Sri Aurobindo ~ What Sri Aurobindo represents II

Sri Aurobindo ~ What Sri Aurobindo represents II

O strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry.

One shall descend and break the iron law,

Change Nature's doom by the lone Spirit's power...

A seed shall be sown in Death's tremendous hour,

A branch heaven transplant to human soil;

Nature shall overleap her mortal step;

Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.

                                    Savitri : Sri Aurobindo

This earth is a field of Evolution, and from the scientific viewpoint, man is at the apex of Evolution. But we also know he is not a perfect being. He lives with ignorance, incapacity, imbalance, disharmony, chaos, disorder, aimlessness, unhappiness and sufferings. However, that is only an aspect of the Truth. Inborn with him is a longing for happiness, joy. And always with him there is Hope. Without hope, he cannot be. Hope is an eternal companion of man. The humanity has to evolve into a race of supramental beings, or else he will be replaced by a race of higher beings, in order to give effect to the evolutionary progress: this is the necessity of the evolutionary principle, and this is what the Mother [Mira Alfassa] has said :

Men, countries, continents!

The choice is imperative:

Truth or the abyss.

A beautiful, joyous, harmonious and luminous Future of divine perfection is waiting for man as his evolutionary possibility and goal. That is his evolutionary Future. He cannot continue for ever as he is and has been now. He has to proceed ahead from the present square. Or else, the evolutionary forces of Nature - Supernature -will surpass him and choose some other means for fulfilment of the goal : ever-progressive manifestation of Consciousness.

That is your Future, preordained. You shall have to ascend, integrally.

Should you have to forsake your normal life for this journey to the Future? Should you have to discard the society and the family and the social and material responsibilities, for achieving this Goal, this Future? No. You can start the journey from where you are now, simply by changing your inner attitude and inner aspiration and your approach and activities.

Tena tyaktena bhunjeetha [Ishopanishad].

By that renounced, thou shouldst enjoy. [Sri Aurobindo].

***

Sri Aurobindo has said that human beings, imperfect and incomplete as they are, are not in the final stage of Evolution. A new species shall emerge, one that will be above and beyond the human species. It can be said that perhaps the same human species - or a part thereof that will be ready and prepared - will be further evolving itself to a new and higher level of existence and consciousness which will be quite different in its functions, internally and externally, from the present humanity - different, because transformed, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and ultimately even physically. 

Man's highest aspiration is his seeking for perfection, for freedom and mastery, his search for pure truth and unmixed joy and bliss, but that is in glaring and conspicuous contradiction with his present and normal existence and experience.

But this contradiction is part of Nature's method and strategy. It indicates that she is working for a greater harmony, which is reached through an evolutionary progress.

Life evolves out of Matter, and Mind out of Life, because they are already involved there. Matter involves Life in a veiled way. Life involves Mind in a veiled way. Similarly, Mind also involves the higher powers of the Spirit in a veiled way. One of the higher powers, that exists and prevails beyond the highest range of Mind, is termed by Sri Aurobindo as Supermind or the Supramental. Supermind will now evolve out of Mind. That is the next evolution, which will be more internal and less external, in comparison with the evolution that led up to Man. Man's highest aspiration is then for the gradual unveiling of the powers of the Spirit within and the Spirit beyond, aiming the preparation of a higher life upon earth, the supramental life.

The fundamental and central purpose of earthly existence is an evolution of consciousness. The evolutionary working of Nature has a twofold process, evolving forms as well as consciousness.

Now, Man occupies the crest of the evolutionary wave. Evolution which was unconscious till Man's appearance on earth became conscious along with his appearance. At each step one receives an indication of what the next step will be. The nature of our next step is indicated by the deep aspirations in the human race.

The central and most important fact of the next step of evolution will be a change of consciousness and a consequent transformation of the whole being. The consciousness itself, by its own transmutation, will impose and effect any necessary change and transformation of the mental, vital and physical aspects of a human being. Ordinary human consciousness may think and suppose that this transformation is impossible on earth. But it is not so. The Advent of the Supramental Consciousness only can give the truest meaning and fulfilment to this our dear earth.

The spiritual urge in human beings is an undeniable indication that the Divine inherent and involved in the human race, individually and collectively, is causing an inner drive towards emergence of a new species, towards the next step of the manifestation on earth of a newer race.

