The Task of Relevance: Aurobindo's Synthesis of Religion and Politics

Author(s): David L. Johnson

Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Oct., 1973), pp. 507-515
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1397720
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DavidL. Johnson The task of relevance:Aurobindo'ssynthesis

of religion and politics

The issue of establishing a viable and relevant social order for India is one
which has caused a considerable amount of turmoil on the subcontinent in
the last seventy-five years. The problems with both "viable" and "relevant"
stem from the situation in which modern India finds herself-that of affirming
an eclectic culture shaped by thousands of years of Vedic and Puranic models
suddenly superseded by compelling models of social order from western
Europe. India in the twentieth century represents a traditional culture affirming social and political ideals simply pasted onto her past.
Establishment of a viable and relevant social order demands, therefore,
either the discovery or the construction of some connecting links to the past.
The imposition of the modern, alien ideals (however compelling they might
be) creates a schizoid society-one which affirms ideals possessing no roots
in its own past and affirming a past which has nothing to do with the present.1
In this article I will look at one modern thinker who has tried to integrate
the modern with the traditional in India. And to illustrate the dilemma of
which I speak I will show both the conceptual scheme upon which such an
integration of ideals is based and the apparent limitations of such a scheme.
The analysis will show, I think, that modern concerns of nationalism, equality, fraternity, liberty do not easily fit the Indian situation.
The thinker is Aurobindo Ghose, who from 1893 until 1910 participated
in the anti-British agitation in Bengal and elsewhere. Aurobindo is known
to the West primarily for his ponderous The Life Divine and for the dsrama
established by him and his companion of many years, The Mother, in Pondicherry, India. Interest in Aurobindo has increased recently with the beginnings of an international community in his memory, called Auroville,
located near Pondicherry. Aurobindo's political activism, however, is less
well known, except to the early Indian nationalists who were inspired by
his writings. His literary work until 1910 consisted mainly of editorials submitted to newspapers dedicated to Indian freedom-some of which were shut
down by the British authorities. The major source for Aurobindo's theory
of nationalism is Bande Mataram, a newspaper published in Calcutta between
1905 and 1908. Two other papers, Dharma and Karmayogin, both published
by Aurobindo, comprise additional materials.
Aurobindo used the newspapers as a vehicle for what the British reDavid L. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Humanities, Indiana State University, Terre
Haute, Indiana.
1 Agehananda Bharati in a recent article, "Hinduism and Modernization,"in Religion
and Change in ContemporaryAsia, ed. Robert F. Spencer (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1971) argues that modern Indian culture is "eclectic" in the sense of
attempting to make itself acceptable to all, "apologetic"in that it is both simplistic and
selective in its affirmationof the past, and "technologicallyinformed"rather than scientific in any theoretical sense. Bharati laments that the tradition is thereby abandoned
and/or distorted.

508 Johnson

garded as extremist agitation. But Aurobindo's articles are not devoted to

mere diatribe nor to the defamation of British character and government.
Rather, he develops over the period of years a theory of nationalism which
integrates the goals of the nationalists with the religions of traditional India.
Aurobindo constructs a theory of nationalism which revalues nationalist
activity into spiritual activity. That is, he constructs a theory which elevates
what the British saw to be revolution to the level of sadhana-spiritual discipline. For Aurobindo nationalism is a religion. Such a view requires some
reinterpretation of traditionally asocial and apolitical concerns such as yoga,
moksa, dharma, etc., into distinctly social and political concepts. Aurobindo,
by a process of synthesis, integrates the traditional Hindu ideas with the
modern ideal of national independence.
The integrative work is done at two levels. He first integrates and thereby
revalues traditionally asocial and apolitical concerns-yoga, moksa, etc.with such modern socially relevant concerns as self-rule, self-help, national
education, boycott, and revolution. Secondly, he justifies such a revaluation.
The second matter demands for Aurobindo the construction of a cosmologythe reduction of the universe to a unity corresponding to the religious goal.
Completion of the former task provides a rationale for nationalism compelling
to the masses of India. The latter task justifies the former, both within terms
of traditional Hindu philosophy and in terms of modern social and political
thought. The result is a theory of nationalism which raises political concerns
to the level of ultimacy for India's immediate present; in terms of the whole
system upon which the theory rests, the nationalist movement is the temporary elevation of the penultimate to the level of ultimacy.
The systematic justification (the latter task) I will indicate first. Then I
will show how Aurobindo reinterprets the traditional concepts. Aurobindo's
major task is to unite or integrate the traditional religious goal (moksa)
with the political or nationalistic goal (svaraj = self-rule). It is this major
synthesis which provides the structure for his theory and which outlines the
path taken for realization of the goal. Aurobindo finds that the concept of
"freedom" is common to both moksa and svaraj. Moksa means for the Hindu
"liberation." And svaraj assumes freedom from foreign control and constraints. Since both concepts deal with freedom, they speak of basically the
same goal. To Aurobindo svardj is "not mere political freedom, but a freedom vast and entire, freedom of the nation, spiritual freedom, social freedom,
political freedom."2 Yet since svaraj is also related to the religious discipline
as a prerequisite to any yogic activity (related as self-rule or self-control),
svaraj is also a prerequisite for any greater experience of freedom. Political
freedom as self-rule is therefore the first necessity for India. All other considerations rest upon the realization of political freedom.
2 Bande Mataram (hereaftercited as

