Diving deeper in the subject of the Evolution of Consciousness and future of the nations

 

Diving deeper in the subject of the Evolution of Consciousness and future of the nations

 

‘Sri Aurobindo sees evolution primarily as an ongoing evolution of consciousness. He holds that the human mind is much too imperfect a type of consciousness to be the final resting point of nature, and that just as life developed out of matter, and mind out of life, a still higher form of consciousness is bound to develop out of the present stage of mind.

The evolutionary march is cyclic and spiral and not linear and logical. It is zig zag and swinging to and fro. It includes ascent and integration both. The ascent also has transformation of the lower. The evolution of human species and the laws of that evolution follow development of faculties of body, life and mind, of physical base and infusion of powers from above.

As soon as lower elements achieve a certain point of maturity, they tend to higher grades of achievements in a gradual manner so as to interweave lower and higher in a complex series of harmony of conflicting claims. Evolution is  a continuous process and humanity is a crucial link in it. Beyond mind are higher, deeper, wider ranges of consciousness which must be attained. As animal is a living laboratory to evolve to man the mental being, similarly, man is living and thinking laboratory for Nature to raise higher than man. 

Sri Aurobindo states:

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 cooperation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God? For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her pause at a given stage of her evolution, nor have we the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth. 2

Now onwards the evolution is not confined to unconscious progression of Nature. It is conscious effort, aspiration from human being and grace from the Divine which accelerate this process. There is sense of freedom that comes with deviation of Self consciousness, and with process of rational and normative Consciousness. That bring the element of chance or alternate possibilities, some of which can be perilous as well . hence Sri Aurobindo terms this as a great adventure of consciousness. Free will is must in this process and not any sort of determinism. There has been three preoccupations of individual and collective :

1. Complete development of the individual being

2. Complete development of the collective being

3. Perfectability of the society.

4. Or best possibilities of the individual and collective relations : individual with individual’ individual with collectivity, collectivity with other collectivities.

 

There fore there can be different extremes in this pursuit:

 

One is individual is all important and collectivity is only filed or structure for individual’s growth.

Other is collective whether society, race, nation is all important and individual is just a instrument, a consumable, a cog for the collective growth. The soul of a collective is in its culture power of life, ideal and institutes and ways of expression.. and individual has to do cast in that mould for its own survival. 

The second one was more common in almost all ancient cultures. However in India there was a special balance in two in the concept of Siddha , Bhagwata or Mukta, which means an individual by the virtue of his will Tapas can raise to the heights of God, can be God. Though the first three stages of life namely student and celibate, householder, recluse were within and with the aid of society and its meticulous structure, the forth was stage of Sanayasi, the liberated who was super social. Thus was given a multilayered multistaged structure of four stages of life, four ashrams, four varnas, and three gunas, with four purusharthas…dharma, Artha, Kaam , Moksh to help every one to grow , to evolve as per his or her swabhava, swadharma, samskara and adhikara…

 

As per Sri Aurobindo, a stage of acute conflict of standards pushes /presses us to search for unifying and harmonizing knowledge. An individual is key to evolutionary movement. It is only individual which becomes conscious of reality and his relation to collectivity. India’s allegiance is to the truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine,..which is in him and in all. He is not to subordinate to mass , rather he has to help and be helped by other individuals and community in this process.

An individual’s allegiance to use Sri Aurobindo’s own words,

must be to the Truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine which is in him and in all; not to subordinate or lose himself in the mass, but to find and express that truth of being in himself and help the community and humanity in its seeking for its own truth and fullness of being must be his real object of existence.

India moves upto spiritual freedom, which is also spiritual oneness. And therefore even a Siddha or Mukta or a incaranation also moves and turns back after enlightenment to serve the god in mankind, to raise all who are still in delusion : Shivobhave Jeevseva.

For the awakened individual:

1. Realization of his truth of being and his inner liberation-perfection of realization

2. Perfected community can exist only by perfected individual

3. Perfection is by a) discovery and affirmation in life and by each of his own spiritual being. b) and discovery by all of their spiritual unity and harmony integration..?

 

There can be no real perfection in us except for our inner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all truth of the instrument.. existence into itself and giving to it oneness, integration and harmony.

Real freedom : discovery and disengagement of the Spiritual Reality within us.     

