Society- Stages of Its Evolution
The tendency of the modern Science,
which is obsessed with the greatness of its physical discoveries and the idea
of the sole existence of Matter is base even study of mind and consicousness
based on physical law is proving increasingly inadequate. Even though no model
or theoretical representation can fully represent the fluid, flexible and zig
zag curving progress of Nature of of human civilization, still some model helps
to start the discussion and so The theory of Human cycle and stages in it as
per the German Theorist Lamperecht is used by Sri Aurobindo.
It was necessary to take support of
such model for understanding human evolution.
The need and importance of symbols in
early age, there is live examples of Surya’s marriage, Purusha, Prakriti, and
Chaturvarnya in the context of symbolic age.
it us interesting to see how it led
to treating everything as sacrosanct.
The Typal Age is next.The typal stage
creates the great social ideals which remain impressed upon the human mind even
when the stage itself is passed.
The conventional age is when the
conventional age is born and the tendencies of the dominate and we must know
its gripping iron cages ‘For always the form prevails and the spirit recedes
and diminishes’
The men of heroic mould rebel against
these dead conventions and seek a new interpretation of truth and new
expression of their spirit. that is The age of reason
The champions of old order are right
when they see him as obstacle and try to finish Him but he is Rudra and the
destruction of old lifeless forms is his mission.
However the reason also then
culminates in making another though more rational prisons which equally
suffocate human soul and the laws and conventions they found are laws of herds,
beehive and not organic holistic model.
Both pursuit of good and pursuit of
beauty tend to pierce often to the beyond and reason can never give them the
needed depth or height. Then needed is a
turn to subjective age, a suprarational age and here we need to be careful of
true and false subjectivism.
Infrarational, Rational and
Supra-rational Age :
Aboriginal way of life all over the
world had same common features. The common features of infra rational all over
the world..Animism, Shamanism,
Conventions also become infrarational
after a while and then there is a the march from carved path to suffocating
bond as Individuals start loosing the capacity to think and live
infrarationally. Civilization and barbarism are not as far away from each other
as we think.Earlier people use to kill each other, now they cheat each other as
Swami Vivekananda said, this way there is not much progress. Tiger in masks can
only derive but cannot be called civilized. Even Highly technological world can
be devoid of reason.
Age of reason : Rational Age
Men of intellectual power rise as
swallowers of formulas. Science in individual and rational age challenged
conventional age papal authority. Science and materialism: the service done by
materialism. Unrestrained use of individual reason can be perilious. Science triumphed due to satisfaction
of some psychological wants
Ancient shastrakara was replaced by
economic or scientific advisor or consultant.
Age of Reason is now drawing an end,
novel ideas sweeping – will to live by Nitschez, Intuition by Bergson,
Suprarational by German,…Success of individual and rational with respect to new
typal but subjective. East is awakened from its slumber, latter is breaking
down from old conventions but will not repeat west’s individualism. East will follow its own bent may be of
practical spirituality. A revolutionary
reconciliation of religion, philosophy, science, art and society is the last
inevitable outcome of the individual age.
The office and limitations of Reason
have to be listed and studied closely to know that reason is a good instrument,
effective explorer and obedient servant but it is a very bad master and can be
a tyrant ruler is left to itself without guidance and control.by higher
faculty.
Suprarational age :
The journey of human reason reaching
its pinnacle has been the essence of modern age but now what is needed is the
jump from the summits of reason.
In the quest of the truth in self and
in the world one has to be at some.time face to face with the soul in himself
and in the world. The effect of this is
the need of deeper knowledge felt by an individual. It was this knowledge which
ancients sought to express through religion and symbolism. The term and signs
of Intuitionalism and the
steps to subjectivism have to be
understood for this much needed passage upwards and to avoid relapse in lower
grades and even fall in abyss of barbarism.
Towards a Spiritual society :
Any permanent reformation needs
reconstruction. Casting and recasting of machinery does not bring about change.
