Sri Aurobindo 6

During a discussion on Sri Aurobindo, a friend of mine stated that in order to solve the present evolutionary problems faced by the mankind, one should go back to Nature. Going back to Nature is the solution, instead of trying to transcend and transform the mental-vital-physical being of Man.  

She quoted me from Sri Aurobindo : What Sri Aurobindo represents II and then said:

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 : What Sri Aurobindo represents II ]  

"I think an aspect of this is that humanity can best survive by returning to our true human nature, namely a pre-separation from GOD identity. It lies within each man and woman to do this, even right now, without further evolution or transformation, should the will simply become engaged and decide to release to the Wild Divine."  

My friend had thus raised a deep-rooted and fundamental question of utmost importance. She thought that by going back to our "true" nature, bereft of the conception of God and stopping further evolution and transformation, humanity can best survive, and this can be attempted by individuals even now. 

Should we then go back to the caves! Let us then withdraw ourselves from all our scientific, medical, intellectual, aesthetic, cultural and spiritual advancements and turn to our "true" aboriginal nature, as some people may still be doing in Andaman Nicobars, or in Taiwan or somewhere in South Africa, or even South America! Or, if nobody is found now-a-days, let us go back to the era of the Neanderthals! Let us forget God! Let us forget evolution and transformation!

Let us then go back to our cave, where we might be dwelling some fifty thousand years back, or even earlier. Let us then live a wild life, along with our wild animal neighbors, dressed in leaves and eating raw fruits etc only! 

Would we be saved then? Would I no more require any education, any philosophy, any music, any art, any search for beauty, for truth, for goodness? Or should we no more need any medicine, any books, any food or dress which civilization or culture taught us to use? Would we not then contact anyone else anywhere through internet , or anyone over telephone, or even through post and telegraph, or be informed of the world news or the news of my country?  

Let us forget everything for a while. But what shall we do with our inner Fire, our inner Urge, our inner Intensity to surpass all my limitations, all our animal wildness that makes us slaves, our unquenched eagerness to surpass all darkness and ignorance, and our askesis to receive the Help of any higher Power in our difficulties, in our sufferings and in the matters of death and diseases? 

Can any human - who is nothing if he is separated from the Infinite Consciousness, who is an insect if he or she is pre-separated from God, the Eternal and Supreme Consciousness - can any human being survive if he or she is reduced to an wild animal, or to a natural helpless insect, after his Journey towards Fulfillment and Victory for fifty millennia or more?    

And if we become separated from the Divine, will the Divine separate ourselves from Him? Are we independent enough to do that? In our being and in our composition, is it possible? Is God our imagination or our creation, so that we can stop Him from being, or do away with Him from our life? 

Can we stop Evolution? Can we choose to do away with the necessity of Transformation? 

If we stop Evolution, Evolution will stop us, the human beings! If we stop Transformation, we will be discarded by the Force transforming us! 

Can we forget the Mother,Mira Alfassa, who 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. We cannot pre-separate God, for He is in us, and we are in Him. In our true identity, we are one with the Divine, parts of the Divine. We cannot stop Evolution, as we are evolved beings and we are being evolved always. We are never stationary. We have to be transformed or be surpassed and thrown away, like the gigantic dinosaurs! 

And what is our true nature? 

Is it the Wild Divine? The Wild Divine is the Truth for the wild animal world, it was a temporary phase of the manifestation of Truth in the evolutionary world for a period of time.  

Our true nature is leading us from the semi-animal existence to the Divine Becoming. That is the Truth.

And for us: Truth or abyss!

We cannot go back to Nature.

We have to march towards the New Horizon, towards the New World !

I again say:

Humankind can survive only by a radical transformation of human nature.  

OOOOO

Words may very often create confusions, mainly for the reason that a word may have various meanings and usages. During a discussion, a particular word may thus create confusion. However confusion cannot be the intention and aim of the discussion.   

When there is a discussion on Sri Aurobindo and am interpreting His teaching, His philosophy and spirituality and yoga, it is always, without fail, without any deviation, that the words are used by me as per the definitions and meanings given by Him. If other meanings and definitions and senses are intended, obviously there will be confusion.

Therefore, the solution to avoid any confusion is to adhere to the meaning and definition given by Sri Aurobindo, when the discussion is about His Teaching. When there will be discussion on the Buddha, we should adhere faithfully to the meaning of the words intended by Him. When we discuss Jesus, we must adhere to His intentions. When we discuss Ken Wilber, we should mean by a particular word what he means. It is desirable to clarify this matter.  

If during a discussion on Sri Aurobindo, I, or someone else, give another meaning or usage to a particular word, confusion may be created. When an attempt to clear the confusion is made, one should understand this and should NOT continue to hold the different meaning or usage as against the intention in the original discussion. Then only we will understand properly.  

