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Sri Aurobindo explains that such a Utopian dream is still possible
because the REAL MOTIVATOR
of the human drama on earth is a primal yearning, an innate urge, an
intrinsic aspiration for ‘God, Light, Freedom, Immortality’ -- a
soul-call that gets rejuvenated again and again through the
vicissitudes of time, the ravages of history, the phases of recoil,
the turbulences of life. Indeed, the technical term ‘motivation’ in
psychology sounds a bit ‘mental’, ‘cognition-linked’, whereas, Sri
Aurobindo uses the term ‘aspiration’ that sounds ‘subtle’,
‘intrinsic’ ‘soul-linked’ and more in tune with a spiritual
psychology.
‘God, Light, Freedom, Immortality’
GOD : Sri Aurobindo’s usage of the term ‘god’ does not denote
an anthropometrical image – instead it is more of a status of
consciousness that is represented in different poises in the
individual, cosmos and beyond cosmos. It is at once the ‘essence’ of
all forms, the matrix of all forms and the ‘transcendence of all
forms”. God is not only a transcendental Being but a consciousness
that is simultaneously explicit in the diffusion of the universe and
implicit in the concentrated essence of the individual. Indeed it is
a paradox if we consider that a single and universal consciousness
represents itself in limited minds and divided egos or if we
acknowledge that a transcendent, indefinable, timeless and spaceless
Being alone renders time and space and cosmos possible. Sri
Aurobindo justifies that in all these the higher truth is realizable
by the lower term and the concept of divinity encompasses both ends
:
‘Thou who pervadest all the worlds below,
Yet sitst above,
Master of all who work and rule and know, Servant of Love!
Thou who disdainest not the worm to be
Nor even the clod,
Therefore we know by that humility
That thou art God.’
_______________________________________
Sri Aurobindo: Collected Poems. pg.63, 4thed, 1986,
LIGHT : Light in the Aurobindonian parlance is not only a
static source of illumination but a dynamising; revelatory
‘Knowledge’ that progressively harmonizes with ‘Will’ or ‘Energy’ so
that ‘Knowledge’ becomes automatically effective and ‘Will’ becomes
spontaneously luminous. Such a ‘Knowledge–Will’ at its pinnacle is
expected to manifest the power of transforming human life. Light is
thus the will of the creative godhead carrying the inbuilt knowledge
of creation. It is a flaming force that shines ‘pure, luminous and
fulfilling’. This is a light that not only illumines but
transfigures and transforms. In the process, it does something more.
It carries the evolution forward. It is present at each level of the
manifestation, each level of the evolutionary hierarchy – matter,
life and mind and progresses through transmutation and
transformation:
‘Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom’s occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame………..
Thy golden light came down into my feet;
My earth is now Thy playfield and Thy seat.’
_________________________________________
Sri Aurobindo : Collected Poems, pg. 146, 4th ed, 1986.
FREEDOM : ‘Freedom’ has a unique connotation in Sri
Aurobindo’s schemata. The traditional ‘freedom’ in the Indian
context was symbolized by the ‘Jivanmukta’ (the soul free from
life’s attachments’) – the realized being who is free to do
earth-work or free to get absorbed in the Brahman or the Absolute or
else in Nirvana or Zero. In a general sense, ‘freedom’ typified a
release from the cycle of birth and death. But Sri Aurobindo wants
to establish ‘freedom’ in earth-life and thereby denotes by this
term a poise of consciousness which can free one from the fetters of
fate, the fixities of mechanical nature, the rigidities of thought,
the circle of desires and the limitations of the ego in terrestrial
life itself without getting absorbed in Brahman or Nirvana, so that
one can exclaim :
‘Let Fate do with me what she will or can
I am stronger than death and greater than my fate---------
Fate’s law may change, but not my spirit’s will’
____________________________
Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, pg.432, 1993
IMMORTALITY : Immortality is an intrinsic longing in nature.
