Take note , ladies ...

"There are no activities in “modern” life which are not futile, save perhaps those that aim at satisfying one's body's hunger: growing rice; growing wheat; gathering chestnuts from the woods or potatoes from one's garden. And the one and only sensible policy can but be to let things take their course and to await the coming Destroyer, destined to clear the ground for the building of a new “Age of Truth”: the One Whom the Hindus name Kalki and hail as the tenth and last Incarnation of Vishnu; the Destroyer Whose advent is the condition of the preservation of Life, according to Life's everlasting laws.

We know all this will sound utter folly to those, more and more numerous, who, despite the untold horrors of our age, remain convinced that humanity is “progressing.” It will appear as cynicism even to many of those who accept our belief in cyclic evolution, which is the universal, traditional belief expressed in poetic form in all the sacred texts of the world, including the Bible. We have nothing to reply to this latter possible criticism, for it is entirely based upon an emotional attitude which is not ours. But we can try to point out the vanity of the popular belief in “progress,” be it only in order to stress the rationality and strength of the theory of cycles which forms the background of the triple study which is the subject of this book.

The exponents of the belief in “progress” put forth many arguments to prove — to themselves and to others — that our times, with all their undeniable drawbacks, are on the whole, better than any epoch of the past, and even that they show definite signs of improvement. It is not possible to analyse all their arguments in detail. But one can easily detect the fallacies hidden in the most wide-spread and, apparently, the most “convincing” of them.

All the advocates of “progress” lay enormous stress upon such things as literacy, individual “freedom,” equal opportunities for all men, religious toleration and “humaneness,” progress in this last line covering all such tendencies as find their expression in the modern preoccupation for child-welfare, prison-reforms, better conditions of labour, State aid to the sick and destitute and, if not greater kindness, at least less cruelty to animals. The dazzling results obtained, of recent years, in the application of scientific discoveries to industrial and other practical pursuits, are, of course, the most popular of all instances expected to show how marvellous our times are. But that point we shall not discuss, as we have already made it clear that we by no means deny or minimise the importance of technical progress. What we do deny is the existence of any progress at all in the value of man as such, whether individually or collectively, and our reflexions on universal literacy and other highly praised “signs” of improvement in which our contemporaries take pride, all spring from that one point of view.

We believe that man's value — as every creature's value, ultimately — lies not in the mere intellect but in the spirit: in the capacity to reflect that which, for lack of a more precise word, we choose to call “the divine,” i.e. that which is true and beautiful beyond all manifestation, that which remains timeless (and therefore unchangeable) within all changes."

Devi, Savitri. The Lightning and the Sun.