BM), 2/13/08.

509

It cannot be for a moment contended that we can again be spiritually great

without being politically dominant. The Indian of today is not the noble,
heroic, and self-sacrificing Indian of a bygone age, only because with the
loss of political freedom his soul has also begun to pine and wither. Those
who allow others to take possession of their body cannot long remain in possession of their soul. There cannot be a more mischievous delusion than to
suppose that we can advance our soul by committing our bodies to the care
of the foreigners.3
Political freedom is a precondition of the liberation which is the final goal
of human existence. "We do not desire political freedom for its own sake,
but only and absolutely for the opportunities it offers for the cultivation of
our highest manhood . . ."4 Svaraj and moksa therefore unite. To realize
one is to proceed toward realization of the other.
But to provide a more stable foundation for the synthesis of the political
and spiritual goals Aurobindo constructs another. He unites normally polar
religious points of view and practices to show that all Indians of the classical
age actually agree concerning the goal of existence (and, by implication,
would agree with his synthesis). Aurobindo finds Indian religious philosophy
reflecting two contrary positions: Devotionalism, which rests philosophically
upon some dualistic cosmology (often Samhkhya), and the nondualism developed by Sahkara and his followers. The two can be seen as polar conceptual schemes, since the religious goal is attained in each by theoretically
exclusive means. In Devotionalism the goal is attained through prayer and
adoration (bhakti) and results in a union with God. In the nondualist scheme,
which employs the atman-Brahman rubric of the Upanisads, the goal is attained by meditative knowledge (jiina) resulting in the experience of the
soul's liberation from the phenomenal world. The former view depends upon
belief in a personal God, the latter is not incompatible with atheism.
Aurobindo achieves a union of these polar religious conceptions by employing the language of the Srmhkhyato construct a cosmology which has
purusa and prakrti (spirit and matter) evolving out of the one Brahman. Matter is united to spirit, and spirit is united to Brahman by the evolution that
takes place on the causal model of satkaryavada.5The union of these different
conceptions of the universe implies that the phenomenal world of ordinary
experience is actually the reality of Brahman evolved or transformed. The
union of the religious points of view implies that devotion and meditation,
bhakti and jinna, are compatible. The universe is thus conceptually united
under the goal of freedom; and the ultimate principle, Brahman, by evolution
3 "The Right of Association," Speeches (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1961 ed.), pp. 114-115.
4 BM, 6/14/08.
5 Satkaryavddais one of the two major causal models in Indian
metaphysics.Satkaryavada
is the predominantlyHindu model which affirms that cause and effect are essentially
identical. The other model (Buddhist) is asatkaryavada,or non-identity of cause and
effect. The causal models are fundamentalto Indian metaphysics since they provide the
basis for mappingroutes to freedom.

