''The Yogi and the Commissar'' (1945) is a collection of essays of

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...

, divided in three parts: Meanderings, Exhortations and Explorations. In the first two parts he has collected essays written from 1942 to 1945 and the third part was written especially for this book. In the title essay, Koestler proposes a continuum of

philosophies List of philosophies, schools of thought and philosophical movements. A Absurdism – Academic skepticism – Accelerationism - Achintya Bheda Abheda – Action, philosophy of – Actual idealism – Actualism – Advaita Vedanta ...

for achieving "heaven on earth", from the

Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means ' commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and ...

at the

materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materia ...

, scientific end of the spectrum, to the

Yogi A yogi is a practitioner of Yoga, including a sannyasin or practitioner of meditation in Indian religions.A. K. Banerjea (2014), ''Philosophy of Gorakhnath with Goraksha-Vacana-Sangraha'', Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. xxiii, 297–299, 331 ...

at the spiritual,

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...

end. The Commissar wants to change society using any means necessary, while the Yogi wants to change the individual, with an emphasis on ethical purity instead of on results. Using a metaphor of spectra of radiation, Koestler figures the Commissar at the infra-red end of the spectrum; the Yogi is ultra-violet. He suggested that neither end is in the realm of visible light. Consequently, the full dynamics of history and culture escape us. Koesler preceded ''The Yogi and the Commissar'' with his 1943 essay ''The Birth of a Myth'', an expanded version of which was later published in chapter VI of Part One of ''The Yogi and the Commissar'' as ''In Memory of

Richard Hillary Flight Lieutenant Richard Hope Hillary (20 April 1919 – 8 January 1943) was an Anglo-Australian Royal Air Force fighter pilot during the Second World War. He wrote the book '' The Last Enemy'' about his experiences during the Battle of Bri ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yogi and the Commissar 1945 essays 1945 non-fiction books Jonathan Cape books Essay collections Essays about religion Essays about politics