Page 13 - All India Magazine Oct-2025

So long as war does not become psychologically impossible,
it will remain or, if banished for a while, return. War itself, it is
hoped, will end war; the expense, the horror, the butchery, the
disturbance of tranquil life, the whole confused sanguinary mad-
ness of the thing has reached or will reach such colossal propor-
tions that the human race will fling the monstrosity behind it in
weariness and disgust. But weariness and disgust, horror and pity,
even the opening of the eyes to reason by the practical fact of the
waste of human life and energy and the harm and extravagance
are not permanent factors; they last only while the lesson is fresh.
Afterwards, there is forgetfulness; human nature recuperates it-
self and recovers the instincts that were temporarily dominated.
A long peace, even a certain organisation of peace may conceiv-
ably result, but so long as the heart of man remains what it is,
the peace will come to an end, the organisation will break down
under the stress of human passions. War is no longer, perhaps, a
biological necessity, but it is still a psychological necessity; what
is within us, must manifest itself outside.
Meanwhile it is well that every false hope and confident pre-
diction should be answered as soon as may well be by the irony of
the gods; for only so can we be driven to the perception of the real
remedy. Only when man has developed not merely a fellow-feeling
with all men, but a dominant sense of unity and commonalty, only
when he is a war e of them not merely as brothers, — that is a
fragile bond, — but as parts of himself, only when he has learned
to live not in his separate personal and communal ego-sense, but
in a larger universal consciousness can the phenomenon of war,
with whatever weapons, pass out of his life without the possibil-
ity of return. Meanwhile that he should struggle even by illusions
towards that end, is an excellent sign; for it shows that the truth
behind the illusion is pressing towards the hour when it may be-
come manifest as reality.
CWSA 25:609-11 Sri Aurobindo

All India Magazine, October 2025 13