Beyond Man

Bengali singer Nochiketa sang a song : Manushgulō satyikaarer maanush hobe kobe ? Recently I happened to listen to it, though I heard it earlier also. The line quoted here means: When will the human beings be truly human? But it was seemingly a coincidence that I came across an essay by Arhata Osho, a friend of mine, bearing the title "Monkeys to Humanoids" which I have also published in my Blog The New Platform. Arhata says that human beings as yet have not become any different from the monkeys — in spite of the so-called progress made by science and technology or in spite of the civilized processes provided by religion and politics. Summarlily, I agree with him and also with the singer Nochiketa or the song writer Pritom. The question arises: Should we for ever be humanoids? Should humans continue monkeying always? The reply is — NO. But what is the Solution? How are we to progress ahead? We must transcend beyond the present stage, or we shall have to be surpassed by the Supernature. The coming of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on earth amid us all the human beings was with the Divine Promise and Hope that we shall transcend ourselves. However, to fulfill the promise, we shall have to co-operate with this Evolutionary Purpose, which is also the Truth that we should know and understand. The Mother said Man is the creation of yesterday. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being. She further told us: Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavor to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation. OOOOO The human life is limited by Tamas — by ignorance, inertia, inconscience, falsehood, darkness, divisions, diseases and death. This has been so, since the beginning of Man's appearance on the earthly scene, since the Homo Neanderthal stepped on earth. However, he has been progressing and growing in spite of all his limitations. He lives with a Hope, with a Consciousness that has been facing and conquering ignorance and darkness, diseases and death, facing and conquering all his difficulties, problems and shortcomings. He has grown through the forest civilization to the civilizations of the Vedas, of the pyramids and the sphinx, of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, of Babylon , and has progressed from those moments to the One World civilization of the twenty-first century. It is also seen that Man has lived from the very beginning with some Faith and Belief in the Highest Consciousness and Force, That has been his Source and also his Help and Guide in his fighting against all his difficulties, trials and problems, in his progress and advancement. And this way he has grown with his culture and civilization, his science and philosophy, his search of truth, beauty and goodness, of satyam-shivam-sundaram, his search of and becoming in spirituality. Man, the mental being, is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a transitional being. The human history is a story of a constant change and growth. Whatever he is, is a temporary phase, because his arrival on earth is a promise of a better, higher and much more conscious existence on earth. There will be the advent of a being who will conquer ignorance and darkness and inertia, conquer all his divisions and mental barriers, conquer the so-called fate and uncertainties, conquer diseases and death. The present limitations will be broken, and man will progress towards The New Creation, walking on The New Way. He shall have to proceed ahead towards The New Race, failing which, he will have to face the Abyss. The Task before Man is to evolve into a higher being with a divinity manifested. This is the New Light given to us by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. We ought to believe in human progress and evolution in order to make a progressive march towards The New World, towards a world of a Higher Consciousness and Force and Joy. Man has the inborn capacity to outgrow and master all his imperfections and darkness, and he ought to grow accordingly into a creative, constructive and divinized higher being. The human society should also grow accordingly and conquer all darkness within and without, surpassing all the artificial barriers — racial, religious, linguistic, political and others. Sri Aurobindo has given us the Hope: Nature shall live to manifest secret God, The Spirit shall take up the human play, The earthly life become the life divine. And thus said The Mother : Man is the creation of Yesterday. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being. This is our Task ahead, our true Goal: to prepare ourselves, to build ourselves for the advent of the New World , for our march towards the New Race, the New Humanity. OOOOO The Mother declared : A new world is born, The things that were promised are fulfilled. If we aspire and endeavour, if we live with the hope and the dream, surpassing our social divisions and differences based on castes, creeds, races, languages, states, religions and political ideas, and if we also accompany other aspirants, then we will proceed ahead in our march towards The New World, towards The New Race. Let us forget all our differences, all our divisions, and march ahead following The New Light. Sri Aurobindo has told that a time will come, when a mightier race, a supramental race, shall inhabit this earth — as early as we aspire and endeavour and be worthy of. We shall have to transmute and transform ourselves, so