, lose their energy and cohesive capacity; they die out and
are dispersed or persist for a time as a confused mixture of disconnected and mechanically moving cells. But it may
happen too that
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in an apparently dying or dead nation, the
soul that retired comes back' again, not in its old form and mode of life – for
that cannot be – Egypt, if it lives again today cannot repeat the ages of the
Pharaohs and the Pyramids-but in a new personality, with a fresh life purpose,
In such a case what happens is truly a national resurrection – a Lazarus coming
back to life at the touch of the Divine.
We do not believe that India was ever completely dead or hopelessly
moribund: her soul, although not always in front, was ever present as a living
force, presiding over and guiding her destiny. That is why there is a perennial
capacity for renewal in her and the capacity to go through dire ordeals. And to
live up to her genius, she too must know how to march with the time, that is to
say, not to cling to old and past forms – to be faithful to the ancient soul
does not mean eternising
the external frames and formulas that expressed that soul one time or another.
Indeed the soul becomes alive and vigorous when it finds a new disposition of
the life plan which can embody and translate a fresh creative activity, a new
fulfilment emanating from the depths of the soul.
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