Only means of true perfection is the sovereignity and self effectuation of the Spiritual Reality in all the elements of our nature.

In the words of Sri Aurobindo:

 For the awakened individual the realisation of his truth of being and his inner liberation and perfection must be his primary seeking, first, because that is the call of the Spirit within him, but also because it is only by liberation and perfection and realisation of the truth of being that man can arrive at truth of living. A perfected community also can exist only by the perfection of its individuals, and perfection can come only by the discovery and affirmation in life by each of his own spiritual being and the discovery by all of their spiritual unity and a resultant life of unity. There can be no real perfection for us except by our inner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all truth of the instrumental existence into itself and giving to it oneness, integration, harmony. As our only real freedom is the discovery and disengagement of the spiritual Reality within us, so our only means of true perfection is the sovereignty and self-effectuation of the spiritual Reality in all the elements of our nature.

..

Life was most richly lived has left behind most precious fruits when human societies 

were organized in small independent centers. In Europe it was three stages : first when tribes in Israel were strong, then in Greek period and finally in artistic Italy. It was more frutiful in Germany, Italy, England and France , not in Roman and Russian empire.  In India also it was Pallavas, Chalukyas, Pandya, Chola, Chera that she was at her best, not in mighty states and empires. When life is diffused in vast spaces it loses its colour richness and variety.

‘As Sri Aurobindo remarks, the organisation was great and admirable, but the individual dwindled and life lost its colour, richness, variety, freedom, and victorious impulse towards creation. Eventually, therefore, the Roman Empire declined and failed; the huge mechanism of centralisation and union brought about smallness and feebleness of the individual; mechanisation prevailed and the Empire lost even its conservative vitality and died of an increasing stagnation.’( Kireet Joshi )

The Problem of Individual and collectivity: centralize and decentralize, freedom and order, unity and diversity are few of the paradoxes which it has to manage. The ideal law of social development needs to be found and followed. Here world must be united but individual should be free to find himself : freedom of self discovery, self realization and self perfection is a must.

  

The law of ideal development for individual can be :

1. Free development from within,

2. respect, aid and get aided by same free development in others

3. To harmonise his life with life of social aggregate

4. To pour himself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity.

 

 The law for community or nation is :

Similar like above

5. Free development from within,

6. respect, aid and get aided by same free development in other nations or communities

7. To harmonise community or national life with life of greater communities like continent or the world

8. To pour self out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity.

Law for humanity is :

Pursue upward evolution to find and express Divine in the type of mankind taking full advantage of free development and gains of all individuals, nations, and groups, realize and dream of a divine family and even then also respect, aid and be aided by growth of all individuals and aggregates.

The law for humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding and expression of the Divine in the type of mankind, taking full advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be really and not only ideally one divine family, but even then, when it has succeeded in unifying itself, to respect, aid and be aided by the free growth and activity of its individuals and constituent aggregates.

 

This ideal never got operative in the imperfect stages through which mankind has travelled so far. However present stage is a time when human beings are trying more and more to know themselves, to find ideal law of his being and his societal existence, to find and to become gradually that which is perfection. This is subjective stage as per Sri Aurobindo when knowledge is increasing and diffusing itself with an unprecedented rapidity and when individuals, societies and nations all are discovering their respective subjective selves.  

He explains that in Human cycle that the society passes through symbolic, Typal, Conventional, Rational and Subjective stages. In rational stage, different ideals like Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood were floated and cherished, each true in itself but contradicting other. Equality is tolerable only with greasing of love and brotherhood. Liberty is possible only when Equality is not imposing and only aiding the growth. Harmony holds the key and at rational stage as mind divides and pursues its reductionist idea as if that is the sole truth, it is difficult to harmonise the apparently contradicting ideals: but in suprarational age: that is turn to true subjectivity it is something which can be achieved.

Sri Aurobindo states:

Yet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only be achieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the soul; it can exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is the freedom of its self-development, the self-development of the divine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition of the same soul, the same godhead in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal freedom of self-development on a common aim, a common life, a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual unity. These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit. It is the practical recognition of this truth, it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can fulfil itself in the life of the race.

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This is the age of acute crisis which appears multidimensional and multidisciplinary, but in its essence it is an evolutionary crisis according to Sri Aurobindo.  