510 Johnson

is transformed into the phenomenal universe. The crucial factor is the principle of causation, satkaryavdda, which asserts that all effects are in essence
contained in their causes; what appears as an effect is but a transformation
of what already exists. Therefore the phenomenal universe is both the same
as and different from the ultimate reality. It is the same because it evolves out
of Brahman (the effect is identical to the cause). It is different because it is
multiple and Brahman is one.
Freedom, the unifying factor of political and spiritual goals, is thereby
validated as the authentic goal of existence. Man is destined to realize his
oneness with Brahman in perfect freedom. Since Brahman is both the One
and the Many under whose direction the material world exists as it exists
and becomes what it becomes, all things occurring in the universe are to be
understood as divinely conditioned and directed. The energy of creation at
the level of material nature is sakti, the divine mother. As the mother of all
things of nature, she is also the mother of India's resurgence. The Mother
awakens India. Therefore devotion to the Mother is implied; and the awakening of India is the awakening of the realization of the "self of selves," "the
God within us," "the Eternal, Timeless, Absolute." Nationalism is tied to the
metaphysics of traditional Indian religious thought, and work for national
freedom receives spiritual valuation.
The other task of Aurobindo, the integration and revaluation of traditionally asocial and apolitical concerns such as moksa and yoga follows from the
cosmology. Since all things are united in the goal of freedom, implementation
of the nationalist program requires a reinterpretation of sadhana, spiritual
discipline. Sadhana traditionally connotes yoga. And yoga (in terms of the
Samhkhyamodel) implies the practice of discrimination-discriminating between the material world and the real spiritual self. Aurobindo revalues sadhana by appeal to the Bhagavad Gitd and its treatment of Arjuna as the ideal
karmayogin. In the Gita, Arjuna does his caste duty of waging war without
attachment to the results of his actions-even if it means killing his clansmen.
He is the true selfless worker who discriminates between the indestructible
spirit and the impermanent, destructible material body. On the basis of the
cosmology which Aurobindo constructs, the karmayogin is one who works
for freedom without attachment to his acts. He is one who engages in terrorist
activities, assassinations, national education, or meditation without concern
for personal results or consequences. He is the unattached worker.
The actual program for attaining freedom takes its directives from the
principles of yoga. Even as yoga is evaluated by its effectiveness toward realizing the goal, so the actual methods of resistance and revolution must be
evaluated in terms of their effectiveness in reaching the goal. Aurobindo sees
as possible options for revolution to be either violent or nonviolent measures.
He concludes that applying the yogic principle disqualifies each of them if

511

considered alone. He therefore affirms both and constructs a new mode of

resistance-passive resistance. Passive resistance is a synthesis of violence
and nonviolence. It is a manner of coercion which temporarily eschews violence but which, nevertheless, sees violence as a necessarily ever-present
threat. The clearest, most dramatic, expression of passive resistance is the
boycott.
Passive resistance through boycott is effective in that it strikes the British
in two areas of greatest vulnerability, the economic sphere and the moral
sphere. Where the British had impoverished Indians through flooding markets
with goods manufactured in England, a refusal to purchase or to condone
purchase of such goods undermines the economic stability of a government
committed to Rauberwirtschaft. But for Aurobindo the intention at the economic level is not merely retributive. It is moral and political as well. "By
an organized and relentless boycott of British goods, we propose to render
the further exploitation of the country impossible."6 And therefore boycott
should extend to all spheres of encroachment-the courts, the schools, the
police, the government agencies. The result of such activity is to be seen as
moral and spiritual.
The English have long been boycotting us in our own country. They boycotted
our industries out of existence, they boycotted our noblest capacities into
atrophy by denying us any share in the higher activities of national life, they
boycotted us in the management of our affairs, in the defence of our country,
in the making of its laws. Now boycott has commenced upon the other side,
but it is not an act of retaliation merely; it is much more an unravelling of the
English web, a retracing of the steps towards perdition which we were forced
or induced to take.7
Aurobindo's theory of nationalism therefore elevates the nationalist cause
to the level of ultimate concern. There can be no significantly religious activity
apart from the concerns for national liberation.
Swaraj is the direct revelation of God to this people,-not mere political freedom but a freedom vast and entire, freedom of the individual, freedom of the
community, freedom of the nation, spiritual freedom, social freedom, political
freedom. Spiritual freedom the ancient Rishis had already declared to us; social freedom was a part of the message of Buddha. Chaitanya, Nanak and
Kabir and the saints of Maharashtra; political freedom is the last word of the
triune gospel. Without political freedom the soul of man is crippled. Social
freedom can only be born where the soul of man is large, free and generous,
not enslaved to petty aims and thoughts....
Spiritual freedom can never be
the lot of many in a land of slaves. A few may follow the path of the Yogin
and rise above their surroundings, but the mass of men cannot ever take the
first step towards a spiritual salvation. . . . When India was free, thousands
of men set their feet in the stairs of heaven, but as the night deepened and the
sun of liberty withdrew, the spiritual force inborn in every Indian heart be6 The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, originally a series in BM 9-23
April 1907.
7 BM, 8/7/07.

