On Sri Aurobindo II

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.

 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

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.

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