29-08-2013
A Complete Act -- Human Accomplishment
A worker or a labourer is one who executes an order. In a higher unexpressed sense, he can only execute an order of another and not order others. Another significance here is a work must produce a result as the building of a house. A worker is one who can undertake part of it when entrusted by another, not one who can undertake to complete a work. The part requires labour, the whole requires responsibility. Oliver Goldsmith considers a poet or a writer as one who accomplishes a work, whereas a historian is analogous to a paid labourer. A family equips one to be a human being, capable of human accomplishment – a complete responsible man. Such a man can become an entrepreneur whatever the size. A mere worker, not endowed with that capacity of the whole – responsibility – can never own an establishment. Entrepreneurship is the psychological unit of individuality. Man accomplishes, a labourer toils all his life. There is an individuality of work, an individuality of accomplishment, a psychological individuality. Work individuality and individuality of accomplishment are parts of the psychological individuality. The forte of Indian social culture is to produce a Man who has the psychological individuality. Such men are endowed with the elements of leadership and can rise in the scale of leadership.
The psychological individuality at a higher scale forms part of a wider endowment itself becoming a unit. The prosperity of prosperous nations is because its culture produces work individuality. Individuality can be conceived at various higher levels as social individuality, cultural individuality and finally spiritual individuality. The Europeans enjoy mental culture, the Russian culture is emotional. Mental culture produces mental individuality meaning he uses his Mind in doing his work. We see energy by itself can enormously help a work but not accomplish it. Skill accomplishes, especially a part of a work, rather a part which is a whole in itself, as one who can be a good efficient storekeeper and not more. Not all people can rise from being a cook’s maid to being a cook.
Great endowments start at the bottom in a small way. Fearlessness is an attitude that becomes bravery and ends up as courage. All great endowments of all great people we can see initially fashioning themselves as small skills or attitudes at the bottom of the society. We know of happy communities, brave villages, timid castes. A complete Act is the unit of human accomplishment. An act helps Man to accomplish a project. An attitude embraces several skills or is born out of the essence of several skills to form into capacity. Capacities, as all other things are, physical, vital, mental, spiritual, supramental. From a different perspective, we call some of them in some other evaluations social capacities, cultural capacities, political capacities, organisational capacities and psychological capacities. As these are not yet formed, well-defined social endowments, language uses them contextually not linguistically, which means the language would have exercised its capacity for classification and gradation, as in the shades of anger -- annoyance, irritation, anger, fury, rage. Language expresses concepts precisely when experiences formulate them giving a fairly specific form. Thus reasonable and logical are well defined, precise, exact.
Social development is well pronounced in the physical aspect of life. Not all fronts of life are sufficiently upgraded into its psychological counterpart. Education is the instrument of human development. In India all learning, if not knowledge, and all culture mostly resided with the Brahmins. Still it is true. By the hierarchy of caste, they were fortunate to become the aristocrats of caste. Their strength – a spiritual strength – remained with the Rishis. In the society they retain to this day all the glamorous reputation without the strength of wealth. They have become timid, called the mild Hindus. Sri Aurobindo has not pronounced Himself on several facets of life. Of that this is one. His economic ideas were never expressed. He called industrialization monstrous. In the absence of His direct guidance, we have to fall back upon His deeper ideals on fundamental issues and think.
A common sense view that appeals to me is what I have mentioned in an earlier article about the greatness of each caste when spiritually considered. Some businessmen have seen greater scope in India since 1980 than elsewhere, because Indian economy is opening up and those who position themselves in industry NOW can easily grow with the growth of India. The cultural advantages India enjoys organisationally are enormous. Only when the Indian has to squeeze himself into a Western system, he discovers himself inefficient. Western or Indian, the systems are efficient. We are comfortable in our systems. Suppose a software engineer starts a company in the Spirit of Indian Organisation and operates it with the dynamism of the American, he will be a pioneer who excels all other as Steve did.
Skill, capacities, personalities, individualities combine socially, psychologically, culturally or even economically. It is up to him to choose his own combination and work it out as he pleases. The efficiency the daily newspaper, printing press, and telegraph unleashed on the society was great. Universal education excelled them as it is in a higher plane. Again Internet does it technologically. An organisation of the above conception will be to the world as daily newspapers were 300 years ago. It cannot be done anywhere in the world as in India, by an Indian.
Individuality is the Technology of social revolution of plenty and inner peace.
The Individuality of an individual is great. The Individuality of an organisation that becomes dynamic on the indigenous energy is powerful and helps that Individuality to flower.
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