Let us dream

Let us dream
    of the New Horizon,
              the New World.  

Let us march towards the New Horizon, the New World.  

In our journey as human beings so long, we have committed enormous mistakes and follies, we have seen tremendous cruelties and massacres, we have seen ourselves engrossed in ignorance and dissipation, and as a consequence, we have most of the time found ourselves dwelling in darkness, with lots of sufferings and chaos and obscurity. 

But there have always been some golden linings. Men have always tried to come out of this darkness, from this animal consciousness that they inherited from evolution. They have sought for Truth and Light and Love, for liberation from the bondage of death and diseases, of division and darkness. They have endeavored to bring joy and happiness amidst all sufferings and pains.

And there has always been the golden ray of Hope for men. At least some men have always burned the incense of Aspiration for progress, for all that is True, Good and Beautiful, all that is Divine, all that is from the Supreme. There has been some progress, in spite of all regressive movements. And there has always been some Descent from the Supreme Consciousness and Being amid this humanity living in darkness. 

Hence, let us collect all that is golden in our harvest so far, since the beginning of the human journey, and march towards the New Horizon. It is not that we will leave this world and go elsewhere to find another planet in search of the New World. Nor should we become sannyasins or recluses. We need not retire into some forests or mountains. We will change this world.

We can see that this world, as it is now, is in an extremely bad state of affairs. Falsehood, hatred, selfishness, corruption, greed, deception, violence, cruelty, inhumanity, and hunger for power - these appear to be the ruling forces now. All the noble Ideals or Ideas that prevailed on earth and inspired many of our noble ancients or our forefathers, have, as it were, become obsolete. Look at history and the present day earth: ideologically, and in consciousness, men seem to have become pygmies. 

We have been seeing destructions and wars throughout this earth. : In India, in USA, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and earlier, elsewhere. We are seeing terrorists and suicide-bombers. The entire human society is sitting on a heap of bombs - atomic or non-atomic. In relationships, we can no more find beauty and love and fellow feeling. In Arts and culture, vulgarity has almost replaced beauty.

In the name of religion, the people fight each other, and they are taking themselves farther away from the Divine, from spirituality.

Sri Aurobindo has said:

"The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of evolution."

This earth is an evolutionary field. Evolution is the history of life's manifestation on earth. This has been well said by Darwin. According to him, man is the consequence of this earthly evolution. But he did not proceed beyond the appearance of Homo Neanderthal. He said nothing about evolution after the appearance of man upon earth, or about the reason why man was evolved at all. His view was a scientific truth, within the material viewpoint of Science.

As Sri Aurobindo has said, the time has come when evolution must surpass man. Man is

not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he has the aspiration and dream for becoming perfect, for becoming complete. Evolution aims at ultimately manifesting That which is the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda), the Divine. Out of Man shall manifest the Superman. Man has to become the Base, the Instrument for the Advent of the Superman. He has to grow into the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled, and man's surpassing himself will do that. Man has to collaborate with the new evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

 XXX

No doubt, Science and logic stand guard against falsehood, superstition and ignorance. But Science discovers and finds only a partial aspect of the Truth. Reason and logic are not the only bases of Truth. And the integral seeker of the complete Truth, a true student of Philosophy realizes this.

Sri Aurobindo has said in ‘Thoughts and Aphorisms': 

Late, I learned that when reason died, then Wisdom was born; before that liberation, I had only knowledge.

What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind and sees.

Reason divides, fixes details and contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony.

Man is not the final step in Evolution, in the Manifestation. How can something so incomplete, so imperfect, so ignorant and so incapable, as man is till now, be the last thing?

In fact, the last thing or the last stage will never come, as evolution will go on eternally, forever. But man has to proceed forward ahead, surpassing his present stage of incompleteness, imperfection. He has to know himself, strive towards Perfection and surpass himself. As it has been said earlier, the Superman shall emerge out of Man. Man has to surpass all the limits of mind and reason, scale newer and newer heights of Consciousness and ascend to Gnosis, the Supramental Consciousness, and then shall emerge on earth the supramental race. This is the Truth Sri Aurobindo has brought for us. We shall have to live for this Goal, this Truth.

The Mother [Mirra Alfassa] gave us the following message on the 1^st January 1967:

Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.

Let us always remember that the choice is imperative. And that is the Destiny of this Earth. We have to live for the Future, to reach this Goal.

The Mother told us also: Blessed are those who take a leap towards the Future.

She advised us: Ever remain young. Never stop striving towards Perfection.

Further, she also told us:  

Man is the creation of yesterday.

Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.

Let us march on towards the New Horizon, find the New Light, find the New Goal and live for this New World.

The Mother wrote on 25 September 1914, addressing the Divine Mother:

The Lord has willed and Thou dost execute:

A new Light shall break upon the earth.

A new world shall be born,

And the things that were promised shall be fulfilled.

Again, much later, She wrote, as the Divine Mother personified:

Lord, Thou hast willed and I execute:

A new Light breaks upon the earth.

A new world is born,

And the things that were promised are fulfilled.

And actually, the New World is born, and we will have to bring it out physically, materially, in the real possibility.

 XXX

You can live in either in search of pleasure and enjoyment, or otherwise for a definite purpose, which will bring you more fulfilments, more joy. The higher your purpose, the greater is the joy and fulfilment. The higher the Consciousness you aspire for, and the wider your consciousness, the more purposeful your life becomes, the greater is your joy. We may orient our endeavor, our way of life, towards limited personal happiness and satisfaction, or towards a greater and wider Joy and fulfilment, along with others, for others also, maybe with the whole of mankind, for the entire mankind, for higher values of Truth, Light, Wisdom, Beauty, Creativity, Goodness, Love, Wideness, Harmony and Peace, Total Well-being.

We can close all our doors and windows and forget the world. And the World will forget us and leave us self-imprisoned. And we can also open all our doors and windows and run into the meadow in front and look at the sunrise and listen to the music of the wind or of the birds, or see the play of the squirrels, or look at the flowers around, or smile at our fellow human beings, who have also come out of their grooves. We can attune ourselves to the world.

We may sleep in darkness or remain half-asleep in twilight, or otherwise be in joyous contemplation in moonlight or start discovering our world in sunlight. It is as we may choose.

Sri Aurobindo says:

"Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when, the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction."

The divine moment continues. We may say that the moment that began with Sri Aurobindo continues till the accomplishment of his work: evolution of Man beyond himself into a higher Consciousness, leading to the Advent of the Supramental Consciousness.

When the divine moment continues, should we go on sleeping? Should we continue in meaningless circles? Should we not try to contribute to the Great Work, though our portions may be small, very small?

Barin

09-03-2006