Role of reason is not to govern but to mediate and only the inner freedom or spiritual freedom can create the spiritual order and a spiritual anarchy. Three forces seem to be dominant now: 1.First is asserting Barbarism , 2. second is human reason spinning dreams but not fulfilling them, 3. Human being consents to rise above Reason and get spiritual.

It is a spiritual, an inner freedom that can alone create a perfect human order. It is a spiritual, a greater than the rational enlightenment that can alone illumine the vital nature of man and impose harmony on its self-seekings, antagonisms and discords. A deeper brotherhood, a yet unfound law of love is the only sure foundation possible for a perfect social evolution, no other can replace it. But this brotherhood and love will not proceed by the vital instincts or the reason where they can be met, baffled or deflected by opposite reasonings and other discordant instincts. Nor will it found itself in the natural heart of man where there are plenty of other passions to combat it. It is in the soul that it must find its roots; the love which is founded upon a deeper truth of our being, the brotherhood or, let us say, for this is another feeling than any vital or mental sense of brotherhood, a calmer more durable motive-force, – the spiritual comradeship which is the expression of an inner realisation of oneness. For so only can egoism disappear and the true individualism of the unique godhead in each man found itself on the true communism of the equal godhead in the race; for the Spirit, the inmost Self, the universal Godhead in every being is that whose very nature of diverse oneness it is to realise the perfection of its individual life and nature in the existence of all, in the universal life and nature.

 

According to Sri Aurobindo : At present Humanity is undergoing an evolutionary crisis….

At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development while in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man’s ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, aesthetic and material satisfaction. Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites. …A greater whole-being, whole-knowledge, whole-power is needed to weld all into a grater unity of whole-life.

 

Two forces which can help are , Internationalism and the religion of humanity. However the force of internationalism may be contradicting another truth and force that is nationalism and this can block the move to internationalism unless nation soul idea and spiritual universal idea of India takes the lead.

Krunvanto Vishwam Aryan,

Ettdeshe prasutasya sakashat …

To awaken soul in man, to make him live by soul and not by ego is the inner meaning of religion. To this religion of humanity is progressing. Here again Sanatana Dharma, the mother of religion to use term by Swami Vivekananda is going to be the religion of humanity as that which is eternal can only be universal and vice versa.

As a part of this crisis, and as an aid to the higher choice that can be made by humanity, Sri Aurobindo perceives two important phenomena of the modern world which present a great sign of hope. These two phenomena are those of internationalism and of religion of humanity. But these two phenomena need to be understood in their inner implications. For internationalism seems to oppose the truth and force of nationalism, and this opposition can be fatal to a harmonious transition to a new world of harmony. There is today a sentiment helped and stimulated by the trend of forces that favours the creation of an international world organisation that may ultimately result in a possible form of unification. This sentiment is a cosmopolitan and international sentiment. At one stage, it came to be presented concretely in the conception of the League of Nations. As Sri Aurobindo points out, this conception was not well inspired in its form or destined to have a considerable longevity or a supremely successful career. But the very fact that this idea was presented and even manifested in a concrete form, even though for a short term, was in itself an event of capital importance and meant the ushering in of a new era in world history. ( Kireet Joshi )

If this is not solution then there is no solution. If this is not the way then there is no other way. The terrestrial evolution must pass beyond man and the form of life must be born that is nearer to the divine.

Sri Aurobindo affirms forcefully:

… if this is not the solution, then there is no solution; if this is not the way, then there is no way for the human kind. Then the terrestrial evolution must pass beyond man as it has passed beyond the animal and a greater race must come that will be capable of the spiritual change, a form of life must be born that is nearer to the divine. After all there is no logical necessity for the conclusion that the change cannot begin at all because its perfection is not immediately possible. A decisive turn of mankind to the spiritual ideal, the beginning of a constant ascent and guidance towards the heights may not be altogether impossible, even if the summits are attainable at first only by the pioneer few and far-off to the tread of the race. And that beginning may mean the descent of an influence that will alter at once the whole life of mankind in its orientation and enlarge for ever as did the development of his reason and more than any development of the reason, its potentialities and all its structure.

A decisive turn, a constant ascent to the heights even if the ascent is possible only for few now and not for race is the inevitable turn to the future and in that process India’s march to her destiny is going to play a key role.