We must understand that man lives laws of his source I.e. Swabhava and not of
shastra. We can see very glaring examples around how emphasis on system has
ruined education, religion, and almost all.
One way was to curb the lower nature
and have free play of higher urges. : the danger of it rebelling and pulling
all down.
All our idealism will be infructuous
unless we shift our intuition to other foundation. For our ideals are mental
formations. Out of Physical, Vital and Mental, the three adharas, Vital holds
the key. Physical and Mental can only mould Vital to the extent it is allowed
by inherent law of Vital.The key therefore is Transcending of Physical, Vital
and Mental. Thus the need to mould by patterns which is not mental, emotional,
idealism but a pattern of spiritual idealism. The need of complete spiritual
regeneration. A new structure of his soul and substance.
The Divine nature alone can
permanently reform the vital nature that is ours.
*
True and false subjectivism
Nation has body, an organic life,
moral and aesthetic temperament. But behind it all it is soul, it is not having
soul, it is soul. The subconscient
power of the group soul comes to the surface that the nations start entering
into possession of their subjective selves they set about getting however
vaguely or imperfectly at their souls.’
Why and how to distinguish between
true and false subjectivism
‘We exhaust and corrupt ourselves in
the dangerous attempt to live by destruction and exploitation of others. Only
that which lives in its own self existence can endure.’
The present human life deviates from
fundamental psychological truth of Self knowledge. The German error which
resulted in world wars is a striking example of this false subjectivism and
deviation from fundamental psychological truth.
The ideals created by the growth of
Science and the ideal of subjective idealism are to be seen parallelly, the one
dominant, other desired, there can be apparent intersection of or even clash of
both curves which need to be harmonised.
Here we get to another power of our
being which is different from the ethical, aesthetic, rational and religious,
that is ..The Suprarational ultimate of life
The spiritual aim of life gets clear
and also the necessity of spiritual transformation.
Then the conditions for coming of the
spiritual age and The advent
and progress of the spiritual age.
The Ideal of Human Unity
Turn towards the ideal of
human unity can be seen clearly and we can also see its necessity and dangers.
Individual and Aggregates are two factors having interdependence and yet
aspiring for sole independence. We need to see Imperfection of past Aggregates
and amkng them especially Inadequacy of the state idea. Also needed to be seen
are Nation and the empire idea : earlier experiments and present status. The
efforts towards world /human unity and the enormous difficulties in the
process.. The emergence of UN according to Sri Aurobindo is a major positive
sign in the intention of Nature. Appearance of an ideal, even if it fails or is
only partly or ornamentally successful means that is going to be part of Her
plan in future. UN, EU, NAM, UNESCO and SAARC etc…need to be seen in this
context in spite of their failures and limitations.The problem of Uniformity
and Unity. Nature’s law in our progress is peculiar and nonlinear. Thus the
Ideal solution is free grouping of the mankind under a brotherhood thread of minimum
governance and ethical chord with autonomy and respective self expression be
the principle.
Evolutionary
ontology of consciousness and the recent Scientific debates about it:
In the words of Cornelissen : ‘Of course, not everyone accepts the pervasiveness
of consciousness. McGinn, for example, agrees that the genesis of non-spatial
consciousness out of an unconscious physical brain is not understandable, but
leaves the unsolved riddle right there. About our inability to grasp the nature
of non-spatial consciousness, he says apologetically, “It must not be forgotten that knowledge is the
product of a biological organ whose architecture is fashioned by evolution for
brutely pragmatic purposes” and in a
footnote: “we too are
Flatlanders of a sort: we tend to take the space of our experience as the only
space there is or could be” (McGinn,
1995, p. 230). In harmony with his pessimistic view of our human possibilities
for understanding reality, McGinn does not accept panpsychism. In the quoted
article he still agrees that some form of panpsychism is the only way out of
the conundrum of Chalmers’ “hard problem,” but in his later The Mysterious Flame, he denies that it could do even that (McGinn, 1999, pp.
