On Sri Aurobindo
II
Sri Aurobindo is The Leader of the next evolution.
He is the first
Person to know and say that humanity must go beyond itself and Man has to
evolve beyond himself towards supermanhood, towards becoming a supramental
being. That is the Will of the Supreme, the design of Nature, of Supernature as
He termed.
Sri Aurobindo said :
Our evolution in the Ignorance with its chequered joy and pain of
self-discovery and world-discovery, its half fulfilments, its constant finding
and missing, is only our first state. It must lead inevitably towards an
evolution in the Knowledge, a self finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a
self-revelation of the Divinity in things in that true power of itself in
Nature which is to us still a Supernature
While Matter is
apparently Inconscient, evolution from Matter to Man is through Ignorance.
Though Man has grown with more consciousness and knowledge in his evolution out
of evolving animal-hood manifesting Life, he is half-conscious, half-fulfilled,
having some incomplete, insufficient and inconclusive knowledge, some more or
less ineffective and superficial knowledge. Man has evolved with Mind, but what
he carries with him as Mind is only a very small and miniature fragment the
real principle of Mind, which the humanity as a whole has not yet evolved or
used or even become conscious of. The higher and deeper ranges of Mind is
touched and partly used only by a few. However, these few persons let us
believe that transcendence of the present state is possible. Our endeavor for
self-discovery and world-discovery is also only partially fulfilled,
inconclusive and insufficient. Our previous Leaders have led some individuals,
but the mass still gropes in darkness, and the followers have begun clashes,
feuds and wars, and have the journey regressive and backward towards the
primitive state of mind, though dressed and decorated with ornaments of modern
superficialities.
Sri Aurobindo said :
Inheritor of the brief animal mind,
Man, still a child in Nature's mighty hands,
In the succession of moments lives;
To a changing present is his narrow right,
His memory stares back at a phantom past,
The future flees before him as he moves;
He sees imagined garments, not a face.
Savitri: Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo further said:
Armed with a limited precarious strength,
He saves his fruits of work from adverse chance.
A struggling ignorance is his wisdom's mate:
He waits to see the consequence of his acts,
He waits to weigh the certitude of his thoughts,
He knows not what he shall achieve or when;
He knows not whether at last he shall survive,
Or end like the mastodon and the sloth
And perish from the earth where he was king.
He is ignorant of the meaning of his life,
He is ignorant of his high and splendid fate.
He waits to weigh the certitude of his thoughts,
He knows not what he shall achieve or when;
He knows not whether at last he shall survive,
Or end like the mastodon and the sloth
And perish from the earth where he was king.
He is ignorant of the meaning of his life,
He is ignorant of his high and splendid fate.
Savitri: Sri Aurobindo.
Blessed with an
incomplete and imperfect mental consciousness that Nature has bestowed on him,
Man lives with Ignorance in all walks of his life and existence. He is uncertain
about the results of his actions or about the certainty of his thoughts, of his
future achievements and even about his own survival or his purpose on earth or
his destiny. Our history is filled with our repeated battles, bloodsheds, and
massacres, along with two World Wars. Instead of loving our earth, we have
divided, sub-divided and further subdivided it into smaller and smaller regions
and fought against each other. We live backwards towards a regression.
Generally, we are not
conscious of any higher aim and meaning of our life. We live with our narrow
egoistic choices and more or less selfish activities. We spend our time for
sensuous and gross satisfactions, not even caring for the well-being and health
of our body, life and mind, not to speak of the unknown and unseen soul or
psychic being or the Divine. We are not sure whether our activities would lead
us to an extinction, like that of the Dinosaurs that existed during the
Mesozoic Era.
This is one side of
the matter. The other side is hopeful. In spite of the Darkness and Ignorance
around us, we have relentlessly endeavored to conquer the situation we are born
in on earth. The results are civilization, science, medicine, philosophy, arts,
education, social and economic activities, religion, spirituality and yoga.
Though we are imperfect in all our attempts, we have not given up. All our
endeavors, all our inner askesis and inner necessity and aspiration for more
than last fifty millennia have been answered by the Supreme with the New Possibility
and New Hope that Sri Aurobindo has given
us.
We shall have to
transcend and then transform ourselves, finally with the Light of the
Supramental Consciousness. This is to be done both individually and
collectively. To transform ourselves, we should know ourselves, know all the
parts of our beings and bring the Light in all the realms of our being.
Our aim is no more to
have Nirvana, merge ourselves into the Absolute Brahman, leaving the earthly
evolution and manifestation. We are to participate in the Manifestation of the
Divine, of the Supermind here on earth. We need no more escape into any Nihil
or Brahman or Far-off Heaven, we will change this Earth.
Sri Aurobindo said :
A heavenlier passion shall upheave men's lives,
Their mind shall share in the ineffable gleam,
Their heart shall feel the ecstasy and the fire.
Earth's bodies shall be conscious of a soul;
Mortality's bond slaves shall unloose their bonds,
Mere men into spiritual beings grow
Their mind shall share in the ineffable gleam,
Their heart shall feel the ecstasy and the fire.
Earth's bodies shall be conscious of a soul;
Mortality's bond slaves shall unloose their bonds,
Mere men into spiritual beings grow
And see awake the dumb divinity.
Intuitive beams shall touch the nature's peaks,
A revelation stir the nature's depths;
The Truth shall be the leader of their lives,
Truth shall dictate their thought and speech and act,
They shall feel themselves lifted nearer to the sky,
As if a little lower than the gods.
Intuitive beams shall touch the nature's peaks,
A revelation stir the nature's depths;
The Truth shall be the leader of their lives,
Truth shall dictate their thought and speech and act,
They shall feel themselves lifted nearer to the sky,
As if a little lower than the gods.
Savitri: Sri Aurobindo
This is the luminous
Future Sri Aurobindo has seen! More humans will grow into spiritual beings, who
will be freed from the slavery of darkness, ignorance, sufferings and death !!
Truth shall dictate their thought and speech and acts.
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. From the scientific viewpoint, man is at the apex of Evolution.
But he is not a perfect being. He lives with ignorance, chaos, disorder,
incapacity, imbalance, disharmony, aimlessness, unhappiness and sufferings.
However, that is one aspect of the Truth. Inborn with him is a longing for
happiness, Bliss. And ever with him there is Hope. 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 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, his evolutionary Future. He cannot
continue for ever as he is till now. He has to proceed ahead from the
present position. 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 our Future,
preordained. We shall have to ascend, integrally.
Should we discard our
normal life, the society, the family and the social and material
responsibilities for this journey to the Future, for this Goal? No. We can
start the journey from where we are now, simply by changing our inner
attitude and inner aspiration, our approach and activities.
Barindranath Chaki
15-08-3013
Posted on 24-8-2013
