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L. Shaposhnikova “The Necessity of Roerich Pact in Today’s World” Published in the magazine “Cultura i Vremya” (“Culture and Time”) No. 4, 2005.
The Necessity of Roerich Pact in Today’s World
What is culture? Even among well-educated people, only a few could be found who would be able to answer this question. The great artist, outstanding scientist, famous traveler, and remarkable public figure Nicholas Roerich gave the following definition of Culture: “Culture is reverence for Light. Culture is love for man. Culture is a sweet fragrance, the blend of life and beauty. Culture is the synthesis of lofty and subtle achievements. Culture is the weapons of Light. Culture is salvation. Culture is an engine. Culture is a heart. If we collect all the definitions of Culture, we shall find a synthesis of active Benefit, a center of education and creative Beauty.”[1, p.63]
The major philosopher of the silver age N. Berdiayev pointed out the main peculiarities of culture. “One of the most ancient cultures, the culture of Egypt,” he wrote, “started in the temple, and its first creators were priests. Culture is connected with the cult of ancestors, with legends and tradition. It is full of sacred symbols, it contains knowledge and a different kind of spiritual reality. Any culture (even material culture) is the culture of the spirit; any culture has a spiritual basis – it is the product of the spirit’s creative work on the natural elements.”[2, p.166]
Both of these two quotations, in which we find the essence of true culture determined by N. Roerich as “the weapons of Light” and “synthesis of active Benefit,” and by Berdiayev as “knowledge and a different kind of spiritual reality,” testify to a different approach to Culture as such, and to its relation to a higher state and dimension of matter. This relation, passing through the inner world of man, determines real creativity in the space of Culture, creativity which, undoubtedly, has evolutionary character. “Through culture,” N. Berdiayev pointed out, “the way upward and forward, not backward, lies in a pre-cultural state. This is the way of the conversion of culture itself into new being, new life, new heaven, and new earth. Only in this way, can the barbarian sounds and barbarian gestures which have burst into culture be submitted to the new cosmic harmony and new cosmic rhythm. Not only art, but human creativity, as well, will irrevocably perish and plunge into initial darkness if it does not become the creativity of life, creativity of a new man and his spiritual way.”[3, p.418] The evolutionary role of culture was noted by not only Berdiayev, but also by other major philosophers of the Silver Age, and outstanding scientists and famous artists of the beginning of the 20th century wrote about it, as well. The essence of this role was, first of all, the fact that culture, as N. Berdiayev put it, was the spiritual way of the new man, without which the improvement of man, expansion of his mentality, and his ascent to a higher stage of Cosmic evolution were not possible. The level of culture of man, nations, countries, in the long run, determines their evolutionary fate, determines the process of improvement of their lives. The Living Ethics, the philosophy of cosmic reality created by Nicholas and Helena Roerich in collaboration with an anonymous group of Teachers, quite convincingly proves that it is Culture that constitutes one of the most important foundations of the evolution of humanity. This idea penetrated all of Nicholas Roerich’s writings, both artistic and philosophic. It was he who tried to bring to at least elementary order the confusion of existing views on the concept of Culture. This confusion was far from harmless and often resulted in diminishing Culture as such, which, beyond all doubt, conditioned major crises in the lives of whole countries and nations.