Science tries to reduce the mortality rate with the hope of
prolonging the duration and intensifying the quality of life. But
the yogic vision of immortality indicates an extension of
consciousness that survives the dissolution of individual forms, so
that the poet can cry out - Thou hast made me endless; such is Thy
Pleasure (Tagore : Gitanjali). Sri Aurobindo adds another dimension
– He is not only concerned with the extension of consciousness
beyond the individual form, but also with the extension of
consciousness beyond the limitations of a species. So long the
evolutionary chain produced myriad species but each species moves
within a set boundary, a fixed typal setting. Sri Aurobindo
indicates the possibility of breaking this ‘fixity’ in the case of
the human species through a unique evolution of consciousness that
does not reject the past gains but uses them as a framework for
onward progress. Immortality gets expressed in higher and higher
models of the human being supplementing the transitional form we
inhabit today. In the process, the structure and functioning of the
body organs change towards suppleness, flexibility, elasticity and
luminosity in such a way that the individual ‘will-power’ can also
become one of the determinants of one’s own life-span:
‘All is not finished in the unseen decree,
A Mind beyond our mind demands our ken,
A life of unimagined harmony
Awaits, concealed, the grasp of unborn men……’
______________________________________
(Sri Aurobindo: Collected Pomes, pg.137)
THE DILEMMA AND THE APPROACH
This existential aspiration for ‘God-Light-Freedom-Immortality’
appears to be a chimera – a polar opposite of the ground reality.
Neither the individual nor the human race seems to be capable of
dynamising the Godhead in earthly life. The ordinary life actually
appears to be a stark contradiction of the human aspiration for
superlatives. Instead of Light, we have darkness, instead of Freedom
we have a mechanical life ruled by chance or fate, instead of
immortality we have morbidity and death, instead of the God-head we
have diabolical, Titanic, Asuric forces reducing human life to
mockery and puppetry:
‘An image flattering on the screen of Fate,
Half-animated for a passing show…..
Or one more pawn who comes destined to be pushed
One slow more forward on a measureless board
In the chess play of the earth soul with Doom-
Such in the human figure drown by Time’
_______________________________
Sri Aurobindo , Savitri, pg,1718
How do we get a solution to this existential crisis in earth itself,
in the matrix of life? Traditional Christianity and Islam gave a
solution out of life, in eternal heaven, provided one followed
certain principles during one’s life span. In Indian spirituality,
‘heaven’ & ‘hell’ were considered to be mental formations with a
relative ‘reality’ commensurate with usual mental constructs, hence
different solutions had to be evoked. Shankaracharya opined that
life, nay, the human drama itself was an illusion, a falsity, an
unreality and the only Truth was the pure Self - The Brahman.
Buddhists considered that not only the world was false, the
perception that the Brahman was the sole Reality was also an
illusion! For Both Shankarites and Buddhists, the solution to life’s
existential crisis was ultimately to strive not to be re-born again.
History had to wait for Sri Aurobindo to give a solution IN LIFE, IN
EARTH and not in a faraway heaven or in birthlessness. However, he
does not minimize his predecessors but acknowledges them for opening
up different pathways for the soul. He himself introduces another
scheme of things, a new vision, a new orientation. He explains that
the Absolute (or Godhead or the fountain-head of
God-Light-Freedom-Immortality) can be dynamised in terrestrial life
under certain conditions. The most important condition is to
acknowledge that the human being is not a finished type in evolution
but a transitional being and through an evolution in consciousness,
a new species, higher than the present human being can manifest in
earth itself using the atavistic human frame as a base and a
foundation.
‘Man is not final, he is a transitional being. Beyond him
awaits formation the diviner race, the superman…
There is an evolution and we have to complete it : a human animality
or an animal humanity is not enough……
’ Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is too imperfect
for that, too imperfect in capacity for knowledge, too imperfect in
will and action, too imperfect in his turn towards joy and beauty,
too imperfect in his will for freedom and his instinct for order.
Even if he could perfect himself in his own type, his type is too
low and small to satisfy the need of the universe. Something larger,
higher, more capable of a rich all embracing universality is needed,
a greater being, a greater consciousness summing up in itself all
that the world set out to be. He has, as was pointed out by a
half-blind seer, to exceed himself; man must evolve out of himself
the divine superman: he was born for transcendence………
The saint, the sage, the seer, the inspired man of action, the
creator, - these are his summits of being Beyond him is the
supramental being, the spiritual superman.
