November 28, 2012 – The Propagandist Spirit

In all the lakhs of ochre-clad Sannyasins,
how many are perfect ?
It is the few attainments and the many approximations that justify an ideal.

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 104)

The Propagandist Spirit

If you arrive at the conception of the world as the expression of the Divine in all His complexity, then the necessity for complexity and diversity has to be recognised, and it becomes impossible for you to want to make others think and feel as you do. Each one should have his own way of thinking, feeling and reaction; why do you want others to do as you do and be like you? And even granting that your truth is greater than theirs,… the minute you want your truth to e greater than your neighbour’s, you begin to wander away from the truth.

This habit of wanting to compel others to think as you do, has always seemed very strange to me; this is what I call ‘the propagandist spirit’, and it goes very far. You can go one step further and want people to do what you do, feel as you feel, and then it becomes a frightful uniformity.

The Mother

The Great Adventure 26