that we will grow into and cause the emergence of The New Race. Sri Aurobindo has said: Then shall the embodied being live as one Who is a thought, a will of the Divine, A mask or robe of his divinity, An instrument and partner of his Force, A point or line drawn in the infinite, A manifest of the Imperishable. The supermind shall be his nature's fount, The Eternal's truth shall mould his thoughts and acts, The Eternal's truth shall be his light and guide. All then shall change, a magic order come Overtopping this mechanical universe. A mightier race shall inhabit the mortal' mortal's world. OOOOO The mankind, along with the earth, is now in a great turmoil and chaos and disharmony. Everywhere, there is unrest and struggle and warfare and violence. In our journey as human beings so far, we have committed enormous mistakes and errors and follies. We, the human beings, have seen tremendous cruelties and massacres, we have engrossed ourselves in ignorance and dissipation, and as a consequence, we have most of the time found ourselves in darkness, with lots of sufferings and chaos and obscurity. The animal in Man has been very prominent and very much overpowering. The Real Man in him seems to be defeated and cornered and hidden. But there have always been some hope, 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, some Hope, 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, having collected all that is golden in our harvest so far, since the beginning of the human journey, we should march towards the New World . 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. To someone, men are hyenas; to some other, they may be humanoids very close to monkeys. OOOOO We have been seeing destructions and wars throughout this earth: In India, in USA , in Afghanistan and Iraq , and earlier, elsewhere. There are terrorists and suicide-bombers. Armies or the armed prople are attacking and destroying here and there. The entire human society is sitting on a heap of bombs - atomic or non-atomic. In relationships, we can seldom find beauty and love and fellow-feeling. In arts and culture, vulgarity has almost ruined beauty. As we have known, 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 was silent about evolution after the appearance of Man on earth, or about the purpose 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, and according to The Mother, the Supermen shall further grow into the Supramental beings, the Supramental Race. 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. OOOOO Since the coming of Man on the earthly scene, in course of Evolution, he (or she) has never stopped growing in culture and civilization, in general. But he has stilled not moved an inch, with a few exceptions, individually, of course. Man is still a fierce, enraged, jealous, lustful, greedy animal. But he will have to go beyond himself — towards a glorious future. Philosophers are there — thinkers. They have taken human thought to superb heights. But men have shut them up into books in the libraries or in the showcases. Religions are there, initiated by some of the greatest spiritual leaders, who represented the Supreme Divine. But the religions were used by the humans to cut the throats of each others, in the most anti-Divine manner. There is no doubt that religions were of great help to the mankind. They have surely shown paths to the mankind towards Perfection and re-creation of the human nature. But they have not succeeded to help the general mankind to surpass its animal nature — there are ample of examples in our present-day daily life. Sri Aurobindo has said: All religions have saved a number of souls but none yet has been able to spiritualize mankind. For that there is needed not cult and creed, but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution. [India's Rebirth] In the name of religion, the people fight each other, and they are taking themselves farther away form 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. 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. 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 gave us the following message on the 1st 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: 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, therefore, march on towards the New Horizon, find the New Light, find the New Goal and the New Way 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. OOOOO Man can live in either in search of pleasure and enjoyment, or otherwise for a definite purpose, which may bring him more fulfillments, more joy. The higher the purpose, the greater is the joy and fulfillment. The higher the Consciousness one aspires for, and the wider one's consciousness, the more purposeful one's life is, the greater is one's joy. Man may orient his endeavor, his way of life, towards limited personal happiness and satisfaction, or towards a greater and wider Joy and fulfillment, along with others, for others, maybe, with the entire mankind, for the entire mankind, for higher values of Truth, Light, Wisdom, Beauty, Creativity, Goodness, Love, Wideness, Harmony and Peace, Total Well-being. 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 of contributions may appear to be small, very small? Barindranath Chaki 24-11-2009 Written by me on the occasion of the Siddhidivas [24-11-2009] and simultaneously posted in All choice and ASPIRATION. Barindranath Chaki   Please visit ASPIRATION  The New Horizon  All choice  The New Platform  Barin Chaki