____________________________________________________________
Sri Aurobindo Essays Divine & Human, 1st ed, 1994 pg.232, 239,241-42
Working through Contradictions
The main technical problem is how can the present human frame with
its obvious limitations act as a template for future models of human
being. Sri Aurobindo approaches this problem with two important
movements.
Movement – I
He points out that Nature’s uniqueness is always to work through
limitations and contradictions, resolving disharmonies, integrating
apparently irreconcilable opposites, and forging new harmonies. ‘For
all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony’ (The
Life Divine, Pg. 6). Nowhere this is more explicit than the
field of evolution. Matter is the starting point of terrestrial
evolution – ‘matter’ which is inert, dull, grey, listless,
monotonous, rigid, and resistant to change. Contrast this with
‘Life’, which is buoyant, boisterous, vibrant, colorful, dynamic and
flexible. Yet Nature at one stage harmonized these two apparently
irreconcilable principles when, ‘Life’, a higher principle in
evolution, blossomed in matter. In the process ‘matter’ was not
rejected but underwent a qualitative change from inorganic to
organic status and in presentation, its grossness in non–living
systems sublimated into a finesse in living systems (consider the
lack of beauty in lifeless matter and the outburst of colour and
fragrance in the world of flowers, the intricate designs on a
butterfly’s wings or the natural states of various molecules and
minerals and the way they are present in the animal body!). Again
contrast ‘Life’ in the vegetable kingdom (expressed in the movement
of roots and stems, in the renewal of leaves, in the blossoming of
flowers, etc.) and life in the subhuman animal kingdom (expressed in
the searching for food, safety and procreation) with ‘Mind’ that we
know in the human being – a ‘Mind’ that can cognize, speculate,
theorize, generalize, introspect, foretell, intuit as well as ‘Will’
and ‘Execute’. Here again Nature harmonizes these two seemingly
opposite statuses of ‘Mind’ and ‘Life’ (or more specifically a
‘Life’ that has already animated matter). Nature thus seems to work
by reconciling contradictions and producing new integers. With the
manifestation of ‘Mind’, ‘Life-in-Matter’, also underwent a
qualitative change. In sub-human animals, life, even if bursting
with action, still acts within limits. Thus the lion may be
ferociously aggressive, still the aggression acts within predictable
limits. Contrast this with the human being. If the human mind
aspires to conquer Mount Everest, or walk in space, his ‘Life’ and
his ‘Body’ supports him. One comments about the human nature – the
sky is the limit! Nature thus not only harmonizes apparently
discordant principles but each successive harmony marks a
progression in evolution – opens up new possibilities, new vistas,
new horizons. ‘Not only, then, is the upward impulse of man towards
the accordance of yet higher opposites rational in itself, but it is
the only logical completion of a rule and an effort that seem to be
a fundamental method of Nature and the very sense of her universal
strivings’ (The Life Divine, Pg. 7)
Movement II
Secondly Sri Aurobindo explains that whatever is manifested at any
stage in evolution must be in principle ‘involved’ in the preceding
stages as a dormant principle, a ‘seed’, a potentiality (later in
subsequent chapters in the Life Divine, He will explain how this
process of ‘involvement’ of dormant potentialities which He termed
‘INVOLUTION’, occurs in a systematic, hierarchical and complex
manner, preceding and interacting with the evolutionary movement).
Thus the impulse towards life was secretly present in matter (in the
orbital movements of sub–atomic particles, in the trapped energy
that can be released through nuclear fission, in the reactions in
the metal, in the service rendered by minerals, essential amino
acids, trace elements to maintain life). Likewise, the impulse
towards ‘Mind’ was present, even in a rudimentary way, in life (in
building nests, hives and ant–hills, in elaborate predatory
behavior, in skills of higher apes, in ‘learning’ to be racing
horses, in acceptance of domesticated roles). Likewise, a ‘higher
than mind consciousness’ presents to the human mind as intermittent
ideas, intuitive glances, revelations and inspirations. However, up
to the manifestation of the mind–principle, Nature automatically
conducted the evolutionary process. With the emergence of the
homosapiens, ‘evolution’ became complex as the human being is
invested with a ‘will’ and ‘consciousness’. Hence for a further
evolutionary growth, man’s ‘CONSCIOUS CO-OPERATION’ is needed.
