Sri Aurobindo’s Concept of the Nation-Soul (2) – Kishor Gandhi

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Admitting that the society or group, like the individual has, besides its soul, also a mind, life and body, the important question immediately arises: What exactly is the nature of the group-mind, group-life, group-body? We have a fairly clear idea of the mind, life and body of the individual man by direct experience aided by scientific knowledge, but our notions of these parts of the group-being, even when we admit their real existence, are altogether vague and un­certain. Taking first the most external part, the physical body, what really is meant by the body of a society or a group?

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Sri Aurobindo’s Concept of the Nation-Soul – Kishor Gandhi

“Mother India is not a piece of earth; she is a Power, a Godhead, for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence and keeping it in being. Such beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence. It is natural for man who sees only his own consciousness individual, national or racial at work and does not see what works upon it and shapes it, to think that all is created by him and there is nothing cosmic or greater behind it.”[1]

[Extract – read full article below. Title provided by Compiler and references updated. From Kishor Gandhi’s “Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The New Age”, pp 33-36 (First Edition in 1965).]

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