95-104).
For his evolutionary ontology of consciousness, Sri
Aurobindo bases himself on the Vedāntic view
of consciousness, which says that consciousness is pervasive throughout reality
and that it manifests as a range of ever-higher gradations of consciousness and
being. In matter, consciousness is fully engrossed in its own existence and
shows itself only as matter’s habit of
form and its tendency to obey fixed laws. In plant and animal life,
consciousness begins to emancipate a little, there are the first signs of
exchange, of giving and taking, of feelings, drives and emotions. In the human
mind we see a further emancipation of consciousness in the first appearance of
an ability to “play with ideas in
one’s mind” and to
rise above the immediate situation. The mind is characteristically the plane of
objective, generalized statements, ideas, thoughts, intelligence, etc. But the
mind is also an inveterate divider, making distinctions between subject and
object, I and thou, things and other things.’ Within the Vedic tradition, the ordinary human
mentality is considered to be only the most primitive form of mental
consciousness, most ego-bound, most dependent on the physical senses. Above it
there is the unitary Higher Mind of self-revealed wisdom, the Illumined Mind
where truths are seen rather than thought, the plane of the Intuitive Mind
where truth is inevitable and perfect, and finally the cosmic Overmind, the
mind of the Gods, comprehensive, all-encompassing. But in all these mental
planes, however far beyond our ordinary mentality, there is still a trace of
division, the possibility of discord and disharmony. One has to rise beyond all
of them to find a truly Gnostic consciousness, intrinsically harmonious,
perfect, one with the divine consciousness that upholds the universe.
Many spiritual traditions have claimed that it is
possible to connect or even merge with an absolute consciousness beyond mind,
but, according to Sri Aurobindo, it is at this moment for the first time
becoming possible to let a supramental consciousness enter into one’s being and transform it in every respect. The
comprehensive, supramental transformation of all aspects of human nature is the
central theme of Sri Aurobindo’s work.
While at present this can be done only to a limited extent, and at the cost of
a tremendous individual effort, he predicts that eventually the supramental
consciousness will become as much an intrinsic, “natural” part of
earthly life as our ordinary mentality is now.
(R. M. Matthijs
Cornelissen )
As Cornelissen
puts it : ‘These, then, are
three of the main elements that characterize Sri Aurobindo’s writings: the urge for progress toward ever
greater freedom and perfection, the idea that the forces at work in the
individual are concentrated reflections of similar forces at work in the large
and leisurely movements of Nature, and the notion of consciousness as the
fundamental reality. These three ideas come together in Sri Aurobindo’s concept of an ongoing evolution of consciousness,
In the Vedic
ontology, from which Sri Aurobindo derived his concept of consciousness,
consciousness is not only seen as individualized awareness. It is the very
essence of everything in existence and as such not only the source of
individuation and the sense of self, but also a formative energy:
Consciousness is not only power of awareness of
self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy. It can
determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions; it can not only answer
to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but
also Chit Shakti, awareness but also conscious force.
— Sri Aurobindo 1991, p. 234
Consciousness is
moreover not considered as a simple yes/no phenomenon that is either there or
not, but as manifesting in a hierarchy ranging from the seeming obliviousness
of matter below, to the seemingly superconscient Spirit above. All three
aspects of consciousness – its
cosmic nature, its energy aspect, and its
ability to differentiate itself into varying forms and degrees – combine to produce the processes of involution and
evolution of consciousness that have given to our world its particular
character:
Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the
fundamental thing in existence – it is the
energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and
all that is in it – not only the
macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For
instance, when consciousness … forgets
itself in the action it becomes an apparently “unconscious” energy; when it forgets itself in the form it
becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality, it is still
consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the
evolution of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily,
out of Matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as animal, as man and
it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become
something more than mere man.
— op. cit., pp. 236-7
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