Towards A New Society

Appendix

SRI AUROBINDO'S VIEWS ON THE SECOND WORLD WAR*

You have said that you have begun to doubt whether it was the Mother's War and ask me to make you feel again that it is. I affirm again to you most strongly that this is the Mother's War. You should not think of it as a fight for certain nations against others or even for India. It is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully and against a darkness and false-hood that are trying to overwhelm the earth and mankind in the immediate future. It is the forces behind the battle that have to be seen and not this or that superficial circumstance. It is no use concentrating on the defects or mistakes of nations; all have defects and commit serious mistakes; but what matters is on what side they have ranged themselves in the struggle. It is a struggle for the liberty of mankind to develop, for conditions in which men have freedom and room to think and act

*From a letter written to a disciple on 29th July, 1942

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according to the Light in them and grow in the Truth, grow in the Spirit. There cannot be the slightest doubt that if one side wins there will be an end. of all such freedom and hope of light and truth and the work that has to be done will be subjected to conditions which would make it humanly impossible; there will be a reign of falsehood and darkness, a cruel oppression and degradation for most of the human race such as people in this country do not dream of and cannot yet at all realise. If the other side that has declared itself for the free future of humanity triumphs, this terrible danger will have been averted and conditions will have been created in which there will be a chance for the ideal to grow, for the Divine Work to be done, for the spiritual truth for which we stand to establish itself on the earth. Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine and against the threatened reign of the Asura.

SRI AUROBINDO

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