Many assert that reason is the highest faculty of man, and that by reason, man has been able to master himself and Nature. But is reason really successful? In its application to life and action, reason has been partial and a slave rather than a master, and it has served forces other than the pure truth.

Why should man have faith in reason? Of course, reason has a legitimate function to in human existence. Reason has helped man to surpass his ignorance and darkness to a great extent. Reason has helped man to justify and illumine his various experiences and to widen and enlarge his consciousness.

But reason cannot give him a total deliverance from ignorance and darkness, nor can it arrive at any final truth, because it can neither reach the root of things nor comprehend their totality. It comprehends whatever is finite and separate and has no capacity to ascertain the dimensions of the All and the Infinite and the Eternal.

The limitations of reason become very conspicuous and prominent when it confronts the spiritual life.

***

By spirituality, no particular religion is meant, no religion at all.

Can religion give any proper guidance to the human life? Of course, in older times the human society had given a very important place to religion.

However, on the other hand, the section of humanity, which had been the standard-bearer of all progressive movements, has often revolted against the predominance of religion. Very often some religions have opposed progress and sided with the forces of obscurity, ignorance and oppression. Consequently, we find in history that the oppressed human mind and heart revolted to correct these errors and set religions right. We find then that religion, in place of being a guide, needed guidance and correction from the humanity itself.

Religion has failed, because it has confused the essential with the inessential and extraneous, because it has added to itself dogmas, cults, codes which are only aids and props, but should not have been imposed on man. Time has already arrived when religion has to be substituted by spirituality. It is a seeking after Truth, a seeking for the Supreme, the Divine, whatever name we may give to Him. It is the opening of the deepest inner consciousness of the being to the Divine, Who is eternally Present everywhere, even within each of us. Religion often considered that spiritual life requires renunciation and self-denial and mortification, and turned into a force that discouraged life, and it cannot, therefore, give a true and purposeful progress to the humanity.

Spirituality should be restored to its true sense: it should understand the true meaning and purpose of human existence on earth and should try to guide the society and the individual towards fulfillment of the purpose.

***

In this connection, it is also essential that the problem of the relation of the individual to the society should be solved, so that the humankind may attain a harmonious progress towards the goal.

It is wrong to ask the individual to subordinate himself to the collectivity or merge in it, because it is by its most advanced individuals that the collectivity progresses and they can really advance only if they are free. But it is true that as the individual advances spiritually, he finds himself more and more united with the collectivity and the All.

The present evolutionary crisis is the result of an inequality between the limited faculties of man - physical, vital, mental and spiritual - and the technical and economical means at his disposal. Without a total and all-comprehensive inner change man can no longer manage and control the gigantic development of the outer life. The overwhelming importance of the collectivity, of the State is only a substitution of the collective ego in place of the individual ego. Humankind can survive only by a radical transformation of human nature.

Sri Aurobindo has told us about the future society. If we transcend all the mistakes and superstitions and defects and limitations of the old thinking and practices, even of the religions throughout the World, throughout the West and the East, all the grossness and blindness and limitations of materialism, the limitations and narrowness of the scientific method and rationalism that do not include the realm of spirit and consciousness, we will be transforming our society in a New Society. He has showed us the Way to the New Society, opening the doors to all higher and diviner possibilities.

***

According to Sri Aurobindo, all human activities, situations, circumstances can be transformed and uplifted with the help of spiritual consciousness and force. Whatever is your field of action, you can come within the purview and compass of the new Spiritual force that transforms. Indeed, the spiritual consciousness and force always transforms, but we the human beings did not come near the transforming horizon and were not prepared. The Time was not also ripe - we did not evolve to be ready for the new attempt. The new possibilities can touch everyone and everything. All existence can be infused with the Divine inspiration and infusion. And infinite possibilities and forces and capacities hidden in human beings can be released by the New Force of the Divine, the Supramental Consciousness and Force, which Sri Aurobindo discovered and tried to bring down on earth, and which descended on earth, as declared by the Mother on the 29^th February 1956.

Perfection is progressive. Hence, good and evil are continuously changing from time to time in their meaning and value. Personal need and the good of the collectivity govern human conduct. Sometimes, conflict is born of the opposition of the two tendencies, which govern human action: the individual and the collective. To solve this problem, a new principle is arrived at, aiming to surpass, control and reconcile them. This is the ethical or moral ideal.