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| S. Roerich. Portrait of N.K. Roerich
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Any earthly phenomenon, its essence, its influence on the state of humanity is determined by its interaction of spirit and matter. Both these phenomena cover all manifestations of the life of humanity, and beyond them there is nothing more. The two-wing structure of mankind’s existence requires deep understanding of this phenomenon and the strict observation of the necessary harmony between the wings of the evolutionary flight of mankind. If culture, conditionally speaking, is the spirit of man’s being, then civilization is the arrangement, or matter of this being. However, strange as it may seem, the confusion of these two notions – culture and civilization – continues to take place. One is often substituted for the other. “The notions of Culture and civilization have to be repeated meaningfully,” N. Roerich wrote. “Surprisingly, we have to notice that these notions, which seem so precisely determined by their roots, are already subject to reinterpretation and distortion. For example, until now, many people have believed it quite possible to substitute the word ‘Culture’ for ‘civilization.’ At that, it is absolutely overlooked that the Latin root ‘Cult’ itself has a very deep spiritual meaning, while ‘civilization’ has in its root ‘civil,’ the public structure of life.”[4, p.28]
Both of these types of activity, which seem so closely interconnected, have different sources of origin and different contents and purposes. The identification of civilization and Culture results in the confusion of the underlying concepts, in underestimation of the spiritual factor in the history of mankind. The frequent substitution of one notion by the other provides the possibility to impose on Culture functions untypical for it, and to ascribe to civilization something that is absolutely uncharacteristic of the same. It has resulted in myths about “thousand-year kingdoms,” “eternally alive teachings,” “proletarian” and “bourgeois” cultures.
To the sphere of Culture, we can refer those manifestations of the human spirit which seem to pour out of the mysterious depths of man, have natural character and are characteristic of him: song and music, artistic creation in all its manifestations, various religions, ethical issues, poetry, and many other thing which seem to have appeared together with man, which grew and developed simultaneously with his consciousness.
Culture, unlike civilization, is a self-organizing system of the spirit, creating in accordance with the level and quality of this spirit. In other words, self-organization of the spirit is a form of the existence of Culture.
The creation of the Hierarchs, representing spiritual Cosmos and participating in the evolution of mankind, shows itself, first of all, in the sphere of Culture, which, as a self-organizing system of the spirit, is the energetic heart of evolution.
The history of this kind of impact on the evolution of mankind can be traced from the most ancient times until today. The cultural heroes of myths and legends, sages, Teachers, anonymous and historical religious teachers, and, at last, creators of spiritual and ethical teachings – all of them were connected with cosmic Hierarchs, and, in a number of cases, they acted themselves as subjects of Cosmic evolution, that is, those who consciously affected this evolutionary course. Culture “is a very deep foundation of life, connected by high silver threads to the Hierarchy of Evolution,”[5, p.54] Roerich wrote. “Culture rests on Beauty and Knowledge. It grows due to the comprehension of the blessing of the Hierarchy of Light. That means that to mechanical cognition, the fire of the heart must be added. This will already make the first delineation between Culture and civilization.”[6, p.227]
“The fire of the heart” is a most important and necessary particularity of culture as such. The absence of such energetics in the space of culture results in its destruction and death. Roerich often used the words “heartiness,” “the language of the heart,” “the understanding of the heart.” It is in culture that, from the most ancient times, the role of the heart was understood. Roerich’s definition that “culture is the heart” is valuable. “The heart should be understood not as a symbol, but as a great laboratory where the transmutation of our mentality is taking place, and consequently, of all our essence,” Helena Roerich wrote. “Without the heart’s development and refinement to a subtler state, no advancement, no progress is possible, that is why the great magnet that is the heart must be laid in the basis of any construction. Thus, representatives of a new race will be distinguished by the refinement of the heart, this key to all achievements.”[7, p.289]
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| N. Roerich. Sofia-the-wisdom |
The Living Ethics says that the new world destined for our planet by the Cosmic evolution is the Epoch of the Heart, where the heart will play the leading role in cognition, the expansion of mentality, and spiritual improvement. Roerich’s words “Culture is the heart” give us the opportunity to come to the conclusion that it is the heart that is the main engine of culture and its spiritual center. And that is why the oncoming epoch, the Epoch of the Heart, will inevitably be an Epoch of Culture. Proceeding from all this, one can say that culture is not only an evolutionary and historical foundation of human society, but its heart as well. At the same time, civilization is the intellect of this society. Destroying culture, we injure the heart of the society what can result, and often does result, in its paralysis. Totalitarianism gives us many examples of heartless societies. And Russia was one of them.
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