IN RESPONSE TO DEBAPRASAD BHATTACHARYA'S QUERY IN COMMENT AS TO WHETHER 'MIGHT IS RIGHT' AND 'SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST' ARE ELEMENTS OF NATURAL LAW

Sugata Bose True. But justice is for human law which is opposed to the natural law in the sense of brute animal law of biological Darwinian evolution. Swamiji here comes up with a beautiful Indian solution of Patanjali's spiritual evolution, that of 'prakrityaapuraan' (the in-filling of nature) which in its human phase evolves to cooperation and help, education and enlightenment, rather than conflict and consumption in the unconscious attempt at self-preservation of one's species and the passing on of one's genetic material to one's offspring for furtherance of the line. The evolutionary principle of 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' is limited only to the physiological self but is not applicable to the higher selves of the mind, the intellect and the spirit transcending. And this spiritual evolutionary impulse is embedded in the organic system right from the amoeba but remains dormant till the higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder are reached when they become pronounced and apparent. This invariably happens in the higher stages of human evolution and where it does not, there the tug of the animal self is being apparent, for it is never quite obliterated even in the higher stages of evolution but seeks an opportune moment and circumstance to manifest its ugly fangs. The resolution of these two contrary forces of biological and spiritual evolution constitutes the march of human civilisation with natural law in the animal sense pertaining to the former and social justice in the human sense to the latter. The justice system in human affairs by international agreement is built on the latter principle of freedom, right to life and property, and allied principles of humanity upon which even the Geneva Convention's core principles of military conduct in war are based. An international war tribunal is supposed to be neutral as per this higher idea of 'natural (human) justice' but it ever fails to do justice to the offenders in war crimes on the side of the victor and only brings to book the crimes perpetrated by the vanquished which is a travesty of the core principle of social or military justice. Hence, history records forever the crimes of the vanquished and gloats over the achievements of the victors of war as the saviours of civilisation even if they have destroyed the very fabric of it and sent humanity somewhere to utter despair. This is the state of the world even today after so much of theoretical and technological progress in science, for a progress in equal measure has not been made in spirituality. And it is here where we today stand. @ Debaprasad Bhattacharya