26-9-14
The Progress of Civilisation
Civilisation is preceded by history and unformed existence and is succeeded by culture. Culture is divided into material culture, physical culture, vital culture, mental culture and even extended to Spiritual and Supramental culture. Man who immaculately keeps his instruments clean is of physical culture. One, who, like Mrs. Gardiner, respects the sensibilities of Elizabeth is of the culture of Mind. It is really human culture on the threshold of the Spirit. Sri Aurobindo on hearing the poems of நம்மாழ்வார் said that poetry is of the level of the world’s best. He had not read more than a portion of Symposium but in speaking of Socrates, He said two things 1) He has perhaps touched Supermind, and 2) The world is not going to produce a greater Mind. The scale of evaluating Poetry, Mind is subconsciously saturated in Him. GDP was preceded by GNP. They were the boons to people all over the world to rate one’s place in the civilised world. It was given to Mother’s Service Society to point out to Indira that there is here more than meets the mind. She alone was able to see the truth of it. The founding of the Apollo Hospitals owes its origin to the perception of P.C. Reddy that a heart patient could have relief in Rs. 30,000/- instead of three lakhs. Incidentally it indicates the benevolence of the public sentiment to health. Ancient communities are evaluated by their known propensities towards arts or invention. The Great Truth of Evaluation is human life can be measured on any scale. Every human achievement or even experience can be put on a scale. Thus one who gives thought to scales will come up with a few hundred thousand scales, if only it is possible. Devising a scale is given to one whose knowledge in that subject is complete. He must also know the process of the value of achievement rising, as the rise is initially at least on two dimensions simultaneously – horizontal and vertical. A child growing into adulthood can be put on a scale of height, weight, intelligence, skills, capacities, common sense, capacity to accomplish and survive, capacity to grow, develop, evolve. He can be evaluated as a social product in the family in the immediate community. His own speech and manners also lend themselves to shape into a scale. Elements of personality present is another approach. Pleasant behaviour, the other man’s point of view, leadership are some traces of personality. The values of a child are perceptible from the beginning. He who devotes himself to devising scales will discover that his findings could go into an encyclopedia that can never come to an end. For instance, if health is a scale, at once, we see the whole of physiology and anatomy demand consideration. The skin alone is said to be an epitome of the entire health, if sufficient coordinating knowledge is available. Doctors always say that one’s nails reveal what he has consumed as food in the previous four months. Blood, urine, the intestines, the eyes are known to carry the summary of health. Coordination of language maturing into integration offers a new scope of cures, even self-administered, as one removes a thorn which an animal is not capable of. The doctor who brought down the fever of two months, administered by faith, not the vitamin tablets he prescribed. That may be ‘Krishna at his tricks’ of health or any problem or even opportunity. Knowing Brahman, one can know everything can be rephrased as knowing the world as Brahman, one knows everything can be accomplished.
The great values of Freedom, Equality, Faith, Compassion, Responsibility, Truthfulness, Capacity, Sweetness, native cheerfulness lend themselves to devise a scale to measure one’s worth and even one’s country. Visitors to an organisation, foreign tourists, the general public have a keen sense of evaluating an organisation or a family by the early touches it gives. Efficiency, reception, hospitality, sincerity of purpose etc. are felt as ultimate realities in the very first touch. In devising scales one scales heights when two values are evaluated in coordination. Obviously a family that lives in comfort can readily be evaluated in terms of how much that comfort is extended to guests. Comfort is on a scale. Reception is on another scale. The scale that combines both moves from part to the whole. The part speaks of early stages. A scale which combines more than one part, instantly raises the subject from the bottom to the top. We readily see that the combination is in the next higher plane. The scale moving from selfishness and its efficiency to self-giving and its sincerity moves the evolution from Nature to Evolution. Life admits all possible combinations that baffle the student of scales. Trees evaluated on height, longevity, strength, prolific nature leave the student in ‘various’ fields. Perhaps, on seeing this element Sri Aurobindo said that HE wondered whether philology would ever become a science. Students of economics can from this perspective know their subject.
Those who were close to Him found him as a military strategist in previous lives. By their very nature some lives such as ship’s life or military campaign is comprehensive in composition fully admitting any innovation. The eternal quarrel between the politician and the administrator arises from this. As soon as Freedom began to make its impact on prosperity various schemes emerged where the degree holding doctor, engineer, agriculturist had to work invariably under a non-degree holding Tahsildar or a Deputy Collector. The old village administration had a local chief which post was hereditary. Hereditary does not ensure the transfer of all talents but after the tradition of monarchy, it prevails in many other places. Today with the infinite expansion of processed information, it is possible for the system of education to devise a Unit of Accomplishment to be offered in the primary classes. It has always been there in the family and school and all that I plead for is an upgradation in the light of 1) the vast present information, 2) global spread of cultural perception, 3) the higher levels of Self-organising ability of survival and growth and finally 4) the emerging Individuality in this century of the Individual. After all, in other words, it is only to do our maximum for the next generation. It is a lesson humanity is yet to learn in full measure.
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