However, conflicts are not resolved; they appear rather to increase. When applied to life, moral laws, which are often arbitrary and rigid, are obliged to end in compromises with life, which deprive them of all meaning and purpose.

The ethical law, a creation of the limited Mind, is a false image. Behind it, there is a greater truth of a vast limitless consciousness, the supreme law of our divine nature. It decides perfectly our relations with each being and with the universe in totality, and it also expresses of the Divine in us. It is the supreme principle of action, which is simultaneously an imperative law, with an absolute freedom.

***

Spirituality is other than and different from intellectuality. It indicates that a Power greater than mind is striving to come into existence and be revealed in Man. Spirituality is a progressive awakening to the truth of our inner being, to a spirit, self, soul, a psychic being, which is other than our mind, life and body. It is an aspiration to know, to come into contact and interaction and relationship with the greater Reality beyond, which pervades the universe and also is present within us. As a consequence of that aspiration, that contact and relationship, we find within us, individually, a turning, a conversion, a new birth into a new being.

In their endeavors to unfold the inner being, human beings have pursued and followed religion, occultism, spiritual thought and philosophy, and a course of inner action for spiritual realization and experience. Only spiritual realization and experience can transform the mental being into a spiritual being.

Had the final task and aim of the earthly evolution been only to awaken man to the Supreme Truth and Reality and to liberate him from ignorance and bondage, then the liberated soul could find somewhere else, in some other plane, a higher state of being or would have merged into this supreme Reality, and the task would be achieved with the advent of the spiritual man. But we also have in us an aspiration for the mastery over Nature and for her transformation, for a greater perfection in the earthly existence itself. And if a Return to the Source, the Supreme Being, would been the goal of the Creation, then perhaps there should not have been any Creation at all. Hence the Return is not the final task.

But for a greater perfection in the earthly existence, with an attainment of a complete mastery over Nature, it is essential that there should be a radical change and transformation of the entire human nature.

***

We thus find that Man has to transform himself. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have spoken of the Triple Transformation: psychic, spiritual, and then supramental.

The first phase of this transformation, the psychic being, has to come forward and take the lead of the whole being and its transformation. The psychic is the active aspect of the soul. The soul is generally inactive in the animals, who do not have the psychic beings. It is a privilege of the human beings that they have the psychic beings, says Sri Aurobindo.

For explaining why He adopted the term "psychic being" Sri Aurobindo has stated as follows:

"The word soul is very vaguely used in English- as it often refers to the whole non-physical consciousness including even the vital with all its desires and passions. That is why the word psychic being has to be used so as to distinguish this divine portion from the instrumental parts of the nature."

In the course of evolution, for the unveiling of the psychic being and for turning towards the supreme Reality, Man has to follow any or all the three ways of the intellect or of knowledge, of the heart or of emotion, and of the will or of action, seeking Truth, Beauty and Goodness [in Sanskrit satyam, sundaram and shivam].

These three ways of Knowledge, Love and Action, followed concurrently and in a combined manner, have a most powerful effect.

The spiritual transformation is the second phase. It is an opening to an Eternity above us, an eternal Presence, a boundless Self, an infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss, an Infinite Conscious-Force.

The spiritual change culminates in a permanent Ascent from the lower consciousness to the higher consciousness, followed by a permanent Descent of the higher consciousness and nature into the lower.

The third phase of the supramental transformation begins thereafter, with a view to make the Next Evolution a real possibility To make this next evolution possible, the very foundation of our nature of ignorance must be transfigured and a greater power, a supramental Force must intervene to accomplish that transfiguration.

Regarding the psychic transformation and the first stages of the spiritual transformation, Sri Aurobindo has said that they are "well within our conception" ; the perfection attained in the psychic transformation and the early stages of the spiritual transformation would be " the perfection, wholeness, consummated unity of a knowledge and experience which is already part of things realised, though only by a small number of human beings". But about the supramental transformation, he states that it " carries us into less explored regions". It " initiates a vision of heights of consciousness which have indeed been glimpsed and visited, but have yet to be discovered and mapped in their completeness". He further states : "The highest of these peaks or elevated plateaus of consciousness, the supramental, lies far beyond the possibility of any satisfying mental scheme or map of it or any grasp of mental seeing and description." [Relevant portions are quoted from the writings of  Sri Aurobindo.]