‘The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said,
worked out man. Man himself may well be a thinking and living
laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills
to work out the superman, the god’
(Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, Pg. 8)
What can happen if the human being refuses to co-operate?
What can happen if mankind loses its opportunity for progress due to its
own folly?
What can happen if :
‘A scientist played with atoms and blew out The universe before
God had time to shout ‘
(Sri Aurobindo: Collected Poems, Pg. 156)
This is where Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana / Yogic pursuit has a unique
contribution. He not only mapped the lines of evolutionary
progression in consciousness but also, by his Yogic technology, has
‘activated’ processes whereby mankind does not miss the opportunity
for further evolutionary growth. He not only provides brilliant
theoretical constructs but also builds up creative matrices for
their fulfillment.
Post Script
Actually Sri Aurobindo is hinting at an ‘evolution in consciousness’
that pari passu operates along with the biological evolution. This
sounds preposterous, hence Sri Aurobindo points out that such an
outrageous endeavor can only be undertaken by a ‘revolutionary
individual effort or an evolutionary general progression’. (The
Life Divine Pg. 6). The Revolutionary Individuals – the
adventurers in consciousness (the messiahs, the prophets, the
avatars, the seers, the rishis) act as torchbearers so that the
general mass consciousness gets elevated for progressive growth.
Sri Aurobindo’s propositions are intertwined with one very basic
seed-idea that he corroborates with a matching verse from RigVeda.
In the case of biological evolution, the term ‘stages’ refer to the
appearance of different species, albeit in a hierarchical sequence.
In the case of evolution of consciousness, the term ‘stages’ have a
different connotation. Each ‘stage’ or step in evolution is actually
a quantum–leap in the manifestation of consciousness, and signifies
a fresh illumination, a fresh pouring of ‘God-light’, a fresh
widening of horizons of knowledge. Each such stage incorporates the
essence of all the past gains as well as the potentiality of all
that has to come in future. Each stage is totipotent, integrative
and futuristic.
The corollary that follows is that an evolutionary growth in
consciousness is an OPEN-ENDED movement and signifies progress –
unending, everlasting progress. At no stage any dogmatic
representation can claim that truth is the monopoly of one
particular sect, one religion, one system, one messiah. At no stage
there is any logic to declare that a particular person is the last
messiah, the last apostle, the last prophet. Each stage in the
evolution of consciousness is one advancement in the eternal
procession of advancements. What better symbol can there be than to
represent such a stage with the imagery of ‘Dawn’ (‘Usha’ in
Sanskrit) –
‘She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she
is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming…
What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out
before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient
mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her
illumination she enters into communion with the rest that are to
come’
(RigVeda Verse Quoted in Life Divine, Pg. 5)
The symbol of ‘Dawn’ or more precisely the ‘Dawn of God-light’ is a
message of hope; a certitude of progress, a guarantee of growth, an
agenda for the coming age, a revelation of the new humanity:
The Hidden Plan
However long Night’s hour, I will not dream
That the small ego and the person’s mask
Are all that God reveals in our life-scheme,
The last result of Nature’s cosmic task.
A greater Presence in her bosom works;
Long it prepares its far epiphany:
Even in the stone and beast the godhead lurks,
A bright Persona of eternity.
If shall burst out from the limit traced by Mind
And make a witness of the prescient heart;
It shall reveal even in this inert blind
Nature, long veiled in each inconscient part,
Fulfilling the occult magnificent plan,
The world-wide and immortal spirit in man.
(Sri Aurobindo: Collected Poems Pg. 143)
Date of Update:
18-Nov-11
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu |
