India regained her Independence on the 15th of August, 1947. A victory for sure. But so many years later, one wonders at the meaning of Independence.
If Independence is signified only via the end of foreign rule over one’s native land, then of course most of humanity is free. But independence is the freedom from dependence per se and, on an individual level, that would mean to not be held hostage by any kind of adverse force which is foreign to the nature of the true being, the divine being. Until and unless we are able to fight each and every one of these alien forces that swamp our nature into a state of subjugation, we will not be independent in the truest sense. And so, when we celebrate India’s day of freedom this August, let us not stop at our past triumph but begin work towards our future conquest.
August is also Sri Aurobindo’s birthday. As said by the Mother, “To express our gratitude to Sri Aurobindo we can do nothing better than to be a living demonstration of his teaching.”
Let us then reflect on his very thoughts and offer ourselves in order to fulfil his vision:
“The divinising of the normal material life of man and of his great secular attempt of mental and moral self-culture in the individual and the race by this integralisation of a widely perfect spiritual existence would thus be the crown alike of our individual and of our common effort. Such a consummation being no other than the kingdom of heaven within reproduced in the kingdom of heaven without, would be also the true fulfilment of the great dream cherished in different terms by the world’s religions.
The widest synthesis of perfection possible to thought is the sole effort entirely worthy of those whose dedicated vision perceives that God dwells concealed in humanity.”