***

The passage from Mind to Supermind is a passage from Nature to Supernature. Thus, it cannot be reached by a mere effort of our mind or our unaided aspiration. The powers of the Superconscience must descend into us and uplift us and transform our being. .

There are four steps of Ascent that lead from Mind to the Supermind: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind and the Overmind.

Let us take the word Mind. Our ordinary mind is a "half-lit and diminished principle of Mind". Generally, we use the word Mind for the general and ordinary mental consciousness, including the vital and emotional aspects. The vital and emotional aspects of our consciousness, all our passions, cravings, hungers, sentiments etc belong to the vital being or the plane of Life in us, as defined by Sri Aurobindo.
And the vital being or Life is different from Mind, in the definitions of Sri Aurobindo. Even our higher emotions, love, sympathy, patriotism, and all our higher emotions belong to the vital being -but the higher vital being. When we speak of the heart (not the physical one), the emotional center, we refer to the inner higher vital.
Similarly, the Mind ordinarily refers to the principle of reason and logic, intelligence, memory, will, thinking, understanding etc. This is our half-lit and diminished principle of mind. But Mind is also used in a higher and wider sense. In the wider sense of Mind, we will find higher ranges of the Mind starting from the Higher Mind to the Overmind. Of course these ranges exclude the Supermind.
Supermind is not a higher mind. It is a Higher Consciousness, surpassing all the stages and planes of Mind. In between our ordinary Mind and the Supermind, Sri Aurobindo speaks of four stages of Mind: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then, the Overmind.
To begin with, Overmind is the highest stage where the mental consciousness could reach, till the Advent of the Supermind. It is the Plane of the gods and goddesses. It is the plane, which the several Avatars of the Supreme manifested and represented on earth.
These planes need be defined and described further in details.
In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, the Higher Mind is the first of the supra-rational levels or planes or grades of existence and consciousness, the first level of "Spiritual Mind". It is an evolutionary stage beyond the rational mind. It is an ascent to plane above the level of pure thinking mind, and there can be a descent also from this plane.
Above the Higher Mind is a further and even more powerful and revelatory supra-rational level or plane of existence and consciousness, which he calls the Illumined Mind. The power of the Higher Mind prepares an integration of the being in a greater Force of consciousness and knowledge. This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here, in place of the clarity of the spiritual intelligence and the tranquil daylight of the Higher Mind, one finds "an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit." A play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness. And the characteristic action of ‘the larger conceptual-spiritual principle' adds a fiery ardour of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace of the Higher Mind.
About the Intuitive Mind, Sri Aurobindo says:
Intuition is above the illumined Mind which is simply the higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration. ... The Intuition is the first plane in which there is a real opening to the full possibility of realization - it is through it that one goes farther - first to Overmind and then to Supermind.

There are mental, vital, subtle physical intuitions as well as intuitions from the higher and the illumined Mind, and even from the Overmind.

Although Sri Aurobindo speaks of seven major planes of existence, he also suggests that between Mind and Supermind, or lower (finite, limited, ignorant) and higher (infinite, divine, perfect) creation, there is an important transitional or intermediate reality, which He calls the Overmind.
"At the source of ...Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, - not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance."
[The Life Divine, p.278]

The Overmind is the region of the great Gods, the individualized expression of the unitary Supramental Truth. These are the powers that oversee the phenomenal world. It is the level where multiplicity first appears, and indeed is the principle that originally causes multiplicity.
"Overmind Energy (has the)...capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral...all-comprehending Unity (of the Supermind). It takes each aspect or power and gives it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance..." [The Life Divine, p.279]

***

From Overmind, the Ascension is to Supermind.

It is the Ascent to the Supermind and the Descent of the Supramental principle on earth makes the Next Evolution

Sri Aurobindo has stated:

The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above.  

The Mother has also stated:

The Manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.

Thus, we can see that Mind has reached the its last ranges and is on the process of handing over the task of the Evolution to the supramental consciousness. This is the Truth. We should no longer remain limited within the ranges of our ordinary small ranges of the Mind, but should endeavor to transcend our mental selves and begin our inner journey to the New Creation taken up by the supramental consciousness.

[Continued]

Barin

06-07-2006