The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11

Our Finest Hour

      This is an age of deluge and devastation and decomposition. Is this also the Doomsday?

      Nature herself has started the process and man has lent his hand to hasten it. Or did man start it and Nature is hastening the work? Perhaps it is a vicious circle, but the outcome is the same.

      Anyhow the question now is whether there is a remedy. How can Nature be made steady arid how can man come out of the muddle?

      For man the root-cause is that he is being imprisoned more and more, and circumstances of his life are such that he is losing all free movements and is being hemmed in on all sides. The walls are, as it were, pressing upon him, even to the point of suffocation. In all fields of life rules and regulations, restrictions and impediments are mounting high and are becoming an unbearable burden more and more. Whichever way he turns a few steps lead to a dead wall, and he knocks his head against something hard and hostile and irremovable. Hence his natural urge is to knock more and more, to break and destroy and come out—that seems to be the only issue. Destroy and live dangerously—that is the one way left. In destroying what stands against you if you happen to destroy yourself it matters very little, you will be destroyed willynilly either way.

      Indeed an urge to destroy pure and simple leads to self-destruction. Violence is a boomerang which turns back

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upon its own source. There is a joy in violence, perverse though it be, even when directed against oneself. Perhaps in the occult view it is the movement against oneself that is the secret source of the movement against others. The enormous increase in the incidence of suicides is a charac-ristic phenomenon of our age. It is not explained merely by the force majeure of actual circumstances. A dark spirit broods over the waters of existence today which aims at the annihilation of consciousness itself, the one source of life and creation.

      But may we not pause a little and consider whether that is the only choice, or the best choice—the rush for destruction. The whole past construction that now stands against man, against his farther progress, it is agreed, has to be broken down, thrown aside, but in what way? By mere physical force, brute force, by pushing and dashing and ramming from outside — well, perhaps the thing can be done, but destruction of form is not elimination of the life or spirit behind it. The past still in its present form continues because it maintains its own inner life and spirit. So long as that inner spirit is there you may break one form but another or many others will appear inspired by the same spirit. That is why the French proverb says: "The more it changes, the more it remains the same."* For the truth is that destruction is not the aim, not even the destruction of what should be destroyed, the aim is the creation of a new spirit, change of the inner nature. Our attention should be focussed not on the outward

      * "Plus Ça change, plus Ça reste le même."

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form but on the inner norm. If there is a new norm within and a change of nature, the outer change of form will follow automatically. The old leaves will fall off, the dead branches break away and new leaves and flowers appear with a new sap flowing in. The shell breaks off automatically when the living creature within grows and is mature enough to come out.

      On the contrary, the prison need not be altogether a prison, it may be an occasion, an opportunity for the human consciousness to make a break-through to create a new dimension. Here is then our immediate work—to conquer inner domains, the inner truths: for all truths are found first within the consciousness, established there before they become facts. So then let us harness our power and prowess, our aspiration and sincerity, all our life energy to the labour of the inner conquest. Let us stop awhile from the temptation and the urge for destruction and turn it round towards a higher inner adventure—that of construction. Yes, the truth that we want to see established in the outer world, let us establish it in ourselves, in each one of us, in our consciousness, in our impulses and activities. We always wanted liberty and equality and fraternity in the world at large, the ideal has not been realised because we did not care to realise it in the consciousness and life of each one of us. In the collective life of mankind that truth will alone become a fact which is a fact in the inner existence and consciousness of every human being.

      The inner discovery is indeed a battle and here too a victory has to be won. It needs more than in any physical battle a complete contingent of courage and bravery, calm

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strength and persevering endurance, skill and energy to gain an absolute success. And there the field is free and vast, one can deploy oneself as largely as possible, move in any direction to any distance as one likes. It is no longer a prison,—it is a region where one meets one's soul.

      The individual seems always to precede the society. What begins in and with the individual is spread abroad and established in wide commonalty. But this individual self-concentration does not mean that one should withdraw from the world and its activities and sit and settle within oneself, apart and aloof. It does not mean while you are in prison, to accept imprisonment, dig a cave there and go into mere meditation. In other words, to find the inner solution it is not necessary to escape from the world, go into the solitude of mountain-tops or into the depths of the forests, take to the path of total renunciation till you attain perfect siddhi and then turn back and share your light and leading with humanity. Some great souls have done this—Buddha and Christ and Vivekananda. And it is not for every man to try that path in the way they did. But even if the path is not easy, to some extent at least every one of us has to follow it; for we must remember our aim is not easy either. The pioneers have to accept the difficulty of the path. Pursuing the figure of the prison, of the dungeon, we may say, instead of trying to break it down because of the hopelessness of the attempt, or as the alternative: sit down quiet for the inner illumination to come; instead of that one may cut a tunnel under the wall. That should be the nature of our activity in our present situation.

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      The new truth, the new capacity you have to acquire in and through the activities of the normal life. It was what Sri Krishna taught to Arjuna. Arjuna was a representative of the common man, Arjuna was thought to be always in the yogic consciousness even while he was engaged in battle.

      Thus we are at the world's finest hour, for it shall find its soul.

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