512 Johnson

came weaker and weaker until now it burns so faintly that aliens have taken
upon themselves the role of spiritual teachers, and the people chosen by God
have to sit at the feet of men from whose ancestry the light was hidden ....
By our political freedom we shall once more recover our spiritual freedom.8
There are limits, however, to such a synthesis of religious goals with political goals. The limits can be discussed as both "inner" limits and "outer"
limits. The outer limits concern the difficulties Aurobindo has reconciling
either Muslim interests or British interests with his interpretation of the
divine intention. These outer limits, though of interest, do not speak specifically to the problem at hand, namely, that of the need to reconcile traditional
India with imported concerns of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The inner
limits, however, speak more directly to the matter. They have to do, on the
one hand, with a fairly technical problem in Indian philosophy associated with
resolving problems implicit within the Sdaikhya dualism with which Aurobindo works. On the other hand, the inner limits also appear when Aurobindo
attempts a synthesis of yogic darsana (insight) and the scientific method. No
synthesis occurs, and Aurobindo opts for yoga as a way of knowing superior
to the scientific method of ascertaining certainty.
The former problem I will consider first. This problem is apparent when
attention is given to the kind of project Aurobindo has assigned himself, to
build a conceptual scheme which can map a route to complete freedom at the
same time as it accounts for or includes rival schemes which it might confront.9 Among the rival schemes are not only Muslim and Christian theologies
but the Western democratic political systems as well. The inclusion of the
democratic ideals is indicated in the first part of this article. The requirements
of the former consideration, mapping a route to freedom, are complicated by
the fact that the scheme must possess both free and deterministic characteristics. It must combine freedom and determinism in such a way as to simultaneously allow for the seeker of freedom to act meaningfully for his goal (it
must recognize him as a causal agent) and to provide enough regularity and
predictability in the universe so as to allow the seeker the possibility of expecting regular sequences of events in the world. The system (by its very
nature as a scheme of salvation) must provide for regularity and order at the
same time as it allows the seeker some evidence that decisions and actions
influence events significantly for him.
The key problem, therefore, is one of the relations between things and
events within the universe; and the scheme must account for these relationships in a manner which allows for the possibility of attaining the goal. The
8 BM, 2/23/08.
9 I am indebtedto Karl H. Potter and his Presuppositionsof India's Philosophies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963) at this point for insight into the structures
of Indianphilosophy.Note particularlychapter6, "Freedomand Causation."