Sri Aurobindo has defined every word of importance, including Nature. He has also spoken of Supernature and Higher Nature. About the present state of Nature, which created Man from Matter and Life, let us see what Sri Aurobindo from the Life Divine :
  

"The transition to Supermind through Overmind is a passage from Nature, as we know it, into Supernature. It is by that very fact impossible for any effort of the mere Mind to achieve; our unaided personal aspiration and endeavour cannot reach it: our effort belongs to the inferior power of Nature; a power of the Ignorance cannot achieve by its own strength or characteristic or available methods what is beyond its own domain of Nature. All the previous ascensions have been effectuated by a secret Consciousness-Force operating first in Inconscience and then in the Ignorance: it has worked by an emergence of its involved powers to the surface, powers concealed behind the veil and superior to the past formulations of Nature, but even so there is needed a pressure of the same superior powers already formulated in their full natural force on their own planes; these superior planes create their own foundation in our subliminal parts and from there are able to influence the evolutionary process on the surface. Overmind and Supermind are also involved and occult in earth-Nature, but they have no formations on the accessible levels of our subliminal inner consciousness; there is as yet no Overmind being or organized Overmind nature, no supramental being or organized Supermind nature acting either on our surface or in our normal subliminal parts: for these greater powers of consciousness are superconscient to the level of our ignorance. In order that the involved principles of Overmind and Supermind should emerge from their veiled secrecy, the being and powers of the Superconscience must descend into us and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this descent is a sine qua non of the transition and transformation.

It is conceivable indeed that, without the descent, by a secret pressure from above, by a long evolution, our terrestrial Nature might succeed in entering into a close contact with the higher now superconscient planes and a formation of subliminal Overmind might take place behind the veil; as a result a slow emergence of the consciousness proper to these higher planes might awake on our surface. It is conceivable that in this way there might appear a race of mental beings thinking and acting not by the intellect or reasoning and reflecting intelligence, or not mainly by it, but by an intuitive mentality which would be the first step of an ascending change; this might be followed by an overmentalisation which would carry us to the borders beyond which lies the Supermind or divine Gnosis. But this process would inevitably be a long and toilsome endeavour of Nature. There is a possibility too that what would be achieved might only be an imperfect superior metallization; the new higher elements might strongly dominate the consciousness, but they would be still subjected to a modification of their action by the principle of an inferior mentality: there would be a greater expanded and illuminating knowledge, a cognition of a higher order; but it would still undergo a mixture subjecting it to the law of the Ignorance, as Mind undergoes limitation by the law of Life and Matter.For a real transformation there must be a direct and unveiled intervention from above; there would be necessary too a total submission and surrender of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its insistence, a will in it for its separate law of action to be completely annulled by transformation and lose all rights over our being. If these two conditions can be achieved even now by a conscious call and will in the spirit and a participation of our whole manifested and inner being in its change and elevation, the evolution, the transformation can take place by a comparatively swift conscious change; the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition. There would be no farther need of a slow evolution counting many millenniums for each step, the halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance." [Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine]  

From a perusal of the above passages, it is clear if we go back to Nature, we will then go back to Ignorance : the further progress and evolution from Man to Superman will be halted and thwarted. It is seen that Sri Aurobindo views the evolution from Matter to Animals or Plants (i.e., various life-forms) and from Life to Mind and Man has been a "halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance." And even now, our effort "belongs to the inferior power of Nature; a power of the Ignorance cannot achieve by its own strength or characteristic or available methods what is beyond its own domain of Nature"  

I hope the role of Nature is now clearly understood. It cannot lead us ahead in a proper and swift manner, unless there are the Descents of the Higher Powers and Forces in Nature. And this is possible - but how?  

Let us see what Sri Aurobindo has said in His book ‘The Mother' :

"There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction, the great and difficult thing that is the aim of our endeavour; a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace that from above, that answers.  

But the supreme Grace will act only in the conditions of the Light and the Truth; it will not act in conditions laid down upon it by the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For if it were to yield to the demands of the Falsehood, it would defeat its own purpose.  

These are the conditions of the Light and the Truth, the sole conditions under which the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties ...  

There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending; a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature." [Sri Aurobindo: The Mother]  

Here, too, we find that Sri Aurobindo has referred to the fact that the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances still rule the earth-Nature.  

Can we then go back to the Nature, the earth-Nature, which still ruled by the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances?

OOOOO  

Then, there is confusion regarding the words Reason and Intuition.  

When Sri Aurobindo wrote the book The Life Divine, He had already reached the threshold of the Supramental Consciousness, far above the plane of the Intuitive Mind, far above Intuition. He interpreted rationally in His philosophical treatise The Life Divine all His Wisdom and Knowledge that He reached directly by Identification, not only by Intuition.  He did not discard Reason. To discard Reason and accept Intuition would have been against His approach of Integration. Can we and should we discard Reason which had been a help to us for millennia for surpassing the surrounding darkness? Reason may not be the highest means of Knowledge. But till the coming of Intuition, it has to be there. Only, it has to be transformed and widened and illumined as far as possible. It is an instrument, and its proper use is in our hands.  

And all that appears to us as Intuition is not intuition. There are many false signals also. And the old earth-Nature, in its animal kingdom, worked with instincts. And often the humans work with impulses. All these have to be searched and scrutinized, for they appear to many people as Intuitions. And there are the Anti-Divine Forces, who intimations and we may often think that they are Intuitions. The Mother has many times cautioned us against all these.  

These clarifications are added here, in order to ensure that those who read about Sri Aurobindo in my Blog or anywhere else are not misled by the words for their various meanings and usages.