''The Yogi and the Commissar'' (1945) is a collection of essays of
Arthur Koestler, 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 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 Eas ...
at the
materialist
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...
, scientific end of the spectrum, to the
Yogi at the
spiritual,
metaphysical 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. Neither are in the realm of visible light, he suggests, and just so the full dynamics of history and culture escape us.
One essay, “The Birth of a Myth” published in ''
Horizon
The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...
'', April 1943, appeared as “In Memory of
Richard Hillary” in a longer version, pp46–67.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yogi and the Commissar
1945 essays
1945 non-fiction books
Jonathan Cape books
Essay collections