513

problem raised is one of causation. If strict determinism is posited by the

system, the seeker clearly is subjected to forces beyond his control, and his
ability to act for his salvation is negated. If, on the other hand, indeterminism
is posited, the seeker is given no structure whereby he can steer his course
(or the course of the nation) toward realization of freedom.
The model of causation adopted by Aurobindo and the use of the Sadikhya
distinctions between spirit and matter imply the limits of the scheme. The
satkaryavada model of causation posits everything manifest in the universe as
essentially preexistent in the primal cause. And the Samikhya distinction between spirit and matter is that of a cosmic dualism-reality is dual and
realization involves distinguishing between the two components which are quite
dissimilar. Aurobindo slightly modifies the Sdikhya dualism (if "slightly"
can adequately qualify the modification which results in a monism under
Brahman rather than a dualism). By uniting matter and spirit and by assigning the spirit the role of overseer and enjoyer of material evolution, Aurobindo clarified the relation between spirit and matter (normally Sarhkhya
philosophers impale themselves trying to explain how matter is confused with
spirit in such a way as to cause bondage, since we normally do not confuse
dissimilar things but only similar things). Aurobindo makes spirit independent
only in the sense that it is prior to nature (matter) in the self-evolution of
Brahman. Spirit, therefore, is also the necessary and sufficient condition for
salvation. Salvation results from a process of reworking (or unworking) the
entanglements of bondage back to the freedom of spirit.
The issue of progress to salvation, however, is precisely the issue which is
crucial. In spite of the fact that salvation as release is the concern of the system, the relation between bondage and freedom is in fact complicated by the
very model of causation intended to make conceptual sense of it. Aurobindo
successfully avoids, on the one hand, the problems inherent to the Sdazkhya
dualism by uniting the universe under Brahman and positing evolution out of
Brahman to account for the material world. And on the other hand he avoids
the problems of illusionism associated with Sarhkara'smonistic explanation of
the universe by giving real status to the material world through the notion
of evolution as satkdryavada. But what Aurobindo avoids by skirting problems
inherent to dualism and to nondualism, he resurrects in the issue of causation.
If indeed, nothing can come to be which is not already existing in the primal
cause, then there can be no path to salvation. Bondage cannot be escaped unless it can be shown precisely how freedom itself is first contained in the
bondage from which one desires release.
Aurobindo's alternatives in such a dilemma are either to explore the possibilities of some pluralistic schemes (give up synthesis and reconceptualize the
universe) or to change the method of reaching salvation. Changing the method
entails either removing the goal of freedom completely from the world of

514 Johnson

ordinary experience (the world of space-time-causality) or of making salvation entirely a matter of grace (positing divine intervention as a necessary
condition).
But either alternative ruins Aurobindo's scheme of uniting the spiritual
with the political. The former (pluralistic schemes) would end any attempt at
a synthesis of religion and politics. The latter alternative (changing the
method of salvation) makes work for nationalism irrelevant to salvation. If,
on the one hand, salvation is defined as beyond space-time-causality, political
goals and spiritual goals are unrelated. And if, on the other hand, a doctrine
of grace is posited, no human act is of significance to the goal. The system
reaches its inner limits and an integration of spirituality and nationalism fails.
A second dimension of the inner limits to reconciliation of the tradition
with the modern world is apparent in Aurobindo's reconciliation of the scientific method with yogic insight. He recognizes that science and yoga are, at
certain points, rival epistemologies. Aurobindo's typical response is to include
science within the system-to absorb it. But he absorbs it not by synthesizing
science with the way of knowing available to the adept yogin. Rather he
subordinates science to yoga. He makes science and the conclusions of the
scientific method into a witness for the conclusions of yoga. Science-particularly psychology, and more specifically parapsychology-points to the
experience of yoga. The final result of such a confrontation with science is
the adoption by Aurobindo of the traditional Hindu authoritarianism, guruvada. The man who would realize the highest truth must commit himself to
the guru as master, since the guru's private realization of truth is of greater
certainty than the certainty of public verification. Witness Aurobindo's recommendation of his theory:
The fundamental basis of this conclusion does not rest upon a mentally constructed new thought, nor does it derive its authority from any ancient
manuscript, the proof of any written scripture or the formula of any philosophy. It is based upon a spiritual knowledge more integral, it is based upon the
burning experience of the Divine Reality in the soul, life, mind, heart, and
body. This knowledge is not a new discovery but old and indeed eternal.10
Whereas such authoritarianism does not appear to be a limit which Aurobindo ever recognizes, it may well be a limit for both his readers and for his
synthesis of modern with the traditional. If, indeed, the modern egalitarian
and democratic concerns eschew authoritarianism of any type, the guruvada
which Aurobindo advocates must be avoided as well.
The conclusion is that the religio-political synthesis fails. Aurobindo does
not manage to reconcile satisfactorily the political goals of nationalism with
10"The Integral Yoga in the Upanishads," Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, No. 26
(1967), p. 45. Translated by Niranjan. This article originally appeared in the Bengali
Dharma of 1909-1910.

515

the spiritual goals of traditional India. And it might be of some significance

to know that Aurobindo himself drops out of the nationalist movement in
1910 to devote himself full time to the work of spiritual realization. Quite
possibly Aurobindo himself concluded (though never in writing) that spiritual
concerns and political concerns in India cannot satisfactorily merge without
significantly changing the traditionally espoused spiritual values and systems.
So the question remains-how does India create a viable and relevant social
order without cutting herself away from her rich heritage?