Today we live in the American era with all its glorious possibilities—and all its degrading pitfalls

The Transformational Atomic Weapons Project of the Second World War by RY Deshpande on October 13, 2007 05:19 PM (PDT)

The story of development and use of the atom bomb in the Second World War marks the beginning of another age in many ways. Sinister it may look from a certain point of view, but arrive it had to. The consequences in its wake might well be called “unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying”, something which no man-made phenomenon had ever brought to man. But this had to happen, and it happened operationally due to the combination of two vastly different features, features associated with the academic institutions and military establishments, two very much dissimilar institutions, yet working together under the exigencies of the War circumstances.The social transformation that we witness today had its overt roots in these remarkable developments. Today we live in the American era with all its glorious possibilities—and all its degrading pitfalls. Yet its creative spirit is something that should be recognised and applauded, creative in every walk of life, even though one may see a thousand vitalisitc and arrogant shortcomings in it. The great cycles of time needed this adventure of globalising consciousness and it is that which was effectively born on the fast lane of the Second World War.

Where will this track lead us? Nobody knows; the answer to this question is not known. This zestful creative spirit has certainly opened itself to the wonderful working of Mahasaraswati, to put it in Sri Aurobindo’s terminology, but where do the other three indispensable cosmic powers stand, the luminous powers of Maheshwari, Mahakali, and Mahalakshmi? Can we have a deeper intuition of their presence and functioning in the universal order of things? If an answer to this question is to be found, the Sage must be born amongst us. Will that happen? more » Leave Comment Permanent Link